You Can Eat Crackers in My Bed Anytime…Except if You’re Naked

Posted on August 21, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

It’s come to this. I thought Piper’s nudity problem was adorable. It saves me a lot of laundry. Not everyone in our house has been enjoying her exhibitionist ways, though. This morning, Sissy posted these new rules. Note the specificity of #1:

No Naked Bottoms! That changes everything. I do appreciate the exception that Sissy has made for changing. It’s very reasonable to expect a naked bottom or two during dressing. Do try to keep those nude parts off the furniture and floor. For obvious reasons. The tone is appropriate but firm. I’m definitely going to follow these rules. I want to avoid the consequence of rule #5 for sure. No one likes a “cranky Isabelle.”

Now we’ll just need to teach Piper to read cursive soon.

You’d Be Broccoli

Posted on August 20, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

A Piper likes to categorize her world. It gives her comfort. It’s also decent practice for the analogy section on the SAT. You can never start too young.

Yesterday, on the drive home from church, Piper piped up with a new set of categories. I mean, we have our Cutie Marks and all, but we hadn’t considered the array of fruits and vegetables we could be.

“Mom,” Piper said, “you’d be broccoli.”

“Broccoli?”

“Yeah. ‘Cuz you’re good for us.”

“And what would you be, P?”

She was quiet in the backseat, thinking over her options. We all know it’s not a tomato. She definitely didn’t want to be the dreaded broccoli, either. Yuck.

“I’d be a blueberry,” she declared. “I’m tiny and juicy.”

Things That Make You Go Roar!

Posted on August 19, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

At dinner last night Piper asked about her baby self. She says she can’t remember it at all. “I try really hard,” she said,”but I can’t remember anything.”

We told her she was smiley and easy going, which is mostly true. We told her how much she loved seeing her sister. Piper lit up like a candle whenever she heard Sissy’s voice. We told her she slept best amidst noise (she spent 9 months growing inside me in a high school classroom) and cried when it was too quiet. She wasn’t a fussy baby, but we knew when something was really wrong. A Piper has always figured out how to get her needs met. We described her bald baby head and her amber brown eyes. We told her that she rolled over at two weeks, walked at nine months, but hardly spoke a word until she was two.

We didn’t tell her how many times she scared us, like when she stopped breathing and the paramedics had to come or how she came into the world wrapped tight and blue in her umbilical chord. We didn’t mention that her acid reflux was so bad she hardly slept the first year and woke up gurgling a lot. She doesn’t need to know about the time Sissy brought home the flu, and we were so sick that I just laid in the middle of the living room nursing Piper because I couldn’t get up off the floor. And she won’t remember when she climbed up into her high chair and fell, splitting her teeth through her bottom lip and I sat in the emergency room all night with her asleep in my lap waiting for stitches.

We told her she’s always been a joy, even when she roars.

Call of the Cutie

Posted on August 18, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

I wish that my knowledge of My Little Pony were not so vast and varied but it is. I owe it all to Piper. She’s spent a good part of the summer catching up on Friendship is Magic episodes. She’s memorized each complex plot line and adopted new vocabulary from the shows. She’s learned to read a dozen words on the screen so that she can select episodes for multiple viewings. One of her favorites is “Call of the Cutie” in which each pony is awarded their own special “cutie mark.” I can’t make stuff like this up. Here’s the gripping episode teaser:

First your flank is blank. Then one day, you get your cutie mark! How can Apple Bloom get this sign that shows what makes her special? When will it happen?

If you really must know the answer, you can find the My Little Pony channel on You Tube and finish the episode. Or you can just call Piper and she’ll explain every single detail.

Piper’s assigned each of us our very own “cutie mark,” too. It’s how she likes to define people. Grandpa’s “cutie mark” would be a fishing pole. Grandma’s would be a sewing machine. Sissy’s is a book. Daddy’s is his IPhone. She gave me a heart. Ahhh.

“I wonder what my cutie mark would be?” she asked, assessing her naked backside to see if she already had a cutie mark. She doesn’t. Whew. “Maybe a dog? I do love dogs. Maybe a rainbow! Cuz I love rainbows.”

“Maybe a tutu?” I offered. Piper rolled her eyes. My suggestions these days are met with a lot of eye rolling.

“I know!” she exclaimed. “My cutie mark would be an exclamation point!”

“Do you know what an exclamation point is?” I asked. Surely, she hasn’t mastered punctuation yet.

“Sure. They’re all over the My Little Pony episodes. Whenever they have a sign or write a note it’s got that line and a dot that says they’re all excited. My cutie mark would be that!”

Scarier Words Were Never Spoken: Doodie!

