Styling

Esme styling wearing my blanket and sunglasses in the house, at night.  I am off work for Sunday - which is good... been working straight all week long.  I've been knitting on Esme's blanket (pink, blue and purple version of same) and wonder if it will be done by her birthday.  I'm thinking about more birthday things - have to ask Grandma some things about using the office up there for her guest(s)?  I told Mark the blanket colors (which started out as scraps and I bought some items today to extend it) remind me of Esme's unicorn we bought for her birthday... and I asked if it then was unicorn puke with all the yarn stretched out...

cool fact: cowpeas have 2.5 to 3 percent pressable oil, which is expressed mostly as trigylcerides containing unsaturated fatty acids, mostly phytosterols and  tocopherols - the first being studied as a blocker for cholesterol and the second an antioxidant component of vitamin E similar to olive oil.  (percentage cite from pdf: Pak.J.Bot 42(2) 1333-1341, 2010 found through Wikipedia, other chem knowledge from wikipedia)  The other night when I was peeling and shelling cowpeas Mark was drawn from the upstairs and said he thought he has smelled olive oil.  I find that a very cool connection.  I am very glad the Whipporwill cowpeas that I bought through Etsy - from a farm in Waverly, TN- have taken so well to our soil and given me so much food and seed in return.  They want to be 'late season' crops, though... last year as well the late season ones did the very best of all.

Other notes:  Esme's speech is taking off - she has so much more to say now... and boy does she say it!  It is still strangely worded/structured at times, but she accepts corrections well and has such a large imagination, creativity to her play and her building and her stories... still demanding Napoleon attitude, though.. .have to work on that part probably for the next thirteen years!

I can hardly recall exactly the streams she goes off on now - she is 'imaginative' and sometimes downright facetious, as well...  She wanted a third glass of juice last night after dinner and we told her she would have to wait until one of us went back downstairs.  So - she said she would go get water *cough cough* because she was feeling sick.  She came back upstairs and said she felt all better now, let's play.  She also told me during dinner she did not need to eat because her teacher told her she was done.  *roll eyes*  Really now.  When, last week?  She is very very interested in decorating for a party (she can say 'decorating' now, too!) and pretends she is doing it, talks about doing it - makes tea parties for her toys ...  I think of the difference since last January and ... it blows me away.

A Toy turtle and a bucket and minecraft creations

Esme playing outside with her toy turtle, a balloon and a bucket full of water.   She was filling the balloon with water and having the turtle use it as a cup of magic that turned into a money bag then back into water..??  I'm not sure where it comes from half the time, now as much as before even though I hear more of the contents of her imagination now than ever before.

She had told me she was a boy, with a message (a leaf) that said she missed her house and her family was in the woods and she had escaped the bears that were attacking and they needed help!  But, she quickly said they were alright, they were alive - and she was here to play.  It is a little cold out for this playing in the water she is doing, had to bring her in and change shoes out once already.  And now I am about to drag her in for a bath before a warm dinner and hopefully she will comply.  Daddy has porkchops in the oven and I have a butternut type squash in there, as well.   Esme  has been absolutely full of energy today since going to town with Mom and Grandma earlier... she needs to work a little bit of it off for Mom's sanity, perhaps?

And also - this is what she spends most of her time doing when she is not outside playing in the mud and water. It is her latest edition of Minecraft - we make her a new world every few days to a week because she fills them up so much with cows and chickens it is hard to keep the processing speed up.  Mom and Dad have their own separate worlds to play in, and she is not allowed to spawn millions of chickens in them.

The tall blue spires are water that can be swum up and 'rode' down.
I did help her make a railway that went to this 'jungle' from the village, but cows and chickens keep getting in the way when we ride it.

She spent a lot of time making this garden today before we went to town. 

 

She is fond of pink wool, and for some reason she finds it very funny to replace blocks in the village houses (which are prebuilt in this game) with pumpkins. She fills the houses up with water as well and makes 'pools' serving them cake blocks and having 'parties'. There is a row of beds outside one of the houses so they can all take a nap when they are done with the party. There are a few signs all over the place that say 'dog' and 'egg' on them and other words she has attempted to spell but needed help with.

