bit o this, jumper that

Today is our anniversary, and we had a nice day yesterday which was good, as the rain is much harder today out there.  We are very happy for six years together and the home and family we have built together.  Mark says this year will mark twenty years of him living in Tennessee.. and he likes the way it has turned out these past few years very much.  So do I, it will be eight years for me?  I came down in 2005 from Fargo, maybe with a visit in late 2004.  We will see if we will do the library today under umbrellas.. I did promise Esme I would and it might be a day I could get behind piling up a few books and letting her do her thing while I go through a stack.  If I bring a notebook, much more the case, probably.

 

The recycled shirt jumper and a bird painting I was inspired out of a magazine picture

I made two jumpers yesterday - as the one she had worn to school twice was very handy.  I had to put the buttonhole on a sewn-on band as the necks were too tight to button straight.  But, they used up scraps and one of them was actually recycled out of a shirt that would not fit me from the thrift store.  They will be useful for quite a while that way and she likes them over long sleeved tshirts now, which is a change from days when we could never weasel her into one without a banshee fight.  Daddy said she washed her hair for school very very well the other day, too - very little fighting.  Our little girl may be gaining a bit of wisdom there, maybe?

Esme quotes:  
I was eating all day, and now I am done, and I'm playing with Mom and my brain is bored, it is so bored, it is laying on the table, and it is sleeping - and my brain is bored, like that, its on that table. (as she carries her half-full plate down to the kitchen from the eating area)

She sang me the 'Jerry Fairy' song - which I could not understand the name of, and she was getting mad - but then I convinced her to sing it further and it was the months of the year, the 'January February song'.  She was going at them 100 miles per second, I only caught a few of them in full.  Less than ten minutes later, she sang it all at normal speed for Daddy and it was perfect.  We were very proud of her.   She has named that pink polka dotted dolly from Christmas 'January' for the moment.. as she needed to have a name and I wouldn't give her one.  'Coming up with' names makes her think, so does drawing - she wants to give up, but she can do it if she doesn't try to hide behind 'I'm too small', which is a frequent cop-out. 

We went to a pet store in Paris yesterday, and she saw fish, lizards, frogs, snakes, a spider and a flying squirrel.  She was most impressed with the fish - stared at every tank for so long.. and watched Daddy handling the albino corn snake with a nervous giggle and five feet of distance, then told him he had done so well with the beautiful snake with the beautiful tongue.  We are thinking of making up a fish tank again, we had one she loved to watch when she was less than 3.  Grandma, she will be telling you about the snakes - I am sure!  She wanted to tell you about them on the phone then.

We played with the markers yesterday at my request.  She did a drawing of herself with a line for legs/hips and ten marks underneath it to be all ten toes.  She drew the same figure climbing a ladder to her really big slide she dreams of.  She drew much more complete figures months ago, but she was more interested in drawing then, and I think she is taking shortcuts.  The ten toes had to be accurate, though - she counted each line to make sure they were there.

Later : She had a great day out with me to library and McDonalds.  She talked to a lot of kids and also to the librarian - I had to tell this same child to calm down and quiet down when months ago she covered her ears and cried at the singing.  She gave a pretty decent run down to the library bookstore lady about what we had done and what we were going to do - but she didn't remember the name of the place we were going to and said 'children don't know the everythings, children don't do that.'  It was cool to talk with her when we were alone at the restaurant about jobs, what she wanted to do when she grows up (feed dogs, and clean the floor because they get messy), what 'country' music is (the farmer songs? she asked and pointed up) and when each song changed how it was different and many other things.  Another girl from the library showed up and she slowly acquired a posse of little girls to run and screech with, yet after a one minute warning she was ready to say thank you for playing with me and go home with me.  She did call me a super monster mama.. but said she loved me and she was happy we went all the places.  She took a bath when she got home and still talked about some of it.   She told Grandma on the phone we had went to McDonalds and the library and it was very easy to understand.  We are cleaning out an old aquarium now because she is still interested in having fish - and we think a goldfish or two may be okay.