If Pat liked it, who am I to forego 1252 pages of pure delight? So I packed this book and no other, but didn’t crack it until our second hotel.  I had to wade through the pre-prologue and doggy paddle through the regular prologue, but by page 20, I was hooked.  But then I set it down before literally swimming in the ocean, and Hubby picked it up.  Well, there is no waiting for me to get through this book before he gets to continue–especially since it’s about 5 regular books long.  So I got out the butcher knife and sliced it right through the spine on the way to page 200.  Then I kept an eye on how far along he was getting in his book-ella, and then cut it again to make a third book.   

Dwayne was appalled, appalled, dear Reader, that I would desecrate a book such.  However, consider this:

[my guilt over ripping a book into readable sections] <  [my guilt in hoarding an excellent story]

There are so many sides to Piper!  Even three years ago, I even could have honestly added “and some of them are good!”.  But she’s turning out way better than I expected.  Here’s a montage of some of her personalities.

Piper Language.  She communicates through beeps, purrs, growls, hisses, and words she just plain makes up.  Here, she and Kyla are putting together a puzzle (snow day activity!) and working together across languages.  Kyla lovingly interprets and translates Piperese when called upon.

Last week, I was in a line all the way back to the end of the grocery store (it was the brief period between snow storms when even the 2 wheel drive could make it out of the garage) and used the time to call one of my sisters-in-law.  Finally, I had to tell her I would have to talk later, because the kids kept calling me and I probably shouldn’t ignore them any more.  (I leave them at home to go out a lot, but they feel free to call all the time, about the smallest things.) This time, it was Piper.  When I got off the phone with her, the couple ahead of me sad something about kids always calling about stupid things, and I agreed, but then had to admit, in a bit of a daze, that I had just hung up with my almost-11 year old who had called to ask it if was okay if she started dinner for me while I was gone.  Delicious tacos were waiting when I got home from shopping and picking up Wesley.  

 I trust all my kids with knives (though still waiting for Wes to remember to use a cutting board and not the granite countertop…bad for the knives, though the counter doesn’t mind!)  As always, the local grocery store made her birthday cake.  

Piper also got me to start making homemade bread again, something I haven’t done for years.  She and Wes are both excited to do almost all the work…except the clean up.  Oh, goodness, I went for a long time without eating carbs, and then the snow hit (for two weeks), and I. Cannot. Stop. Eating. Bread.   

Yep, this kid is pretty unique.  And so damn loveable, which is probably why I’m still head-over-heals twitterpated with this complex human! Happy birthday, beloved Piper!

We saw this “closed” sign on our walk into town.  I identify.

Actually, maybe I can.  Piper gets her revenge.

Fortunately, the cake actually didn’t taste good, so the chocolate baby will stay an embryo a little longer.

Because then they went a wee bit nuts!

Of course, that may be because they all lost brain cells doing this for hours:

The Zombie Sledders return for more…

Piper and Abs made chocolate cake and all the girls designed glorious plans for decorating it. And then the cakes fell apart promptly after being taken of the oven, so everyone just put down the icing plans and grabbed forks!  Today, we called that “lunch”.  

And this is why I don’t take my Christmas, ahem, Winter lights down.  I can’t take down the snowflakes when there’s real snowflakes to light up! I was so glad that schools were out really early today, including the secondary schools.  The school I work at on Fridays was probably the latest to get out at 12:30, and I was home by 1pm.  That’s the last outing for the minivan for a few days, I predict!