Yellow pants, red zinnia, purple beans

Cosmos are finally blooming prettily.

Almost purple Minion cat (and baby) 

The kitten looks so much like her she is hard to see!

A harvest from the garden today. I haven't been out there in over a week 

but the rain really helped everything perk back up.  There was twice this 

amount of nearly everything when I got done...

A proud hopper that was sitting on a bean plant.

Pretty red zinnia. 

Esme clowning around on the tires. 

She looks so tall and leggy...

The Tennessee Greasy Bean, planted back in May? It is finally coming into it's own and producing like mad. These are huge green and purple variegated beans that turn green when cooked. 

These are the yellow 'stardust' pants she picked the fabric for. They are 26.5 inches long from waistband to bottom cuff and a size 5 sewing pattern.  They take a yard and a half to make - which costs about 4 to 6 dollars and an hours worth of time to sew.  Pretty good budgetwise... just have to kick myself over there to the machine to make them once I've bought the fabric, as such a 'quick and easy' project doesn't always have the allure that a dress pattern would, even though replacements are so necessary when she runs through the woods, plays chase with the dogs or sits in mud for three hours and the stains don't come out!

Another shot.. she was being 'rockstar' and also 'careful not to step plants in the tires'. That is one of the few storebought T-shirts she has and it is already too small (a size 4) and showing her belly when she puts her arms up.  The long sleeved shirt is a gift from her grandparents for last birthday and is a size 5 - still fits and she likes it.

We have the parent teacher conference today...

It Can't Be Tuesday

I don't remember where Monday went... so can it be Tuesday?  I am fighting the wisdom teeth again but not as hard as in July - and it saps a lot of my energy.  That is probably why the weekend involved so much Minecraft and very little anything else.  All of the early risers in the household (Esme and the dogs and cats) don't help much in the sleep department.  Esme actually shut off her alarm this morning though and rolled back over and went to sleep.  She has a cold and is coughing some, but hopefully not as bad as a few days ago.  She told me the other day she was 'four of five' and she was trying to grow up, tall, just like me, and she would eat her food and grow up and be big, and she would have kids, and they would eat their food and grow up big and tall and... she wandered off. Those are some mighty lengthy plans kid.  She knows I am having trouble with my teeth and I have told her they are growing but my head is not - and that hurts.  She said her teeth were growing too, but her head and her hair were growing, so that was good, and she was going to have brown hair and her eyes would have green in them when they were grown up.  Her eyes are blue still, but there is a center of green peeking through... they might just change color within the next five years.  Mine were blue up until kindergarten, but I lost track of just when they turned hazel green, I think before eight? She has started looking at her teeth in the mirror often, brushing them more, and talking about how they chew food and help her grow.  I do need to find her a dentist soon - but having her learning about brushing her teeth on her own (after refusing with banshee screams for years) is encouraging.  Off to another fun day of work in an hour and a half .. all this week until Friday.

Note :  I let Esme play my Minecraft when I went to work yesterday.  I was down in the valley shearing sheep to get wool for my roof on my house.  I told her this and she kept shearing sheep.  When I came home and loaded my Minecraft she had taken the character back up in to the house (up a very long winding staircase from the valley) and had 'installed' half of my roof on the house where I had started.  That is a pretty good task for someone her size - it impressed me that she had put all that together, found her way back up there, and used dirt 'piles' to place and stand to reach the roof to put the blocks in.  She really pays attention to how we play and what we do - and she picks it up faster than I expect.  She was laying powered rail every few spaces with the regular rail for Daddy the other day without him telling her she needed to do that.  She really likes the railroad set in the game.

other note: She has been saying 'I can't' and 'I'm just a kid' a lot though, lately... about things like filling her drink cup, and blowing her nose, reading simple signs on chests in Minecraft that she knows the words for  - things she definitely CAN do.  I'm not sure who has put those words in her vocabulary. 

