Bookends from our recent vacation, from which we are still recovering!

Perhaps one of the nicest things about car travel in New Zealand is the abundance of wonderful cafes dotting State Highway One. In lieu of the huge rest-stop mini-mall complexes providing oases along US highways, NZ offers up little hobbit-like watering holes, each unique and proud. 

On our way north to the popular holiday spot Lake Taupo, we stopped in Taihape (pronounced TIE-HAPPY :). This lovely cafe, like most others, serves barista coffees, soups, sandwiches, baked goods, burgers, and more, and offers a sandpit and garden out back for children. AND, it's just one of two or three in little, backwater Taihape!

 

Piper was less than impressed by sitting strapped into a seat, facing backwards for the five hours to Taupo, but she did well overall. About an hour from our destination, however, she lost it. We got out for milk and hide and seek! 

As is famously commanded by Princess Buttercup's prince, "Skip to the End!" We skip to the culmination of our holiday. Here, we were warmly and wonderfully welcomed by Chris's brother Richy, his wife Jenny, and their two boys Charlie (4) and Leo (2). To break our journey, we stayed the night on their mini-farm about 2 hours from our house.

Piper could have moved in! She bottle-fed the orphan lamb, jumped on the trampoulines, played in the sandpit, and generally just enjoyed the companionship of her big cousins. When she woke on Sunday morning, I plunked her down into the farmhouse's large dining room/kitchen. As she slowly woke and took in her surroundings, her little face broke into a huge smile to realise she was still there with Leo and Charlie!! 

 
A very tired Piper and her comrade Leo at Leo's grandma's house.

 Auntie Denise and Uncle Norm (Leo and Charlie's grandma and grandpa) are accomplished gardeners. Piper took advantage of their beautiful new concrete walkways to push her stroller with focus.

We sampled eatable flowers and fresh beans, and were gifted with beautiful, garden-fresh kale. Chris dreams of nurturing his own veggie patch someday! Norm and Denise will certainly be ready for an earthquake.

A Walk by the Porirua Harbour and lunch with the Lawton family

Piper really does seem to think that when Dad holds her, she is tall and can go anywhere. A few Saturdays ago, we raced out after a day of chores to catch some exercise in the final rays of the winter sun.

  About 15 minutes from our house is this "domain,"harbouring numerous boats, some of which are live-on. As a young teen, Chris used to often walk the domain with his aunt, uncle and cousins.

                   

 Piper selected a NZ flax to lead the parade.

 Looking back from the domain towards the main national highway bridge across the harbour (yes! very small! They are currently building new roads. Many of our friends are employed on these new roadworks.)

 Two flaxes show that you really are the boss! I should send one to President Obama!

 Carry on soldiers!  

After walking the domain, Chris took Piper in the car, and I walk along the coast from Porirua domain up to Plimmerton Beach where Chris's sister lives. It was lovely to be on my own for 20 minutes and see the sun set along the water. We ordered a serving of the best fish and chips in NZ, and hung out with Chris's sister Liz and her family. Piper did not want to go home!

Meanwhile, back in Tawa...

 It's always funny when Piper gets spirulina powder in her dinner.

 Forty-five minutes up the Kapiti coast in Paraparaumu...

A rare lunch a few weeks ago with almost all of the NZ Lawton family. Chris took the day off after a weekend of night shift work, Richard and the kids were on school holidays, and Vanessa was not working! Sadly, Liz and family and Fiona and family were sick. We'll all meet up eventually!

Winter Faces

Piper laughs at Dad's show!

Piper loves to eat broccoli, especially when wearing her "Little Sprout" onsie from her aunties in America. 

Whenever the sun is shining and the temperatures are warm enough in winter, we enjoy a "naked lunch" in our backyard, or "garden" as they call it here. 

We recently took Piper to Wellington's famous Te Papa Museum of cultural history and art. She liked the toy and play area best, especially one week into walking. The open spaces were very welcome for long forays of biped motion after our small house in Tawa.

Dad holds Piper and "Baby Hazel,"  the only other baby girl at our church. Baby Hazel is nearly 6 months younger than Piper, though she doesn't look it here!

Autumnal NZ tidbits with Piper and Chris

Every child seems to pass through this rite of passage: intrigue with toilet paper.

We were blessed to be able to get away for a few days over Easter to the wine country of NZ, just over the mountain range that run up the side and bottom of the lower North Island. While on holiday, Piper enjoyed a drumming show from Chris during her meal. 

A scene from the Wairarapa, the wine country of the Lower North Island.

Though summer was clearly over, we still enjoyed a few summery days. Piper plays with her two toy tables. I had been praying for some affordable toys, and as we drove home along the coast one day, we saw a preschool having a clean out sale! She loves these tables! This is a photo of our little back yard/garden.

Piper and me washing our hands--one of our most frequent daily activities :) 

For a while, we tried dinner times at this little Piper-sized table. It turned out to be too easy to get away from this chair, but it was quite cute while it lasted! I'm thankful for Chris who day by day entertains Piper during dinner time.

