Molly Piper

Last night, per Morrow’s request, Abraham was having wrestling time with the big boys. I positioned Whit’s bouncy seat in a place where he could safely survey the action. Cadence and I were in the next room, snuggling and talking on the couch.

Orison came to the door and announced, with a big smile, “It’s boy time in here, and girl time out there!”

Then a couple minutes later he ran out to the “girl time,” kissed Cadence, and said to me very brightly and happily “I wish Felicity was right…[pointing to the empty space on my lap] there.”

He flashed me his million-dollar smile, backed up a few paces, then jumped, face upturned, and kissed the sky.

We miss you, little girl. And we’ll throw kisses at the sky for as long as it takes until we see you again.

Last Sunday was Orison’s 6th birthday! I decided that we’d just have one marathon day and have Orison’s birthday party on the same day as the twins’ dedication, since it was his actual birthday anyway.

We do birthdays pretty simply. I don’t kill myself over a cake. I let the kid pick what they want to eat, and so it’s usually a simple menu (this year it was mac & cheese with hot dogs in it). I don’t do favor bags. I let my mother-in-law host it at her house (!). We invite a couple families we’re close with, and that’s it. Voila! Kid birthday party!

I didn’t grow up with a birthday “party” every year. We had one every few years, and that was good! I don’t personally think that kids should get used to a huge party every year. I know it’s their special day, but making it special with family is sufficient, in my opinion.

Anyway, off that soapbox. Back to Orison.

There was the birthday plate (of course):

It’s so crazy for me to say this: “I have a SIX-year-old!” I can’t believe I’ve been a mother for six years. I can’t believe he’s so grown up.

There was the birthday song with cake and candles:

He requested chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. It was delicious (and I can say that, because my mother-in-law made it, not me)!

There were presents:

Legos from Granny & Papa (my parents in Pennsylvania)! They shipped his present in a Milk Bone dog biscuit box, and we kept teasing him that he was getting dog biscuits for his birthday. But he knew better. He kept saying, “Papa’s just trying to tease me!” He knows you well, Papa!

There were friends and cousins:

What else does a kid need? He was so happy with his birthday.

One of the most special presents came from his Grandmama, who did a special skin graft for Orison’s very well-loved “Teddy.” I think that’ll have to be a post by itself, but suffice it to say, his teddy bear has new life, thanks to the skilled hands of teddy-bear-surgeon Noel.

As I put him to bed that night, we prayed together and I got choked up as I thanked God for six years with Orison. He was laying on his top bunk and peeked his head up over the rail with tears in his eyes to give me a kiss. He told me, “I almost started crying!” and I told him, “That’s okay.”

There are some things that are good to cry about. Tears of gratitude are a welcome sight in the eyes of the Lord.

We brought in year #7 with lots and lots of joy! Happy birthday Orison! We love you more than we could ever tell you with words.

(And of course, a very special thanks to my uber-talented friend Wendy Maybury for the photos. Love you, Wendy! Thanks for loving our family well!)

My, my, my…how did we get to this day?

My oldest baby isn’t a baby anymore.

He’s not a toddler anymore.

He’s not even a preschooler anymore.

He’s a Kindergartner.

Orison, you’ve grown up so much! Not just in the obvious physical ways, but you are a boy now. No traces of babyhood or toddlerhood are left in you. You’re a boy now.

So many new adventures await you in school. When you walk out of those doors in June, you will have learned so many things that you had no idea about as you walked in the doors today. And even when you finish Kindergarten, there’ll be even more to learn. So many books to read, so many words to write, so many math problems to solve.

I pray for you this school year, Orison–that God would somehow take all this knowledge that you’ll acquire and transform you through it; that you’ll grow smarter in mind and stronger in heart. And through all of this growing that you’ll grow closer and closer to God, who made it all and gave it all for you to enjoy, and that you will feel his love for you in new ways.