bits

This morning we brought Daphne the puppy with us on the way to school. Esme was in the back seat, geared up for cold in her jacket and hat and backpack. Daphne was howling and grumbling and 'talking' as coonhound puppies do. Esme was telling her 'it will be alright - we are not bringing you to the people', and 'it is morning time, the brown bears only come out at night, don't cry, don't worry'. Both of those cracked us up in the front seat. 'not bringing you to the people' was because we had given away all of the other puppies and we are keeping Daphne. It is funny and sad that Esme is still that scared of the 'brown bears' coming at night if we are outside. But - that has kept her from wandering too far in our woods or from going outside at night when we can't find her. Some day she will realize that brown bears do not live out in our woods - or at least anywhere close. However, coyotes do, and bobcats, and other things that would like to tear her up. So the legend of the Brown bears will still hold as long as it can. For the record - she has told me the big dogs and the goats fight the brown bears all night with their paws and their teeth and their horns - and that is why they don't get hurt but sleep a lot. Pretty good theories...

Mark said he watched Esme play at school a bit before he picked her up. She was chasing all of the other kids, throughout the playground, whether they wanted to be chased or not. That definitely sounds like her mother at her age ;)

note slice

Esme has been invited to a birthday party this Saturday. She has been 'expecting' this party for months now, even though I have not told her about it until she has asked. It was about this time last year - so she must have some other cue that she is following for 'G's birthday balloons time'. She keeps telling me she misses her G, even though she hasn't seen her for nearly a year. ?? She may have seen a picture on Facebook or on my computer when she was poking around and been reminded of the event that way. I've grown used to things like that around here, almost. She still gets me 'out of left field' sometimes and I have to work out how she got there.

We bought a small present at the dollar store the other day and she is making her plans how we will give it, but of course, she wants to keep it at the same time. Lessons ;) It is happening at ChuckECheese in the 'big town', and I asked for the day off. I usually do not ask for time off esp. at short notice but after telling my HR exactly why I wanted to be with Esme and how she had been looking forward to it already, she signed off on it. The birthday girl's parents offered to take Esme down there with them and back... but I couldn't say yes to that.

It is their day, and they don't know as much about Esme as they think they do (ha!) Esme doesn't go out with other people often at all, (close to never) so I am not sure how she will behave, or misbehave, for them. Maybe I'm being too protective, but Esme has never been there and has all these big thoughts about the day already -- and the bg's parents have not seen her in a year. They said she couldn't be that much different than G, because they are only a year apart, and G has a temper, too. A lot has changed for Esme in a year, mostly for the better but she still has her 'unreasonable' moments. So, I'm taking her, and hopefully I can arrange more playdates after this so I am more confident myself in how she is with them. She does not want to wait for Saturday for 'kid can be a kid' place though.. she has seen commercials and is excited. She wants to go today. Of course. And she wants G to come to here so she can go to school with her and we can have her birthday now.

She told me last night we would open up the lone dinosaur balloon (it is a purple brontosaurus) and it would fly and have necklaces. Yes, we were going to wrap mardi gras necklaces on it and tie helium balloons to it. I don't plan on getting it ready until Friday.

She also wanted a Barbie cartoon but she wanted the one with the lady cat. I chose wrong - it was the one with the 'kid cat' not the lady... she is getting better at telling me what she wants but I still misinterpret. 'Three Musketeers' has a kid cat - Prince and the Pauper has a lady cat and a boy cat. The lady cat gets caught in a cage. *duh Mama*... Oh well. How am I supposed to keep them all straight when she hasn't seen it in months? She is my kid with that memory, for sure.

I also finished binding Esme's quilt and am now making the inner quilting.

Lazy Sunday and sewing Saturday

I think this is the first day I have not went to town in a long time... just wandered around the property and the house. It feels good, lazy almost. There have been a few whole hours I have not pried myself out of the chair while playing Minecraft.

Esme has played outside in the sand, watched a movie and rebuilt her Smurf kingdom in her bedroom. We made paper crowns and flags and she had a 'horse race' that involved many imaginary characters including 'Johnny Test' and his dad, so someone else could win a prize besides her. I did medical attention on her stuffed horse and a stuffed kitty that both had tears in them. I wandered and harvested in the garden. The Tennessee Greasy Bean has finally begun to put on small purple beans.

