Packed school lunches

Esme said that there were kids bumping her tray and making her spill things at school - and apparently nothing had been done about that by teachers, so she wanted to start bringing a lunch box to school.  She also wanted to sit with certain girls who sit at the lunchbox table... so there is a double motive there.  We told her she would have to earn the lunch box by taking brown paper bag lunches to school until Christmas Break, which is at the end of next week.  If she does good with those and is actually eating what is sent - she can buy the pink lunchbox at the store.

So, now she is eating ravenously at home, and she 'appeared' to eat her lunch yesterday as the bag came home empty.  I packed her another today, and she seemed to approve of all of the contents.  I had went out to the store and picked up some fruit and better bread etc etc.. to make the lunch more complete.  And I insisted she eat a cheese stick this morning and part of a bagel and milk.  Which, she did.. although she hates cheese she said it wasn't so bad.

Since I don't know and haven't been told if they refrigerate their lunches (Esme says they don't - they stay in the backpack) I have just sent (good) strawberry jam on bread the past few days and assorted other items and a drink to make it balanced.  If she gets refrigeration or a lunch box I can send an insulated sandwich case with a cold pack so she can take bologna sandwiches with ketchup, which she likes.  It might make her a little less picky about what she eats and/or just be a learning experience for both of us.  I kind of like the idea of packing her a lunch at night for the next day - but don't like the idea I might not know what she eats and what she doesn't.  etc etc...

Pancakes on birthday

It was Mark's birthday today and we celebrated 'in' with games and movies and a short trip to Grandma's house. The ice outside is over everything.

Mark cooked sausage and I backed up with pancakes, which are a special occasion thing I do from time to time.

 I always end up with the same recipe - although I keep having to go track it down and find three copies later hidden on the fridge etc etc...

Recipe for Pancakes

 1 1/2 cups flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
 1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp white sugar
3 tbsp melted butter

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, mix Combine egg and vanilla and milk in second bowl, mix, add melted butter, mix again Mix all materials together. Using small amounts of coconut oil for each pancake spoon 1/2 cup quantities onto a semi-hot skillet (6/9 temperature) and flip as soon as edges are able to be slid under with spatula and small bubbles emerge in center of pancake. Make all pancakes, smother in maple syrup, and eat.

I go back to work tomorrow but right now the world is covered in strange ice.. .pretty but scary. I am thinking to go to the worktable and see if the sewing machine will function... I go to my sewing machine and find several of my paper patterns out of place with torn pieces carefully put back with them.  I remember Esme said last week she had saved my pattern from the dog - but it was there, and it was safe.  It didn't look damaged then.. and she did save it - careful taping and it is useable again.  I know a four footed creature was involved...  a week before that I found my bird shaped pincushion on the staircase where things end up chewed...and it was intact but the pins were probably a big surprise for that same four footed individual....

Eyes

 A picture she drew last night showing us at the rainbow leading up to our green house with her swing tree and how much she loves it.  Then she tried to draw the zoo on the left.

Her eyes are getting green and blue together in them, and the light was just right to take a few new pictures for Grandma.  Now I just need to make sure I print them so I can send them out.

We are staying in for the weekend as it is icy and planned to snow.  It is Mark's birthday tomorrow, and he thinks he'll cook himself a steak.

bits

Christmas is approaching, and we are getting a few things in order for that.  Esme's list to Santa Claus included a 'jackhammer' to do road construction with (pretend, of course), a trapeze/ring bar to strengthen her arms, a My Little Pony (which keeps changing so we just picked what was available today) and a teaset.. which has already been delivered by the tooth fairy but she argues it had to have been Santa because it was on the list.  I saw the note from the tooth fairy ;)  I've got a few surprises and some necessities saved out, too. 

