Piper is ONE!

(To see a few more pictures of my girl at one, go to the photography blog here)

To Piper on Her First Birthday, 12-23-2009
Piper Jane,

You grew in my deepest space while we traveled like people without a home. Our first thoughts of you began in an RV in California, pulled by a truck running on veggie oil. Your little cells started to divide while we lived in a house with many athletes, all focused on a similar 2008 Olympic goal. My stomach turned in nausea, your heart beating deep within mine already (and still is), as those athletes cooked their various meats and healthy foods in our kitchen.

I couldn’t be in the same room as meat. As a being the size of a lima bean, you were already dictating a part of my life.

While your brain started to send synapses to your heart, telling it to pump blood, we moved from that house with all those athletes, back into our RV space. For weeks, we talked about what would be next. Where you would be born, where you would take your first steps. Your dad and I were not exactly on the same page. Sometimes I wonder if there is an effect on your psyche from the tension of those days of decision. Did you feel my stress, my uncertainty, my tears on many of those hours? We tried to shield Rowan from it, but we couldn‘t really wait until you went to sleep.

As your lungs formed to one day handle air, we moved to Michigan. First we lived with Grandma and Grandpa, then Nana and Papa, then we had our own place in a friend’s guest house for a month. Then we lived with the Heffners for several months. Then, you spent your last week in my womb, in my childhood home, with my mom and dad. And that is where you lived your first 3 months on the outside of my body.

Hours before the contractions that brought you forth began, I sat with your dad in my childhood family room. Maybe I had a premonition, because I spent the day organizing…and then, right before we turned in for the night, I said to your dad, “if I go into labor tonight, and we have a girl, what will we name her?” Our girl name had not been finalized yet (we thought we had time! Over a week until your due date!) He looked me directly in the eyes. “Piper Jane.” We still deliberated a bit after you were born, but I think it was mostly for show. I knew the night before that if you were a girl, you would be Piper.

And here we are now, you are turning one year old. In our own house. In a stuck house. In Grand Rapids. It is quite possible that you will live here, on these old wood floors, using that bathtub, for many of your early years. The circumstances of your conception and growth within me do not match the relative stability of most of your first year.

Ironically, it’s something your dad worries about for you. Not the crazy beginning--he worries about the lack of adventure in your present and near-future.

I had longed for you, child. Did you know that? How I wanted to be pregnant again, to feel those tumbles within. To experience giving birth again. To breastfeed, and smell that newborn smell. It’s fierce, that biological drive. Just ask your dad. I don’t think he knows how to contend with it at times.

But just so you know, you were wanted, in the deepest way possible.

I was prepared for the worst when adding you to our family. Sibling rivalry, sleepless nights. Crying, and lots of it. After all, I’d done this once before, and now I was going to do it WITH an older child. Some of my expectations were met (a year later, and we’re STILL not sleeping through the night!), others seem a distant and silly worry.

It’s nice to have a baby around, you know? Those chubby legs (oh, the legs!), the toothless grins (and now the 4-teeth grins, almost equally as cute, although the gap between your top 2 teeth is alarmingly wide!), the open-eyed wonder at just about anything (you giggled tonight in the tub when you figured out how to make sound come out of a flute-type thing--you almost couldn’t repeat it because you kept laughing so hard every time you began, so pleased with yourself in anticipation.)

Here are some snapshots of your first year:

-wrapped up like a burrito, tuft of hair sticking out all over, sleeping that deep newborn sleep in the crook of the couch.

-riding in and loving the Moby wrap, any way we wrapped it.

-your quick and business-like nursing.

-watching Rowan, watching Rowan, watching Rowan.

-trying anything--and I do mean anything---to figure out how you would sleep the best.

-getting diagnosed with pneumonia at 5 months and all those tests, pricks, and prods, too much for a baby.

-trying to figure out what to do with all your hair, finally settling on 2 ponytails, eventually taming down to be able to handle 2 barrette-like clips.

-your quick smile and hearty laugh.

-getting baptized with Rowan and your cousins Shae and Tayva--your great-grandpa Pekelder baptized you all, and I’ll never forget holding you in my arms…and your wide eyes as you watched his hand come over you, you smiled, almost laughed, at the surprise of the sprinkle.

-your assertive spirit. That’s a nice way of saying that you are strong-willed. Which is a nice way of saying that you are bossy. In the last few months you’ve especially revealed this trait---you’ve played around with throwing tantrums, you can whine with the best of them, and you absolutely scold anyone who crosses your will.

-the way you’ve made the sign for “nurse” your own. It’s supposed to look a bit like milking a cow, a fist opening and closing. You tried that for awhile, but have settled on a 2 handed version of the sign for “cash-money”, more like rubbing your thumbs over your other fingers. Give me the milk now, momma.

-the way you journeyed into solid foods with gusto---and the equal gusto with which you started showing preferences. You went very quickly from a varied, impressive diet that included all kinds of dark green vegetables and things as exotic as kale and artichoke….to literally scraping pureed food out of your mouth with your whole hand, and stubbornly refusing to try something suspicious by burying your chin into your neck. Did I mention the strong will?

-your negotiation skills. I’m pretty sure Rowan never tried a chip, a french fry, a cookie, ice cream, goldfish, a rice krispie treat, or sips of momma’s tea, before her first birthday. You, my love, have convinced us to let you taste all of those things, and more.

-the way you love to read books. You’re bringing them to us, now, and you get so excited when we first sit down with a book. You have some favorites. You ohh and ahh. In this photo, you've just spotted a bird in your book, and you're giving me your sign for bird. You are really that excited.
-your drunken walking. I adore the stage of early walking, if only for the way your butt waddles like an old lady.

I know you intimately, child. I could fill page upon page with the details I know about you, the quirks that I love, the many moments throughout a day that I want to smother you with kisses and wrap you up in my love.

Stay here awhile, will you? Just-turned one is a good age.

I love you, Piper Jane. And I always will.

Happy Birthday.

(Post-script: I wrote this on the eve of Piper’s birthday. Had a rough night for the 3rd night in a row, so called the DR this AM…and Piper got a fun first birthday present: a double ear infection. Wasn’t exactly in our plans for the day, but we’ll roll with it! She's miserable. And thankfully, presently sleeping.)