Birthday Celebrations

Just around the time of her first birthday, Piper started to boldly walk small lengths of the floor! She beams with pride at her ventures, and likes to walk to Mom or Dad. She is not yet toddling everywhere yet.

Piper's 1st birthday party took place on Saturday 21 June 2014 from 11am-2pm at a local church hall in Tawa, the suburb in which we live.

Family members drove down from up the coast, and friends journeyed in from over the valley. In all, there were predominantly little boys in attendance, though 3 brave girls played alongside 13 or so lads! Above is 2-year-old Leo Lawton, the son of Chris's brother Richard.

 Chris bravely and wonderfully lead hours of games for the tikes and adults, often pitting adults against kids by involving them in similar challenges, but with the adults bearing the extra burden of a handicap (usually having to wear boxing gloves or dress in a hat, coat, and scarf before starting their leg of the relay. Hehe.).

 A hungry little Noah Smith, Chris's sister Liz's (the firefighter)'s son awaits sausages and homemade soup for lunch!

Chris talks with his brother-in-law Louis, a painter, and Richard listens with Leo at his knee. We don't often get together, so it was lovely to spend time!

Here is Josh Van Rijs, the eldest child in the sizable Van Rijs clan from our church.

Josh seems the sensitive, inquisitive intellectual, while his second oldest brother, Tim, nearly beat the pinata to death. I see him as a future Marine. Piper seems to smile most at Tim :)

 Noah enjoys his sausage roll, while our brother-in-law Jeremy holds Tyler and talks with Chris's step-sister Fiona.

 This hand-crafted fly pinata, the larger in a set of two insect specimens, hung menacingly over the proceedings until the time of his inevitable demise!

Though each day was hard work, we are so thankful to the Lord for Piper's life and health this year. We rejoice in the joy and blessing she brings to many with her sweet smiles and loving personality. Praise the Lord!

Piper narrates some recent developments

My new favorite activity is crawling into the wet shower, just to be like Dad, and to chew sponges.  But, I get stuck! Mom, come rescue me!

I require many entertainments while eating! Teddy sometimes distracts me.

                                                        
I'm an easy target for laughs.

 My bedtime routine involves wrestling and playing with Dad in the big bed for about half an hour while Mom has some down time. Sometimes, it's all too much for a work-weary Dad, but we always have a blast!

 Mom and I in the photo-op cart in the Asian section at the Wellington Zoo.









When we go out in public, I try to make friends. Here I am at the library....

Today, just 2 days short of one year, Weston A. Price-style, I ate my first grains--sprouted amaranth cereal. I was more in it for the blueberries. 

 Thank you for checking in on my progress! 

Love,

Piper

Distasteful car rides and single parenthood spells

               Piper does not enjoy long car rides (more than 15 minutes!), and particularly ones with no adventuresome end for her in sight. Perhaps, as an "attachment baby" she cannot yet fathom a half hour to an hour of total disconnectedness. Without understanding the reasons, facing backwards and away from her parents or friends, with only her flashing mirror and heap of toys in her lap for solace does indeed seem singularly unloving. We little understand the necessity of safety measures when we are small, and often when we are old, too. How will she cope someday in the long stretches of American roads? The more I consider the matter, the more I am convinced that we must work to find residence within walking or short driving distance of Whole Foods and Trader Joes, and a library :)

This is about the only "holding device" aside from the sling that she can "tolerate with equanimity". Piper in America, Nov. 2013.

Yesterday, Monday, Chris was finally home all day after a weekend of overnight shifts at work for "Mock One" testing phase of their big current project. I found it particularly hard to serve a shift or two of quasi-single parenthood. Solo, around the clock care of a nearly 1-year-old is difficult in the extreme! In my exhaustion I find myself praying for mothers who do not feel they can cope. How in the world is my sister-in-law Mandy managing with an infant and a 3-year-old on her own while Evan is away in the Middle East??? She is a superstar!

I was grateful for a few hours of company from my dear friend Jenn as she worked on crafting another pinata for Piper's party on the 21st. During this time, I made three meals for the three of us, and fed myself and Piper, but got not much more done. By God's grace, all other days of the week, I have a helpful, willing, and fun partner who is able to read and put on a dinnertime "show" for Piper, take her out for walks while I sit finally do 10 or 15 minutes of my own "work." Even if this revamped thesis never gets published (Oh Lord, help it not to be so!), it has been a blessing of great magnitude for my sanity to keep my mind active in the realm of philosophy, arts, literature, and theology by this project of publication attempts. I look forward to the day when I might serve my community by teaching these. Until then, I will pray for joy and wisdom in caring for Piper and serving my friends. It does not come naturally to me to spend time with children, though I have always loved and been grateful for the simplicity, openess, and trust of the "childlike." It is perhaps the element of physical semi-helplessness in children that is so exhausting!

Children, or at least, Piper, really does crave her dad's time and attention! Here they are a few months ago working together on assembling the new charity shop bed for the guest room.