Her reading is getting a lot better, and her guesses are getting better, too.  Her art is much more detailed, the bridge she drew today had blue waves underneath it, two cars and one of them was a 'mouse' car that was tiny with tiny headlights.  She gets in counting moods, still, and she has to count all the pieces of pizza or all the dots on a toy speaker and trying to figure out how to group the pattern etc etc.. to count faster - I wonder if I've encouraged that with her showing her math things on top of her already obsessive nature, or if she just comes by it naturally and it expresses that way.  Her attitude is great at times and awful at others... and our communication is still 'off' at times, we argue or she doesn't tell us about something until it is much too late. 

Today she reminded me at night, while in the bathtub, that she had not had her shirt she needed for her school project today.  She was sure she could bring it tomorrow - but that did not look like what the note said when I read it... so I told her we will decorate it together at home and she can wear it at the party later in the month.  Early this morning she was all up in a tizzy about some drawing of a bridge she needed to bring to school to the 'bridge hall' and lay on the table with the other bridges.  We had no note at all for this - so I think she was trying to break into another class project from 2nd or 3rd grade and add her contribution.  I made her put her name on it and she said I was ruining the plan.  *ha*... she took it in her backpack and it has not come home tonight, so....  some days we just know she's ours, other days, its radiantly obvious.  And at other even rarer times, like tonight, she crawls into bed at 7 pm while I am making up the covers and she usually fights until way after 8.. and settles down to go to bed like it is nothing... and we look at each other and say 'in bed by 7:15... how?'

notes

I think the other day how 'big' Esme is and yet also how small she still is.  Like when she was trying to cut a piece of bread with her knife - trying to cut it in half and ended up sawing it, with much difficulty, into two pieces, one 3/4 and one 1/4, and looking at it hanging together with a crust as if 'Why is this so hard when it looks so easy?'  And I see how small her hands still are compared to mine, even though they have grown so much.

Esme is sitting in the back seat of the car with the sun shining on her face.  Mama, the sun is choosing me.  It is ch-o-sing me!  Just like the moon talked to Jack Frost and chose him, the sun is talking to me and chosing me to be a hero.  What will I do?  How can I be a hero?  Mama, what is the sun chosing me for?

She has me tie two pipe cleaners around a glittery water ball she has - after being upset that one pipe cleaner comes off each time she tries, and she can't tie it tight enough.  I tie the second around it, and she is certain it won't work - she stomps off.. I tell her to pay attention, that she needs to pay attention to see how I do this because I learned it by paying attention.  'When you was a child?'  Yes - when I was a child, and even now, I pay attention to learn things.  I get it tied, and she takes it to her room and into her bed, which the canopy is now covered with her large blanket so it is dark inside.  It is a tent - like the gypsies have, to tell fortunes.  Look into my crystal ball, Mama.  To see the future? No, to see yourself, as a child.  Ah.. so I am from the future seeing myself as a child?  Yes, Mama. I tell her I had a dream when I was a child that I was sitting on top of my swingset and a lady from the future came and told me lots of things, including that my little girl I would have would have a name starting with 'E'.. but it was a dream, and I always wondered if the lady was me, and if I had built a time machine, but I have never done that yet.  And then she got big eyes and said 'Mama, it was me.  I built the time machine.  And I saw you as a child!'  So, we have that to look forward to... and anyway, it is a nice dream.

inch of water

About 2 am there was a roaring sound downstairs, and the washing machine hose had disintegrated off of the valve in the wall, sending water out like a fire hose all over the garage, and building up an inch of water in Esme's room, the storage room, the bathroom and edging into the kitchen... but we stopped it before it got into the cabinets.  About 100 gallons of water picked up later we are starting to repair the washing machine and dig everything out of Esme's room that might mold and replace the flooring.  The flooring here was designed to keep the concrete floor warmer, but be easily replaceable in case there was a drainage problem from the garage door again... which happened several years ago.  We just didn't expect it to be from a non Mother Nature source in the middle of winter....

Esme was a bit upset that she lost her big horse stuffed toy, a special teddy bear and a few other things that were on the floor and full of water.  She decided she needed to add on to her Santa drawing from a few days ago and tell him what happened.

