Break Up

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Maybe I should have seen it coming, but I’ve been in complete denial.

It’s more like a transition than a break up; hearts hurt just the same.

Sissy and Piper have slept together for years. They have their own rooms, but they’ve chosen to share the bunk beds in Piper’s room. Sissy has the top bunk. Piper burrows into a bottom nest below. Piper snores. Sissy has gotten used to it.

But over the last few weeks, Sissy has been sneaking out and going to her own room. It makes sense. She stays up much later. She likes to sleep in. She wants her space and privacy. Piper still springs out of bed with the sun. She likes to kick the top bunk and try to jostle her preteen Sissy awake so that she’ll play with her. Sissy is not as tolerant as she used to be.

Piper doesn’t quite understand the break up. The absence stings. Last night as I was tucking her in, Piper asked me to climb up into the top bunk. She just wanted someone up there while she dozed off. I found myself in a world of pink flowered pillows and stuffed animals. It’s a little girl’s world. Sissy isn’t much of a little girl anymore. My heart cracked a little, too. Then Piper called through the dark, “Okay, Mom. You can go now. I’m fine. Sissy’s just next door. I know where to find her.”

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Congratulations! It’s a healthy guitar.

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There is a lot of music in our house. Piano, guitars, drums, flute, tambourines, bongos. It’s a noisy place. It’s a lot of fun. We’re working on our family band. A Piper loves her microphone.

Sissy got her very own guitar for her birthday this year. Last night while Sissy and Piper were sleeping, we hung up the guitars. When Piper came down for breakfast she blinked hard at the wall. Then she announced, “Our guitars had a baby!”

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Let’s Make a Deal

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Do you ever have one of those mornings when everyone wakes up late and grumpy because we all stayed up too late watching basketball and no one bothered with the dishes or baths?

Then everyone is slow to the breakfast table. Sisters snap at each other. Parents direct and redirect and threaten. It’s not pretty. It’s not our best selves. Family and cooperation can be tough stuff, even when love fills your house.

But then, just as you’re combing the last pigtail and reminding everyone to brush their teeth for the twelfth time, a Piper gives you a kiss on the cheek and breaks through the whole morning rush with this:

“Mom, let’s make a deal. I’ll stop using my whiney voice and you stop using your angry voice. How about it? Deal?”

Deal.

Shh. The Fruit is Listening.

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Piper likes cantaloupe. A lot. She wants it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And snack, too.

“Mom, I’m the cantaloupe whisperer,” she reported yesterday, stroking a melon in the grocery store aisle.

“Really? What do you tell them?”

Piper knocked on the melon. She sniffed it. “You can’t hear me. That’s the whisperer part.”

Password Protection

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Piper is addicted to Reading Rainbow these days.

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While she was sick last weekend she asked to download the Reading Rainbow app on the Ipad. Piper knows how to do these things.

“Dad, I’ll need your Itunes password,” Piper said.

“No way,” Dad said.

“That’s fine. I already know what it is.”

“Really? What is it, Piper? Let’s see.”

“Duh,” said Piper, “it’s uppercase, lowercase, hyphen, uppercase, lowercase, dash.”

Embracing Your Inner Quack

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Piper currently sounds a little like a duck. Her tonsils are swollen in the back of her throat. It’s her seventh case of strep throat.

She’s in good spirits, though, and ibuprofen relieved her enough to get a decent night of sleep (praise be the medicine gods). Antibiotics are doing their magic, too, but still, it’s hard to take her seriously when she sounds like Donald Duck.

As I peered down her poor throat with my flashlight for the hundredth time looking for signs of progress, Piper quacked “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m living the high life!”

 

Scapegoats

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Piper’s had a rough week. Stitches. Falls. Fevers. Step Throat. It keeps getting worse. There was also an outbreak of lice in her classroom. On the bright side, Piper doesn’t have lice. So, there’s that, right? Considering she spent a good part of the week in and out of doctor’s offices and on and off our couch, catching lice was low on her list of possibilities. Poor Piper.

Luckily, she figured out what’s been causing her bad luck. She told me all about it this morning.

“Mom, I know why my fever was so high?”

“You do? Why?”

“I don’t want to say it out loud so I’m going to spell it for you.”

“Okay, Piper. I’m ready.”

Piper then used her finger to write J-O-E in the air. That happens to be her father’s name.

“Really? Your dad caused your fever?”

“No, Mom. I spelled Junie. You know, my favorite stuffed animal. Junie.” (Junie stars in most of Piper’s pictures. You can see her illustrated here.)

“Actually, you spelled J-O-E.”

“Whatever. The point is that I think Junie has strep throat. She keeps giving it to me.”

“Huh.”

“Or I’m getting all sweaty because of all those stuffed animals. I’m sleeping with like fifty of those things. I can barely breathe in there, you know.”