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.

A few oldies from the backlog of Piper's first year...

One day, I took Piper's amber-beaded necklace and swung it like a skipping rope to entertain her while she ate. A few days later, she surprised me by trying it herself! This was about 4 months ago now (at age 9 months), but she still enjoys trying different bead tricks!

Piper loves all the boys at church. These are our friends Nathan, Jocelyn, and Michael who sit with us in the kids corner during service.

Mikey, their son, loves vegetables and not so much meat, much to the chagrin of his ex-Kiwi dairy farmer grandfather. Nov. 2013

 

 We made it out to the beach near Chris's sister Liz's house a few times this summer. Piper loved the waves! Here she is trying out Liz's stand-up kayak-SUP. Liz and Jeremy have two boys--Noah and Tyler. Dec 2013

I hope to post a few more from our trip home in November and December 2013, but here is just one funny portrait of Piper sitting with Santa at Macy's in Philadelphia. Chris saw that the children in line to see Santa were being directed to differently numbered rooms. He asked the cheerful, Victorianly-bedecked assistant: "Hey, how many Santas do you have operating in this place?"

 We try to get as much sun as possible in the summer! Feb 2014
 

Piper had a whale of time at her cousin Leo and Charlie's birthday parties earlier in the year. She is only about 6 or 7 months here. Here, the kids are playing the popular British game "Pass the Parcel," which is virtually unknown in the US! Sister Liz and her son Noah are to the left of Chris.

Tales of America and books at dinnertime

Now and again, Chris enjoys regaling Piper with tales and tidbits of our future homeland in America. We here in NZ hear much about the shootings that tragically transpire in the land of the free, and fear the poisonous spiders that our near neighbours Australia and US boast, while NZ remains secluded from almost all deadly villianous arachnids. Today, he told her that there would be spiders with guns, but some good things too...like Grandma and Grandpa.

Piper and Dad are currently reading "Bears in the Night" by Stan Berenstein. While I find it spooky, he reads it so dramatically that Piper squeals with joy. Because she has had beetroot as one of her courses, by the end of the meal, she looks as though she has been in a bloodbath, so Chris says, "Ok! Daddy will clean up this little murder victim."

We really cannot remember what in the world we did with all our time before Piper arrived and consumed so many of the stretch of time between Chris's return and the close of our eyes in sleep. Such a little person requires such an exponential amount of work.

 Chris set up this tea party for Piper to find when she woke up. Everyone who was anyone attended!

 A sweet little face

 She loves the "splash" with Dad time!

 Feeling squeaky clean

 The church we are members of meets in a Middle School/Intermediate School Hall. We have to set up and break down each week. Families with kids sit in the "kids corner" :)

It's all a far cry from the splendour of Tenth Presbyterian Church, and the gorgeous music ministry there. However, God loves and dwells among all peoples and all styles of worship.

 Piper tries to get to know the newest baby in our church family, little Hazel Van Rijs.

 Piper is getting more and more confident on the slide! She loves it now!