tiny bits

Today was a day off.. Esme and I started watching Talespin together - and I think she likes it.  I prototyped a new toy pattern I drew at work the other day.  It was good progress - Esme says it doesn't need any changes at all. I think it does have a few places I can tweak it but for a quick sketch all the pieces came together remarkably well. It rained on us while we were out grocery shopping.  Esme and I played Minecraft for several hours, expanding our shared world that has so much in it already.  We had hair braiding lessons (for Daddy and Esme both) and Esme is coming along very good with her practicing of flossing.  Mark has been working on his robotic kits some more.  I did not get more work done on Esme's dress - it is still halfway sewn.

I wanted to note that Esme is writing books again on little pieces of paper - she wrote a few for the little prototype toy to read.  She hasn't done much of that all year -although she had done a lot in Kindergarten, and right up through the first few weeks of first grade before the situation turned for the worst (which led to our homeschooling).  I am happy to see her at this again.   The last few days her sentences in the journal have been short but she has done them without (much) despair, and then carried the journal to me to do my part.  She made a little pin the tail on the dinosaur game today that was very cute and functional - and used her How to Draw Dinosaurs book to make the picture 'look right'.  Her brain has definitely 'put on another layer' in the last month at least..she is making some great observations and asking good questions here and there...  Another note - I've had to get her up in the middle of the night every night lately...but it is the only thing that works.  When she has growth spurts it seems this is always the case.

We described her characters for her mystery book a bit - I asked her to think of them as real people and answer questions, and wrote it down for her to read tomorrow.  She says the characters are 'like in my dreams' so I will try to coax her to frame out some stories to work on as content over the next year.