Be strong, my brave little boy. This world is not always the happy, fun little place you’ve known. You’ve seen glimpses into the deep disappointments of life, the injustices that are in our world, and the differences that exist between people living down here. You will see more. I wish I could promise something different. But I pray that seeing these things will draw you closer to your Father, who loves you and gave his Son for you. He is a good Father. He is a loving Father.

Enjoy every day, little one. You were probably more ready for this step of the journey today than I was. I sit here weeping and typing while you’re frolicking and chatting on the car ride home. You’ll get me through this somehow.

I can’t wait to hug your little boy body when you get home. I can’t wait to hear all about everything you did today.

I’m so proud of you, my Kindergartner.

Today marks Orison’s last day of being a preschooler. Tomorrow he enters into the 13+-year commitment of being school-aged.

Technically he’s been doing school for a couple years, but it was preschool. This rite of passage into Kindergarten feels much more significant.

So last night we had our first homework assignment. However…

• school hasn’t even started.
• somehow it was me & Abraham doing the assignment.

The assignment was to construct a little “All About Me” box with a few things in it to help the teacher and other students get to know each other. Cute idea, I’m totally behind it. But when I think about the assignment, I keep thinking about it from my perspective, because I ended up doing most of the work!

Part 1: Find a suitable box.
Part 2: Wrap said box (because I couldn’t just schlep him off to school with a bare cardboard box with Amazon labels all over it). I chose to just use a brown paper bag so he could decorate it in his own style (AND I didn’t have enough of any one kind of wrapping paper).
Part 3: Decorate the box (we did this together today).
Part 4: Help him think of things that would be good for the box. (Which also means steering him away from some of the more, um, how do I say?… creative ideas he came up with.)
Part 5: Print out a picture of our family for the box.

This is getting kinda labor-intensive if you ask me! Last night it took me and Abraham working together about 15 minutes to get the box wrapped. I turned to Abraham at one point and said,

‘Welcome to the world of school-aged children. This is just the beginning, you know. Soon there’s going to be science fairs and colonial bizarres. This isn’t going to end for a looong time.’

Now, I’m not complaining. I value education. I value that I have options and I’m not homeschooling right now. I value that he’s going to a school where he’ll learn new and wonderful things.

But I realized last night that soon I’ll be doing homework for with 4 children. (Sigh…). I am entering into the world of the school-aged mom.

I’m the mother of twins. I’m the mother of twins–TWO babies! How did this happen? I mean, I know how it happened, but sometimes it just blows my mind!

At three weeks, this is Miss Cadence (aka Baby CayCay, Cade, Cage, Cagey, Cackamalatchee):

She seems like she’s grown up a TON in the last few weeks. Not that she’s really doing anything different, she just looks different! Sometimes she looks so grown up, and then I start crying because there’s already three weeks gone of her life, and I’ll only be able to remember so little of it. That’s the part that kills me.

She is a pretty chill baby still, but has some gas issues that sometimes make evenings and nights difficult. Why does it always get worse at night?

Anyway, Cadence is pretty big time, and we love having a little girl in our home.

At three weeks, this is Mister Whitsun (aka Whit, Wichita, Wee Willy Whitsun, Whittaker, Sandwich):

Whit looks soooo much like Orison when he was a baby. So much so that sometimes it feels like a do-over. His cry sounds exactly like Orison’s did, he has swirly cowlicks like Orison did, and he even spits up like Orison did.

This kid can pee through five outfits in a day, no joke. Somehow he finds a way to pee out the side or top of his diaper no matter how diligent mommy is about getting that rascal pointed down! I’ve had 3 boys now, and I’ve never had this problem before. He is so laid-back, though. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all!

He loooves his pacifiers, he’s kinda pokey at the breast, and he loves his supplement bottles (sucks them down in record time). He’s a pretty good burper (as opposed to his sister who takes her sweet old time).

And here’s Molly at three weeks (aka Mom, Mommy):

Overall, I feel like I’m doing pretty well! The twins sleep decently at night. They still get up to nurse 2 times at night, but that’s okay. For some reason the 1am feeding feels awful, but the 4am feeding seems doable. Go figure.

