Ivy

clothes washing and drying, rice made for work tonight, I've been craving rice lately, with salty soy sauce and an egg on the side. Esme is watching her doggie kitty movie and Mark is at the post office. I keep telling Esme that tomorrow is our town day, not today... but she won't believe me. She has a town shirt and shoes on and is sitting by the door watching her movie waiting for Daddy to come back.

She has emptied her memory game onto the bed and is playing with a kitty hair clip pretending it is eating the cards and jumping up and down in them. She has been inordinately loud and prone to running around the house singing 'babababababababa' at the top of her lungs the past few days. It has been too hot to go outside and she just has too much energy to wear off.

I have an English ivy plant that I have kept since my first college year in Fargo, ND. That was about ten years ago now. It was lonely and spindly on a clearance shelf in front of the supermarket bank I deposited my Michaels paychecks in. I felt sorry for it and brought it home to my dorm room. This is actually a 'clone' of the original, a cutting taken and given to Mark months before I decided to move here with him. He surprised me with it after I moved in and we bought a pretty pot to put it in together.

It decided to take a turn for the worst a few weeks ago - and dried up nearly entirely. All of the leaves had gotten sticky and began to wither. I did save another cutting off of it before it finished drying up - and that cutting seems to be doing well in the laundry room but has not yet taken root. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the rest of the plant yet. Last night while I was bathing Esme it sort of sparked my memory in a weird way, almost as if the plant had spoke. I remembered a picture of cutting back another ivy to the woody bits and it regenerating weeks later. It was worth a try and I did that last night after Esme went to sleep. I hope it will work!

The other day Esme spilled a glass of orange juice in her room - dousing several of the stuffed animals. Two of them are in the washer, but her pink rabbit music box I worried about washing that way. We gave it a 'bath' in the bathtub with shampoo. Esme said the bunny was 'peeing' after that .... so we pretended it would pee in the potty and she got to tell the bunny it did a good job using the potty chair. Then I had to convince her putting it in the dyer 'just like Mr.Frog' would be just fine. She is in there with some clothes drying and I hope she will be alright. My mother sent that to her when she was born. She didn't really take to it until a year ago and especially since she has had her big girl bed. She will play 'catch' with her, turning her music box on and throwing her through the skylight of her car bed over and over 'fly bunny! good bunny rabbit!'

Also: last night Esme crashed asleep without her Mr.Frog or her Doddi Bear on the bed with her, and even without the blanket she was given by Miss Leilani at work. In the middle of the night (3 am I think) she is standing right beside me with the blanket in her hand 'tuck in PLEEASE?' It was remarkably, unbelievably cute. She did get right in her bed, cover her toes with the blanket and ask for all her animals... then right to sleep again. Mark says she has 'infrastructure' now ;)