 

A quick 'after' shot, new flooring down, new closet rod - warm and dry in Esme's room again.

Now we have to work on the washing machine, which is a bit harder fix than we thought it would be...

Plan for a Tiger

Esme's plan for a tiger, and the resulting toy sans shirt .. she decided his eyes should be more like the pink dog I made for her friend's birthday - and I took a good look at the cartoon character she was trying to emulate with her drawing.  I do love her drawing :)

Early morning hugs and cat face rubs, as well. This was just after her and the cat went to the moon in the spaceship toy we made last Christmas. Really, she has a gift for herding cats - I'm not sure where that comes from.

Inspection from the Pollywog cat... 

I will need to make the red shirt tomorrow, perhaps.  Somebody would like me to try to make an owl, for their toddler, as well.. I'll see what I might be able to conjure up, especially if they provide me with a drawing.

Spud came home yesterday.  Daphne and Sweetie did not.  We're still holding out hope they are just waiting for it to not be stormy... but the other dogs are starting to get worried now - and fanning out over the property in little 'search parties' at times...  Spud came home with a dry head and no sign he had been fighting anything or into any roadkill etc... very worrisome with the girls still missing.

Bit

Esme's drawing of Santa Claus.  She hasn't written her letter yet, but she worked hard on this the other day.  I am still slowly climbing out of the sinus infection - it is going well, and I am trying to pay more attention to what I eat to see if that has a big effect or not.  Mostly I've been reading in my free time, instead of knitting or sewing.  There are things I want to do, but they seem like 'too much' at the moment... which means I'm still not up to full speed.  I've read Terry Pratchett - Wyrd Sisters, Lords and Ladies, Witches Abroad, Maskerade, The Wee Free Men, and am probably going to start on I Shall Wear Midnight today.  Esme had her book fair and brought home a book.  I'm starting to think about little things for Christmas and where we might find them.  I do need to start back with the knitting as one of those was a Chrsitmas gift.

Three of our dogs - Daphne, Sweetie and Spud went out before the storm yesterday and still are not back today.  Loula is on the porch watching for them... we are hoping they just found a hole during the storm and have not yet felt it was died down enough to make the trek home.  Or they found something dead in the woods, like a deer a hunter has left.  But, we're a bit worried for them.  It's not like Sweetie especially to be away from the house for very long at all.

When toys play army

Esme and I had a toy war today - it was kind of like a game of chess, whoever was the winner of a fight that toy got thrown 'out'... and she won by sheer numbers.  For the record I brought up at least three items she stole when I wasn't looking... and then she went and got even more reinforcements.  It was pretty fun.. and ended in foam dart target shooting, as well... the pig was a ballistic missile which matched up to her cannon... but a lady doll came and seduced Spiderman and then ran off with the elephant (who had a water attack) behind enemy lines before we could catch her.  Quite the imagination.

She had been so VERY VERY wiggly and annoying for hours and hours before this - she needed something 'big', so when she said 'Mom, let's build'.. I said 'Yes, good idea.' 

The cough is going away a bit more for me, less drainage down from my nose - she has a little still... it was a very rainy day for most of the day so staying inside and finding things to do was on the agenda from the start.

She had a visit from her Grandma Irene - and she showed her toys and puppies and kittens.  I also had her draw a picture for her Nana in Minnesota - of an invention she called a 'duck catcher', a potato on a string - I have no idea where it all came from, but she drew herself sitting at an 'invention table' showing off the potato on a string with hearts and bumblebees all around.  I'm sending that with the letter and school picture to my mom...

Back to work tomorrow,

days fly by

and the coughing hangs on...which bruised my ribs some yesterday and I am paying the price for it.  I don't have much crafting to report since the dragon puppet - I need to work on that pattern some more, need to make Esme a few more pairs of pants out of fabric I have, need to finish a second slipper sock for her...have that blanket I was working on that is stalled in halfway.

