bits

We had a nice day out yesterday - at the library, then the park.  She had to be on her best behavior because she had two tantrums this week - and we were going out because _I_ wanted to, not because she wanted to.  I did want to spend some good time with her..   I found a book at the library and read while she played a game and talked to kids.  I found a quilt pattern to copy that I might try today.  She told the librarian as she was checking out that 'She loves to read.'  After that we had  our packed lunch and took a walk around the park track.  She had some time to play with the kids, but got up nicely when it had been an hour and a half and I needed to be up and moving myself again.  Then we went to a little store and looked around, but she had to spend her own money on something she wanted, and give me time to look at what I wanted if she had time to look at her things.  Fair for fair.  She grumbled a little because there was more stuff for mom to look at then stuff for her to look at.. but she realized what she was doing and tried to correct her attitude.

Today I had to be up so very very early to go to a yearly meeting we have at work.  Then when I came home we gathered everyone up and went to the grocery store before the crowds hit.  She was pretty good during all of this, too.

I am wondering if I can start to work on the quilt block I copied from the magazine, or should just sit and finish the book I started.  It is from the young adult series 'Dear America', and is a 'diary' of a girl going as a companion on the Titanic to earn her passage to America.  It is pretty well done, a few years before Esme would enjoy it though perhaps.

I have started reading the end of Little House in the Big Woods to Esme at night.  She couldn't comprehend how the little girls were five and seven and had never been to a store...but she did try after she realized I was serious, and tried to get an idea of what the store was like...so very different than any stores she has seen.

Later:
I made up one of the Kaleidoscope blocks, harder than expected - but successful.  Then I made a skirt for Esme's rag doll (Flora Daisy, apparently) and a pair of pants for Esme herself.   Esme and I went out in the garden a little earlier and planted tulip bulbs, located the rosemary and peppermint plants and put stakes in the ground to mark them.  I showed her the hyacinths that had come up from last year.  That is a bit more productive than I've been in a while...maybe Spring is on its way sometime in the next month....