Silly smiles

After a day at the park and the Elm Creek Beach, nothing beats a little quiet time in the AC with Daddy.

First Portrait?

During Friday daycare with Grandma, Piper made this drawing.  Is it her first drawing of a person?  

Day Off

Daycare was closed today, so I had an unexpected day off with Piper.  We had all kinds of fun!

We biked to Elm Creek playground for some good running around.

It was very crowded, but Piper still found plenty of spots to enjoy herself.

After nap, we blew some bubbles in the back yard.  

 When the soap gets on your lips, it doesn't taste very good.  

But you get over it quickly.

Not long after this, the bottle got dropped and we lost most of our bubble-making potential.  

So we practiced putting our shoes onto the correct feet...

...which isn't always easy.

Dear Piper, take two

Dear Piper,

I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I sat here last, writing you a letter on your first birthday.  WOW!  Two years old!  And what can I say about year two?  In short, it was the year of The Piper.

This year you really came into your own.  You developed – or should I say learned to better express – your personality.  You’re engaging, friendly, sweet, willful, and very curious about the world.  You have a wonderful – and actually pretty sophisticated – sense of humor.  You love to be funny and ironic.  You’re on the go constantly and you always have your own agenda.  That’s one of the many things I admire about you.  You entertain yourself and decide for yourself what you’ll play with – you’re in charge and we’re just along for the ride.  You’re independent and very determined.

Physically you’ve in a whole new world – you walk, run, climb, slide, bounce!  You push and pull and open and close, you’re up and down and sideways.  You still fall, but not nearly as often as you used to.  You swim (with a floaty vest, which we only bought you because you refused to let us hold you when the water is above your head) and balance.  You adapt quickly.

Mentally – well, you’re just exploding.  By the time you were 18 months you knew the letters in the alphabet, and shortly after that the alphabet song.  You can count to 12 and you also count things – you understand what the numbers mean.  Your vocabulary is just incredible – you can say 5-8 word sentences, and you’re pretty good at pronouns.  You even use “I”.  You use other words – like ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘too’, ‘also’, and phrases like ‘how about…?’  – appropriately.  And you listen to what we say and mimic our language constantly.  You’ve memorized several songs and lots of books.  You LOVE to read and to sing.

Emotionally, you’re much the same happy kid that you were a year ago.  Only bolder.  You’ll stretch the distance between us more and more, and you’re learning to trust yourself.  You’ve made friends at daycare, and you refer to them as such.  You and Connie are, of course,still very bonded and she marvels at what a great kid you are.  You sleep on a nap mat now, instead of in a crib, just like the other big kids J  You’re a great cuddler, but you’re often too busy for many hugs and kisses.  You indulge us, though, occasionally.

One of the ways you’ve really grown this past year is in your diet – you spent most of the year as a strict vegetarian but now you’ll eat most lunch and dinner foods that we put on your plate (thank goodness!).  Once the door opened, you became very adventurous and brave in your willingness to try new things.  We’re thrilled about that!

I’m not sure what else I can say to sum up year two.  Except that it’s been amazing.  You’re a creative, fun, entertaining, and loving toddler.  We love every minute of it!  We often wish you’d stop growing so fast, but at the same time we know it’s meant to happen this way.  It’s incredible to watch you test out the world, and fare so well in it.  One of my favorite quotes was said by Ghandi: “Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.”  I’ve hoped for many things for you – intelligence, happiness,  good eyesight – but nothing more so than just that.  A spirit that will carry you through the world and a determination that will falter at nothing.  I see that in you now, in this two year-old Piper.  Over the coming years you’ll outgrow so much – clothes, toys, your crib and your pacifier, maybe even your cloth diapers that you love to snuggle with.  But my wish for you is that you never outgrow that.  Because right now you struggle to carry a half gallon of milk at the grocery store – insisting that you’ll put it in the cart despite the fact that you can barely lift it off the ground.  But at two, you’re the strongest person I know.

Happy birthday, to our little tyrant.  We love you so very much.

Mom

Bold

 Today we rode to the Elm Creek Park beach and did some swimming in this 90 degree heat.  Piper does really well in the bike trailer.

 She also does amazingly well in the water!  We got her a floaty vest that keeps her kind of buoyed in the water, but forces her to do a lot of the work to stay upright by treading water.  She's so brave!  We got the swim vest because whenever you're trying to help her in the water she pushes your hands away (even when she's in over her head, literally) and if you try to hold her in the water, well, just forget it - she's no chump.  She knows there's more fun to be had than that!

But it's so fun to watch her quick progress.  She wore the vest for the first time last night at Grandma and Grandpa's pool, and she figured the whole balance thing out in a matter of minutes.  And today she was treading water, moving around on her own in depths where she couldn't stand.

Of course after all that swimming she was hungry, and she decided Dad was probably hungry too.

The little trooper in her cover-up.

We have video footage of this swimming adventure, but for some reason it won't load.  Stay tuned!

Friday evening fun

Piper breaking in her new swim vest.

Cuddling with Daddy.

Grandpa's proud :)

Go Piper go!

Swimming to Grandma.

Up, up...!

Driving Miss Piper

 Every day when I pick her up from daycare, Piper always wants to stay in the garage and pretend to drive the car.  She's startling good at it - she must really be watching while we're at the wheel.  She knows she's supposed to use the gear shift...

And also knows she should adjust the temperature, and the radio, repeatedly.

Clever girl.

Footin' the bill

 "Don't worry about it guys, this one's on me."

 "Do you think they take Dora the Explorer cards here?  Or just AMEX?"

No more tears!

Haircut, sans tears.  Heidi, who is our Snip-It's hairstylist, was very impressed with our composure today.  Piper even gave her a high-five once the deed was done.