Esme and I talked this morning about the Christmas List she should write in a week or so - two or three items to 'ask' for.. like the spaceship and the giraffe last year.. and Santa will do his best to make something like it happen.  I told her I would also like her to think about what she would like to give Grandma this year, and Daddy.. and maybe buy something to give to the toy donation box for a child who will not get a toy this year.  I want to curb that 'greedy' I saw at her birthday, where she suddenly thought she was getting everything she ever wanted so she just had to keep sassily asking 'Hey, where is my toy?', 'Hey, why isn't there a cartoon on for me?' etc etc...  I showed her the typhoon victims, and a few other things that happened here in the U.S. (sinkhole house), and a few good things, like a baby rescued, and some informational videos mixed in about how things are made, how they saved a man from freezing water... those have been her topics in the morning instead of 'hey where is my cartoon'.  I see an effect, at least for now.  I want her heart to continue to grow with the rest of her body :) inside... and she seems to have taken another good look at how many toys she really has, and how much food and warm things she really has...

Nova dog also had ten puppies again today.  We knew she was 'along' again, but it was Mark's decision and he decided he wanted to see these puppies.  There are three this time that look like Daphne and Sweetie, and two more brown shade speckled... that is more 'speckled' than she has ever had at once.  That was the type of dog he was going for - speckled coat, blue eye/s and usually the brains come with that.  I do see much more 'brain' quality in these dogs we have than I ever have seen in others - they listen, they think, they tell you things... and they also go barking after squirrels at three in the morning howling their heads off.. but it is a different breed of coonhound than their mother is, that is for certain.  They have ideas, and so far the ones we have think pretty well as a team, in a very good way.

I am about to call into work to give my ribs another day to heal.  I slept on an icepack for a few hours last night and took ibuprofen... it stopped the 'pain like contractions every time I breathe' type pain... but it still feels like someone rammed me in the side of the ribs with knuckles... sore area, feel it when I cough just wrong or twist just wrong, or press on it.  Good news is that sounds like a bruise, not a fracture.  I'll probably get in trouble calling in for it but I was told yesterday that being there in pain like that was not good for anyone either... I looked like the death and like I was mad at the world... one of my grandmotherly friends there (who always is happy to talk to Esme and has good advice often) said she would hit me right in the ribs (nicely) if I came back in saying it was 'not so bad'... so I would go home and rest.  Nice.  Ha.  Well, at least she cares enough to tell the truth.

At the last day of vacation

It is the last day of vacation.. and we haven't been able to truly enjoy the nine days, but they are just about over.  Esme has been intense, but her cough and etc. are about halfway better.  She really needs to go to school tomorrow...


We've had a couple of  'feeling better but too much sass' days... it would be much better if 1.) it was warmer outside and 2.) she didn't have a cough that just hangs on.  We read the level 3 Secret Garden easy reader together last night - and I hope she got some of the message in it.

We took her out for a ride on her bike on the road, raised the handlebars and the seat.. she was making really good progress on the level road riding up and down.  Of course she fell several times, got back on after the tears... seriously she was more upset it seemed at the prospect her bike bell might be broken then she was at falling over the handlebars and saying we were supposed to catch her...  She has good spirits about trying it again - we had taken the training wheels off but will probably put them back on for the next lesson at least to start.

Puppet prototype

This morning I sat down with a notebook, tape, scissors and a pen, then progressed to cutting and sewing scraps out of my bag over the course of several hours.  About three reworks later, attended to by Esme, this puppet was finally something that worked like a puppet should.

It was supposed to be a unicorn, but it turned out to be a dragon.

She said this one was a hug, and I had to include it.

There will have to be reworks in order to get the actual pattern 'right', but she likes this dragon as a finished product.  She thought his ears could have been better - and I didn't take much time on them because they were 'could be anything' type of thing - not needing as much work as the shape of a head or arm etc etc..  She said it is an ice AND fire dragon that eats sunlight.  His family is away on a picnic, and we are looking after him until they get back.