Esme's good ideas: The other night I was binding on Esme's quilt some more and she asked me why I was making my 'rar' noise. Honestly, sometimes I do that as an audible sigh and she perked her ears up at this one, as it was loud. I told her it was taking a long time to do the project, and my needle kept hitting a cut I had gotten on my finger earlier in the day. She came over and looked at the cut and watched me sewing for a moment. She dove into my sewing box and I tried to stop her - but she said she was looking for my thumb - to put it on my thumb so the needle would not hurt it. Yes, she remembered I had a thimble that was supposed to protect against hitting your finger with the needle.. and I found it after her surprising suggestion. She waited until I put it on, then satisfied she had fixed the problem, she went back to giving Daddy backseat driver directions on his Minecraft game. She wanted him to put up a sign to tell the Zombies to go away - so they would read the sign and go back to their Zombie houses with their mom and dad Zombies and not bite us in our house. **he did put up a sign that said 'keep out', just because it was a good idea**

Turned around the sewing tables while Esme napped and we watched 'Hunger Games.' Later, when Esme was outside I pushed myself to rethread the machine and made a red six gore skirt for myself out of some remnant fabric in the bags Sharon gave me. It is high waisted and still mid-calf length and has a deep pocket on one side and a zipper up the other side. It will be better than the yellow one for winter warmth. I started a sleeveless shirt as well. It needs buttonholes and armhole binding and then a bottom hem and it will be done.

Winter To Do:
Replace the insulation on the windows through the house.
Plant vetch in the west field
Finish Esme's quilt
Make slippers
Esme's hanger rod for her clothes

Note: As I am walking back from the mailbox, my nearly five year old daughter running to her grandmother's house up the hill... and the wide open September sky surrounding me... I feel one of those moments. I feel I am very far away from the nine year old girl sitting on top of her swingset in 1980s Minnesota. Yet I feel her - and at the same time that wide sky, approaching winter as those thoughts are on my mind today, reminds me of that same feeling. I would climb up into the 'rafters' of that swingset and sit there as a child and stare at the sky and the trees around me, 'talk to the wind' and feel this 'vastness' of time - imagining an older me from the future looking back at myself like a time travelling adventure - I imagined I saw them and spoke to them and asked what they had done. I could almost swear one of them had dark brown hair and said I would have a daughter and her name would start with E, but I couldn't think of any good 'E' names at the time... so it couldn't have been true, plus my hair would never get brown - it was blonde, so that couldn't be true, either. I was a bored and imaginative child...not able to leave the yard and nowhere else to go. I daydreamed a lot and maybe got 'something right.' At times now, as I age, I 'feel' that daydreaming time back then - and almsot step back to it, think about what I have done since then, and think forward to other times that will be looking back on --right now--. Just now, I could feel the little girl asking and almost feel some older me remembering, like something tracing a finger in sand within your mind... As I stared at the open sky towards the lake and thought about putting the vetch on the field for winter - about how hard and cold this winter might be - of the years ahead that I will think the same things, perhaps on that same walk. And tomorrow it will be all bustle again and before I know it, that time will have passed and I will be thinking about now.

bits with dog skirts and smurfs

the roller coaster
at the west tennessee state fair

written this morning:
Esme is due to wake up any minute. I had to giggle again last night as she has so much faith in my construction abilities. In the past few weeks she has asked me to make a WordWorld robot for her that talks and plays and moves its eyes. She was certain we had the materials for one in the garage in my workbench. If not, she was certain I could go to the 'work store' in the big town and buy all the stuff to make the robot, just like her room. She calls where I work the 'work store'.

Last night she decided to ask Mom to build a rollercoaster like the one she rode at the fair. She said we could use our yellow wagon and I could build tracks and lift her up on to it. The one thing I COULD make for her was a poodle skirt like the one she wanted there - made one last night for her. As I entered her room after she went to sleep - to put it in the dresser drawer - I found an entire smurf village built out on the bedroom floor. As I had been stitching earlier she had told me she had been playing with pretend smurfs in her room and built a village where each one could be safe in their houses. Sure enough, little block houses all over the floor, fifteen to twenty of them.

this afternoon:
The smurf village is still intact on the floor. Esme is passed out in her beanbag chair in front of a Land before Time episode. Mark said she came in during the rain and was very upset about not being able to play outside. She is wearing the skirt I made her last night over her pants. Mark said she came to him wearing her smock top dress and pants and asking him to help her find the sleeves on the skirt because she thought it was a new dress. He showed her how it was used and she was happy. It is a six gore red trumpet skirt with an elastic waist and a brown dog applique poorly stitched by me last night. For a first attempt at a 'poodle' type skirt for her, not bad - useful, she likes it.


