"Back..."

Piper's separation anxiety has definitely improved since last we posted. She was great for Kara on Monday for the missionary luncheon. I was gone for five hours and they played and even had a nap. Even better news was that on Sunday Piper stayed in nursery by herself for the last hour. I stayed with her during Sunday School but left her for Relief Society. She has started to understand the concept of "back" and will repeat it to you if you tell her that you'll be right back.

Now our only real problem is Piper's eczema. She started getting a rash on the inside of her elbows around Christmas. She's been itching like crazy lately despite my attempts to keep her arms covered with gauze. She has drawn blood on several occasions. It's almost completely healed which will be wonderful. I'm just grateful that she doesn't have chickenpox at this age because she would have so many scars since it's next to impossible to keep her from itching.

Piper has started the dreaded "why" phase of toddlerhood. Some days she asks me why repeatedly but she has no real understanding of what she's saying. She is just fascinated with the sound and the responses she gets. She has started recognizing letters though. She knows M, P, D, E, O, C, Z and I. She loves M, P, and D because P is for Piper, M is for Mommy, and D is for Daddy. The other letters have loved ones attached to them as well. Z is for Zoey, of course.

Rick's ankle is healing well; he can even walk on it short distances without a crutch. This week he started taking the train to work again. We still pick him up in the evening though. I'll be glad when he can do the roundtrip by himself again - I hate Sydney traffic and Piper's dinner usually consists of eating crackers and raisins with a cup of milk in the car.

With Rick's convalescence our attention is turned to our upcoming Easter trip to the Great Barrier Reef. My lovely cousin Natalee is coming down to visit and is going to the reef with us too. We should have an awesome time together.

Our stake at church is participating in no TV week this week. So no TV, DVD or music for us. I thought that it would be traumatic for Piper. I knew that Rick would get by without TV so long as he can check up on the Jayhawks on the internet. I thought I'd have the hardest time because I'd have to entertain Piper. So far, so good. Good thing we've had fairly good weather, except for the freak downpour we had last night. Piper has had long naps too so that kills a good portion of the day too. We've been to the library and the playground. We've run errands. We've done puzzles, had tea parties, read books, colored, done stickers, and played with blocks. We watched the boats in the harbor. (By the way, the Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2 were in Sydney Harbor this week with all the news coverage that that entails.) I've cleaned out our nightstands, vacuumed, baked muffins, made homemade pizza, studied my scriptures, and done neglected chores. I'm going to have to come up with some other activities for the rest of the week.

Oh, and Piper can't say pizza, she calls it "teeta."

Here is a photo for those of you who need your Piper fix.

Free at last (we'll see)...

Piper has been suffering terribly from separation anxiety lately. It began at Christmas but has only gotten worse. What with going home at Christmas, traveling to New Zealand afterwards, Piper has been in lots of different places with lots of different people. Add to that Rick's injured ankle which has kept him home a lot, Piper hasn't had much time apart from us and isn't ready to let us go too far. Rick even has to comfort her when I step out to take out the trash. Don't even get me started on getting her to take naps and going to bed. This has made going to church extra exhausting too as Piper refuses to go to nursery despite loving the nursery leader and her daughter.

So, since I am in charge of organizing a luncheon for the missionary zone conference next week, to which I can't really bring Piper, we decided to get some help. We got a new babysitter this week. She's very nice and seems to like Piper a lot. To ease Piper into having me leave her, we had an hour-long playtime together with Kara yesterday. She stayed for about an hour and in that time I was even able to take out the trash without Piper wigging out.

Tonight was a bigger test. Rick and I left Piper with Kara for about two hours so we could go out to dinner on a date. Houston, we have separation! Piper cried for a little after we left but she was playing happily when we came home. This bodes well for future outings.

Stay tuned for Monday's outcome. This will be the biggest test of all since I will be gone during what should be Piper's naptime.

Getting yucky

Last Saturday was a rainy day so keeping Piper occupied was the order of the day. After doing puzzles, coloring, and reading books, we decided to have some fun with playdough. This is only Piper's second or third time playing with playdough. She's a pretty clean girl and actually prefers to use utensils on the playdough than get her hands dirty. With that said I put some dough between her palms and squished them together. After that she realized that getting yucky might be fun after all, though she didn't go overboard which is nice for me who has to clean everything up.

Happy Birthday Chellese!!

Today is my good friend Chellese's birthday. Chellese, I am grateful for our great friendship and your wonderful example to me. I am in awe of the fact that you run marathons, handle two "marathon" boys skillfully, speak Spanish and French so well, and can always make me laugh. Thank you for your kindness to me and my family. We are so looking forward to seeing you again when we come home (or maybe you'll come visit us). I'll bet Piper will get on swimmingly with your boys. Meilleurs voeux et pleins de bisoux.

what I did today

I made this little bulletin board for Piper after seeing it in a babyshop. Theirs was a little bigger but cost $100. I was able to make this one for around $30. This way after Rick comes home from work every day he can see what Piper's been up to that day.