Posted on August 17, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

“Don’t worry, Mom. I picked up the poop and put it back in the toilet,” Piper said casually, patting my back for comfort.

I stopped myself from asking how it got out of the toilet. No answer is going to make me feel better.

“Did you wash your hands?” I asked, peeling her paws off my shoulders.

“Be right back!” Piper skipped happily from the room.

Ugh.

History in the Making: Sissy’s Post

Posted on August 16, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

Sissy’s back! And guest blogging today:

Piper’s friend, Alex, came over to play yesterday. After a good half hour of giggling behind closed doors, Piper and Alex decided to open their own business. This first business served plastic food and sold genuine gems. It wasn’t very successful. The second business offered massages that involved rubbing your back with pillows and hitting your feet with princess wands. Being a good big sister (and being very bored) I played along. Their final business idea was to start a history museum. They led me downstairs to our living room and put on fake, old timey accents.

“Look around you. All the stuff you see Indians made,” announced Piper.

I looked around. A piano, TV, couch, rocking chair and guitar. Man, we don’t give Indians enough credit.

“Umm, Piper. That’s not true,” whispered Alex.

“Shh, Alex. You’re ruining it!” Piper whispered back with a sideways glance at me.

“Next, let’s look at the things me and Alex have. The Indians gave them to us,” Piper continued.

I stared at a glow wand, little treasure chest, and plastic coin. All were clearly marked Made in China.

“Now for some history,” Piper began. “Technically, they aren’t aposed to be called Indians. They’re ‘ative Americans. This guy came and thought he was in India, and called them Indians. So,”

“Piper, the man’s name was Christopher Columbus,” I interrupted. “He sailed to America in 1492. Some people say he discovered America.”

Alex stared at me, the living textbook, but Piper brushed my words away. “ That’s what I said. Christy Rhombus. I know that stuff cause I’m a museum girl.”

It’s true. Our parents do drag us to a lot of museums. I guess if she flunks kindergarten, Piper’ll make A’s in history.

Don’t Step on My Blue Sparkly Shoes

Posted on August 15, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

We went school shopping today. It had to be done. This isn’t my first rodeo, though. We focused on supplies for the classroom and shoes. Jeans, jackets, etc. can wait until they’re on sale and we need them. Supplies and shoes. That’s enough for one afternoon.

Piper was reluctant. She’s not that jazzed about kindergarten. “It’s going to be boring. I don’t want to go!” she says, over and over. She’s not that jazzed actually about anything anyone suggests to her unless it’s her idea. She’s impervious to the influence of others. It may serve her well in the future, but the short term is a bit challenging. At least for the Mama.

I bribed Piper in the car with potato chips. I know. I know. It worked, though. Target was remarkably civilized i.e. it was a Tuesday at 2 p.m. when everyone but me had something better to do. “How’s your patience level?” Piper asked as we strolled the aisles. This is a trick she’s learned from her dad. She’s learned percentages this summer by assessing our patience level before asking for something.

“Feelin’ good, P. I think I’m fine. The latte helps,” I answered.

“Can we do shoes first then?” Piper asked. She hates, hates shoe shopping. Clearly, she was switched at birth.

I agreed. It was a reasonable request. Let’s get the dreaded task out of the way.

The one saving grace of shopping with a Piper is that she loves to ride in the cart. She refused to get out of the cart for shoe shopping, though, which makes the actual trying on of shoes kind of difficult. I mean, I can place the shoes on her dangling feet but checking actual fit is tough.

Until she saw these.

“Oh, Mom! I’ve been waiting my whole life for these!” she squealed, wiggling out of the cart and lunging for the box. “I must have these! You’ll be the best mom in the whole world if you buy me these! Oh, just look at them!” It was a scene only a Piper and Scarlet O’Hara could pull off.

$9.99 seemed a cheap price for the Mom of the Year Award. Easy peasy.

As we were standing in the checkout line, Piper told the clerk “I can’t wait for kindergarten!”

Drum Circle or Bust

Posted on August 14, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

A Piper loves music. And noise. And dancing noisily to music of any kind. When given the choice of musical instruments, Piper chose the drums. Against our better judgement, we got her her very own drum set for her birthday. I blogged about that mistake in her Birthday Blog.

Sometimes we even stumble upon music and add our own kind of noise, like the time we joined the O Street Band.

So, it seems a natural progression in the musical education of Piper to introduce her to her first drum circle. We’re in Asheville, North Carolina for the week (hiding in plain sight of Sissy’s camp because that’s the kind of mom I am). If any town in this country has a drum circle on a Friday night, it’s Asheville. After dinner last night, we went in search. The thing about a drum circle is that they really aren’t that hard to find. Like Piper, a drum circle has a lot of noisy dancing to music of any kind. You can hear them blocks away.