8943 simplicity pattern size 5
had the skirt in it


hand drawn by me from looking at some vintage clothing and putting my own spin on it


passed out in the beanbag chair
with a bag of chips wearing the skirt


Esme's 'smurf village'

West Tennessee State Fair

At the West Tennessee State Fair
pictures taken by Mark


Getting instructions from Mom before the ride






riding a pony


woodworking exhibit


hang glider ride

We had a great time at the fair on Wednesday night. Esme had a few temper fits but she got through them. She rode a pony and saw lots of animals in the petting zoo. She took an interest in the beauty pageant at the exhibit hall that I did not expect - and is now focused on winning a trophy, although she isn't really sure what the contest was - singing and dancing she thinks. She asked me to let her wear a skirt from the exhibits and then she would get up on stage and sing. I thwarted the idea and got her a fireman's plastic hat instead. We rode the rollercoaster twice, the Ferris wheel with Grandma, and she also rode a 'big girl' ride with me which she did very well on. We saw sheep and corn and chickens and there were lots and lots of children running around. Esme played one game of darts and won a small stuffed corn toy. She cried when 'all good things must come to an end.'

language notes

We bought a large toy at the flea market today - and Esme carried the toy into her room. I was out in the kitchen and was proud to hear her say this to her toy:

"You go in my room. See that sign? It's ESMES. My mom and dad - they do that, they make it, with the stuff. It's pretty cool. I like it."

She said a toy from the fleamarket needed a battery in it so it could make gas and go beep.

She said she was wanting to 'watching the cakes' in the bakery department. I tried to get her to say she wanted to look at the cakes instead. Later, she wanted to be watching something else - candies in vending machines - and again, 'You want to look at them, not watch them.' Esme: 'OK - I'm looking at them watching them.' *sigh*

After she got in trouble in town (not listening as we exited out into the parking lot) and was carried out to the car she is sitting in the seat with her arms crossed scowling at me. 'Daddy said I was a KID.' I told her she was a kid - a child, the same thing. She has been proud to be a 'child not a baby' lately - she decided she still didn't like the idea but cooperated getting ready to go home.

Later she was happily munching a sandwich I had made for myself. Then she peels back the bread and says Mama. Daddy not cook it, sandwich. It has white stuff in it. You take it.

She told a fish at the lake that it was going to be made into small fish sticks - we will take it home and cut it up and make fish sticks and eat them CHOMP. But it was really too small.

Things still a bit 'out there': This is from you, you can have it. And I can give it to you and it will be from you. Me: Err, you mean for me? Esme: Haha. You're right. I'll give it for you. Me: Facepalm.

She takes a bit more time now trying to sort out what she wants to say - which is a good thing and also can be annoying when what she is about to say is going to take forever and not be on topic at all. She will be starting to go out into left field 'and I will find a toy, and I will bring it, and it will be here and we will play with it, and that's a good idea Mama?' when we are talking about making lunch etc... When I try to interrupt her to redirect onto course she will squeeze her fists together and say in an agitated voice 'But I'm talking to you!' *roll eyes* Lots of arguments over that and I am glad she tells me she isn't finished just wish she didn't use that voice to do it.

She still says a lot of things are scary, or involve zombies, or bears, or 'bumping' which is her generic term for falling or crashing or colliding. Daddy helped a man who drove a van over a hill and had stuck the wheels out in the air -- and she watched him help get it off of the hill with a tractor. She said quite a bit about 'Daddy helped the man who bumped in his car, and it fixed, and it not bump!'