I’m nursing them mostly, and providing some supplemental bottles. They are doing very well with both and gaining weight (which is the most important thing in my mind). I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say right now that I think nipple confusion is the biggest myth ever sold to moms. Okay, there, I said it. Glad to get that off my chest.

I’ve had help at home from various family members and friends every weekday since Abraham went back to work–that’s been the hugest blessing for me. There’s simply no way I would make it through a day at this point. I feel like I could either take care of my big boys by myself or take care of the twins by myself, but definitely not all four together. There is truly a village of people taking care of us right now. I couldn’t be more thankful. And if you want to come help some day, let me know. I’ll put you to work!

We still have meals coming too! Again, so thankful for all of you! Without having to factor meal preparation into my days I can actually keep my head above water. I’ll probably need some ongoing help with that, so if one of your spiritual gifts is browning ground beef or cooking chicken breasts, let me know!

So that’s about it! The twins say “thank you” to all of you for loving them, near and far!

(Photos by Wendy Maybury)

A few weeks ago Orison and Morrow were playing so well together, I just had to get it on video. Morrow loves to copy the things Orison does (for better or for worse).

So if your weekend promises little entertainment, enjoy the Piper Family Circus! (I’m sure Orison would have come up with a much cleverer name, but you’ve got me on a Friday afternoon.)

I know it’s kinda late in the week to be posting about Mother’s Day, but I just wanted to share about the weekend. I had a lot of FUN this Mother’s Day!

It started on Friday when Abraham told me he’d been given 2 tickets to the new Target Field (home of the Minnesota Twins) for the Saturday afternoon game. It was supposed to be rainy and cold but we decided to be true Minnesotans and go out to the game anyway! I took my 24-week picture, of course…the twins at the Twins!

By the way, those weren’t our seats. Ours were up in the top deck, but we decided to explore a bit after the game. It was fun to just get to sit together for a couple hours, even if we could see our breath and had to wear winter hats!

Then on Sunday, we had a lovely time at church, went out to lunch with Abraham’s parents and sister, and then went home to lay down!

After naps we went out to Dairy Queen, where I got my favorite Butterfinger Blizzard. Here’s an attempt at a good picture:

After DQ, we went to the cemetery. The kids just run and have fun there, which is kinda cool. I had to bribe them to sit for this one.

I was able to snap a quick one of Morrow while he was on the run:

The only sad part was when we were driving away, Morrow said, completely unprompted, “Bye-bye, dee-dee-dee.” Translation: Bye-bye, Felicity.

Here’s a couple more pictures from recent days, just because I’m crazy about these guys:

I’m so deeply thankful that I get to mother these two characters. And I’m happy to report that this Mother’s Day brought more smiles than tears. That’s a blessed change.

For those of you who guessed these:

You win!*

Ahhh, Marshmallow Peeps. I eat them once a year, mostly for nostalgic purposes. I was always a fan of Peeps as a child, the fresher the better. My sister liked hers stale, and I can’t remember how my brother took his Peeps.

And for those of you interested, I thought I’d link to a series of photographs showing how Peeps are made (in my home state of Pennsylvania, thank you very much).

*Contest rules: 1.) Eligibility is restricted to those living in the continental United States 2.) Contestants must be present to win. 3.) Prize is to be determined by contest author and subject to change for any reason, including acts of God. 4.) Prize has no monetary value and cannot be exchanged for any amount in any currency. 5.) The prize is having the satisfaction of guessing correctly.

A few weeks ago we played Name that Movie. Now let’s play Name that Candy.

Last night, as we came home from a day of friends, family, fun, and food, Orison asked:

“Can I have one of those sparkly penguins before bed?”

What was he asking for?

I thought some of you would like to see the video of Abraham and me telling 5-year-old Orison about his twin sisters. Actually, I know some of you want to see this, because you specifically asked me to film it!

A little background…Orison desperately wanted a sister this time around. He’s been praying for another one for two and a half years! So this was a sweet moment all around.

Enjoy!