Stitches. Again. And Again.

Posted on March 13, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

Dear Grown Up Piper,

Once upon a time in kindergarten you fell down. You might remember it. You tripped over Daniel’s foot and landed on your chin. It was a gaping cut. Your poor teacher was traumatized. An ER visit later, you were the proud bearer of four stitches.

A week later you fell again. You busted open the SAME stitches. I swear it’s true. Daniel’s foot was nowhere in sight. You were running in your socks during P.E. Even though I write fiction, I can’t make stuff like this up. Again, back to the doctor. They recommended more stitches.

Here’s the part that you may now be blaming me for. I didn’t let them stitch you back up. There was no medical reason to do so. New stitches would have been purely cosmetic. I did take you to the eye doctor for a full exam. I also had your hearing and ears checked. I also took you to your pediatrician. You’re fine. You’re silly. You bounce around a lot. You fall. You seem rather resilient.

If all of your supermodel dreams have been crushed by now and if you’ve been turned away by potential suitors because of the scar underneath your chin that no one can see, it’s my fault. Blame me. When you’re a mom, you might understand.

Love,

Mom

Making Music

Posted on March 13, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

I like to make lists. I’m a Virgo with German heritage. Let’s just say I prefer order to chaos. But I also like to put a little something fun on my list of drudgery. Here’s my list for today:

1. Grade 15 research proposals

2. Update course grades in Blackboard

3. Summer course design

4. Email FWR transcript

5. Meet with Caron

Did you see what I did just there? I don’t have to meet with Caron. I get to. We’ll go to a fancy French cafe and pretend to talk about a conference proposals. We’ll laugh and gossip. It’s work. Of course it is. But it’s also a little fun on my to-do list.

I do the same on Sissy and Piper’s chore list. Check out chore number 3.

That’s right. Making music is required in our house. Daily. You have a choice, though. Sissy can practice piano, guitar, or flute. She’s a three instrument kind of girl. Piper can play her drums, bongos, tambourine, or sing. Making music is so much more interesting can cleaning out your lunch box or setting the dinner table. Both have to be done, of course, but somehow the not-so-fun becomes more fun when there is a carrot waving in front of your face. Even with the incentive, Piper tries to find creative ways to get out of being told what to do.

“If I set the table in the American Girl world, does that count as a chore?”

“No, Piper. It doesn’t. We can’t all eat at the American Girl table. Can we?”

“If I eat all my food and lick out my lunch containers, does that count as clean?”

“No, Piper. It doesn’t. That doesn’t sound very hygienic.”

“If I sing to my stuffed animals with my microphone, does that count as Making Music?”

“Yes. I think it does.”

We have to let something slide.

Friends

Posted on March 12, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

If you’ve been keeping up with your piperisms, you know that our little spitfire took a tumble last week. She earned herself a trip to the ER and four stitches. The stitches thread is blue, which Piper thinks is awesome. You can read about the drama here.

Yesterday Piper returned to school. She was excited to share her injury. Unfortunately, her mother made her put a band aid on it to keep out additional germs. Moms ruin all the fun. So Piper asked me to take a picture of her gruesome chin and print it. Stitches make for killer show and tell. Piper didn’t mind the attention one little bit.

She came home from school with this note from two of her best buddies.

“I am sorry that you fell down. Your friends, Madeline and Kian.”

Life Illustrated: Mermaid Edition

Posted on March 11, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

This ones probably my favorite. This is Piper, Sissy, and me dancing at the beach. And there is a mermaid swimming below us. She’s enjoying the shine from the three suns, too. You can never have enough sunshine. That pink and yellow stacked thing is a bento box. We like to take our sushi with us wherever we go.

Need more Life Illustrated? Click here.

Fortune Cookies

Posted on March 9, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

After our recent trip to the ER (which you can read about here), Piper wanted Chinese food. It’s really the only thing to help you heal from stitches trauma. Doctor’s orders.

And, of course, one of the best parts of Chinese food is the fortune cookie. Piper opened hers and was astonished at her good fortune.

“That’s right!” Piper exclaimed. “It’s completely true! Great things DO come from my heart! Like love. And happy stuff. How did they KNOW that?”

Stitches. Again.

Posted on March 8, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

Piper is a very brave girl. She even has a badge Sissy made her to prove it. See:

How did she earn her brave girl status? Four stitches in her chin. A trip to the ER. Again.

Piper is prone to accidents. I usually just glue her back together. I blogged about my preferred brand of kid glue here. But not even my superglue could mend this nasty gape. Her pediatrician took one look at it and shook his head. Nope. The Emergency Room.

She hardly shed a tear. I told Piper she didn’t have to be so brave. “I know,” Piper said, “I just am.”

I know what you’re thinking. What crazy thing was Piper doing to bust open her precious face? Hanging from the monkey bars? Playing with broken glass? No. Walking. She was walking across the floor in her classroom. Dangerous, right? She was so excited to show Mrs. A her work that she didn’t notice Daniel’s foot hanging out in the aisle. She hit so hard Mrs. A was convinced she wouldn’t have any teeth left. A concussion was mentioned. Poor baby. Poor teacher.

She even got a cool plastic bracelet from the hospital WITH HER NAME ON IT.

“Don’t cut off my bracelet, Mom, whatever you do,” Piper said.

“You want to keep wearing it?”

“Of course. The other kids will think it’s so cool. Then I’ll get lots of attention for my stitches. Kids love that stuff.”

Rationing the Marshmallows

Posted on March 6, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

Big flakes, folks. Piper and I are watching real snow. Our world is closed. Only we exist inside this inclement weather let’s call the whole thing off bubble.

It’s just us and the hot chocolate. We’re on our third cup. It’s not even 10 a.m. I’m going to have to start rationing the marshmallows. Here’s Piper’s version:

Bring on the Snow

Posted on March 5, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

We’re waiting for snow in D.C. Sissy and Piper have been staring at their sleds for two years waiting. I think our wait is over.

“We might get a foot of snow, P!” Sissy said on our walk home from school.

“A foot?”

“Yeah. That’s a lot.”

“Not really,” Piper said. “My foot is kind of small.”

Going Rapunzel

Posted on March 4, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

“Mom, I think I need a haircut!”

“Really, Piper? How come? I thought you wanted to grow it out like Rapunzel.”

“This morning when I was sitting on the toilet I leaned by head way back and I could touch the water with my hair. I could also do that when I leaned way forward.”

“You really shouldn’t do that, P. It’s toilet water.”

“Yeah. I figured you were going to say that.”

Snacking

Posted on March 3, 2013 by melissa.scholes.young

A Piper likes a snack. According to her, snacking is one of her favorite hobbies. She takes a snack to school every day. She looks forward to snack time all day. She keeps a spare snack in the car. She’s never without. So we made up a little shelf in the kitchen so Piper could pack her own snack. It’s on a low shelf just for Piper. Her selection looks pretty healthy, doesn’t?

Tamari almonds. Trail mix. Peanut butter pretzels. Carob cashews. Seaweed.

Piper would be quite the health nut except…she really just likes to lick all the tamari and salt off of those almonds and peel off the sugar peanut butter parts from the pretzels. Trail mix? Piper prefers to pick out the chocolate bits. Sometimes a raisin gets in her mouth by accident.

The seaweed? She devours it. She can’t get enough. Piper doesn’t care what the other kids say at snack time and they say plenty about her love of seaweed. Her snack loves her and that’s enough for Piper.