She tells me when she goes to sleep at night that her 'story will end when the clock beeps and I will wake up and come and find you!.' She talks a lot about how she will wake up after she sleeps and not be dead and it will be morningtime! This is a common worry among children her 'general age' on Hannah's message board. We have been talking about it and comparing the descriptions. She plays this game where she won't do something until I close my eyes - something she half wants to do but doesn't want me to know she will do it - ie: eat the rest of something on her plate. That is annoying. She has been practicing being 'good' and 'sweet' more, and as she has been able to speak her mind a little better lately we can usually get her to tell us what her current upset is about at the least... she 'misses the water' which is why she is so upset about getting out of the tub lately. Getting her to understand things we need to do for 'tomorrow' or further is still hard unless she is in a focused and ready mood.

Notes: She has started to call her 'ladies' at schools teachers, now. That pricked my ears last night as being a new thing for her. She still calls the other students 'my kids' and sometimes 'the children'. She says the other children cry sometimes, and they hit her sometimes, and the teachers help, and she helps them not to cry. She may not have needed the extra help the school is providing for her language - she may have grown out of what I was seeing - but she has improved greatly since she has been there in many things. She is getting different types of social interaction and hearing language she would not have at home.

When she gets to a 'regular' type school in a few years, this experience will have helped. And having an 'IEP' individual education plan will help as they might notice she is not just another fish in the school... they'll notice that anyway given a few hours to a day with her. She does some things like a kid three years older and some things like a kid three years younger. She is just being our Esme - doing everything on HER own schedule. Nothing too bad about that, except it drives Mom a little nuts at times ;) And those are the times I'm glad for Hannah's discussion board - the meeting place for other moms who have similar kids doing things all over their own schedules (asynchronous) and we can talk about 'what they are ready for' based on what they are already doing instead of 'what are other kids this AGE doing' which doesn't help us much.

Tug of War Lessons

We had our internet out the past few days, it is back now just in time for my two days off. I caught these pictures of Esme on Friday the 7th, and she was giving and receiving tug of war lessons to her pack of puppies.

Golf princess after immunizations

It was awful to see and hear her cry, but those were the last ones she would need for Kindergarten admittance next year. She chose a toy off the clearance rack - a golf set.




Those are a new pair of pants made today, too




She was quite proud of it


Daffy puppy


clouds


Didn't I see this in an
episode of Highlander?

Clowning around before bedtime

owl dress with the color of pink
'that can be seen from orbit' according to Daddy

I made this shift dress with a scrap of the owl fabric I had left and some plain pink. She likes it, and it fits well enough to play around the yard or as a nightgown. After her bath last night she picked it out to wear for sleep. It has a simple button closure on it and was made with Simplicity 5937, size 5, which is also her current pants pattern.


A kitten named 'Junior' we have
That is her winter quilt unfinished in top left.


This puppy got her official name last night 'Daffy' short for Daphne
Esme tried to hold her up for a picture but decided she was too heavy now


I told her this was a blackmail picture
to show when she was older that her feet are either running or in the air.. hardly ever anything else



Simplicity 5937
size 5
bought April 2011 - getting used fulltime now!

We've got a few big things today. The windshield repair guy is supposed to call us to tell us when he will fix it today. Esme needs her last immunization and I had it scheduled for noon today before the windshield thing happened... we'll see if that can happen. She will likely be cranky after that, but she won't need any more shots for quite a while after this one.

She is outside running with Daphne and her siblings now, a whole pack of puppies at her heels. How many other kids can say they've been able to do that in this day and age? I should get on my sewing machine and make another pair of pants - with my work schedule and her 'mud' schedule, she has been going through every pair in the dresser between washings.

Memorable Quote Last night at dinner Esme had laid her head down on the table and was not eating. When we inquired, she said 'I just sleep here a little bit, so I love you again and not be mad.' She was in a pretty good mood for the rest of the night... Are we having mini naps now?

Wednesday with pictures

I hit a buzzard on the way to get Esme from school

How weird and awful is that?


garden haul

Ready for school this morning



Her toy elephant was having trouble breathing water...


Having fun and clowning for Grandma



Showing me the mud pies she is making, and telling me about a color song at school. Daffy duck is black and orange and brown. I'm gray and pink.' Hmmm.. really. I couldn't see it through all the mud.