frog balloon in pants

frog balloon in pants

Sitting on Daddy's chair, watching Putty Tat (Sylvester and Tweety) hugging her frog balloon from the carnival the first of last month. He's the one who needed a 'butt change' last night according to her. I'm giving her some orange juice in water the past two days because it has been helping me some and the tart kool-aid has been turning my stomach but the orange juice hasn't. That's really weird.


the blue fabrics I bought last night

Mark made Esme a big balloon tie-up thing last night (he is still pretty good at balloon animals) and Esme said it looked like a flutterbug (butterfly). Then we brought it into the bathtub and she said it was a flutterbug boat, for her kitty and horse bath toys (small plastic animals) to ride on. 'This is fun!' the hello kitty doll said. 'Yes, fun! We ride! Run run run!' So they ran around on the 'boat' as it floated in the bathtub. She just always comes up with something, and it is so very often cute :)

The other balloon he made her was pretty much a 'balloon on a stick' and Esme insisted after getting through the 'bonk' stage with it (hit everything I can to see how far it reaches) she decided instead that it was a 'dog balloon' and drug it around on the stick like a leash and said 'come doggie' and 'woo woo doggie' and 'good doggie' etc...

Esme is doing a REALLY good job with her alphabet letters in books and her PAIRS in PEARS game tiles. I'll leave it there for the moment - but I see her taking a huge leap soon with them. It's so early.. but she's interested, so I'm ready for it!

LATER: We went to a yard sale after the post office this morning - and bought three tiny 'my little ponies' and a girl dolly for Esme. Mark got a lot of old video game equipment. I gave all the horsies and the girl dolly a thorough washing at home and made a new dress for the doll. This is like the doll I wanted to give her for her birthday - but now the cat is out of the bag and she took it to bed with her tonight. I also bought the patterning (parquetry) blocks to keep for Christmas or birthday but when Grandma was here I gave into my own urge to open them and play with them. Esme really liked them, which made me happy. I had worried it might be tedious for her and was ready to put them away when she became antsy... but she liked them a lot in more than a couple of ways. Grandma and Esme had a very nice visit together playing with nearly every toy in the house :) That is our Esme! And then I fixed dinner for Esme and Grandma snuck out using my 'go to work' routine while Esme began to eat and watched Shaun the Sheep. It worked like a charm, she hardly cried at all, that's the 'method' - two hugs, two kisses 'Have good day' and she knows everything will be alright :)

The big wooden blocks come in the mail soon as well -- and I have said I should not open them at all -- just shake them and put them in a big box! Now I have to wonder what else to do for her birthday. I still am thinking of making her a two layer pink cake with halved strawberries on top and candles on it. That is the standard 'cake' shown in Shaun the Sheep and she always points it out. I'm not full-speed-ahead set on that one, but it would be cute. And I have the 'new' maryjane shoes I've put aside, and ready to make a very pretty set of clothes that will be wrapped up. Something will come to me to replace the dolly idea, I have two months! She is already 'prewarmed' this year with her birthday candle game and being so happy when she sees birthday mentioned in a show etc... she told me last night that the shower hose in the bathtub was a snake, and it was the snake's birthday, so he got to blow out the candles and the kitty and horse had to sing happy birthday to this 'snake' while it was being a nice snake or it would chase them and say 'sssss' at them. And yes, I think it is cute and she knows it is cute... so I am not discouraging it, and not discouraging a running theme with Esme is just like encouraging it silently haha!....

Green Hair Tie and drawing

I was going through old drawers today and found this green hair tie from long long ago... Esme said it was 'the pretty'.



I took these, the poor kitty was very tolerant

Mark took this one after I said the lighting was really bad... good job Daddy :)


I was asked to draw a baby bunny rabbit riding a bike, again... the rest of it is hers


I gave it back to her on her easel and she goes at it some more...

Esme seems back to her usual attitude/mood today. She has hardly given me any 'guff' at all about things I ask her to do - like wash her hands, use the potty or take off her own shoes and socks for bath. She did say 'NO' about the potty 'Do you need to use the potty?' and then took a second, grinned at me sweetly and went and did it anyway. She helped Daddy bring the garbage up to the curb and put away the groceries (to the extent she does either - pretending to pull the wagon and throwing away empty bags, but she thinks she helps a lot). She is also very much into 'I did it!' today clapping for herself and happy about every little accomplishment. It's sweet. I am glad to have my 'good girl' back who helps and even accepts Mama is going to work after at first crying loudly about it.

Block power tower and new animations

Esme's 'power tower' of blocks. You can see in the background of this image the white dresser parts and box (for our business mail we package near this table) she keeps insisting she sit in and 'build a hole' around her. That is what she calls it - she wants the plastic pieces put around the box in a tower formation so she can stand up and knock them all over and build them back up around her again. And she wants to play that game ten or twelve times in a row - screaming and crying each time it falls.. which it inevitably does. Mama is getting very tired of that game because of the screaming. I like the small blocks better! The tower had just gotten too big for her to reach another block to the top, so I started taking pictures. She put all the pieces on there but I did have to convince her to build up from the bottom layer - she was going to put them all in one long line (see below) until I suggested putting some blocks on the second layer - then she took off with the rest of this up and up.



She made 'horsies' out of mega blocks and we had put them away several days ago. They were just columns of three to five square blocks with a rectangle block for the 'head'. She remembered today that they were horsies and went off with the game again. The 'baby' horse had lost it's head, so she put it back on and then the 'daddy' and the 'baby' horse came around the building to go hug the 'mama' horse and say 'you're home!' You can see all of that in the animation posted here, including a few frames of when she said 'horsie' (grin)

As I mentioned - she will just keep making a line until she runs out of blocks. This is her 'interrupted and disbelieving expression' because she asked for another block and there was only one more that size and shape. A bit after this she made her horsies run across the blocks and then we were pick up put away go to Grandma's house.


A little obsessive with the color blocking? Maybe she gets that from both of us...


horse goes 'running' across the blocks

And one other fun animation posted here, of her moving her box from one side to the other and then playing with a few blocks.

I hope you like both of the animations :) They are .gifs and not as high quality as the .jpg images, but they show her expressions and activity. They should open in new windows.

Easier to find links
Animation 'movie' #1 : playing with block horsies
Animation 'movie' #2 : moving box and playing blocks

Horse draws with the marker

It's been slow since we went to the fair - I've had some long slow days at work and Esme has been asleep twice when I came home from work. We've been 'tagteaming' her a bit changing her in the middle of the night to ensure less wet bedsheets in the morning. We've all reaped some benefit by getting a longer sleep for her in the morning. Last night she was rollerskating in the kitchen and I really wished I could have gotten a few photos - but she didn't want me to leave and it wasn't that important. She is getting really good for having them on only once in a while. She has impressed us by bending down and picking things up off the floor without falling over and gliding along at speed by pulling on the table. Most of her 'skating' is just moving one foot in front of the other across the floor slowly with a giant 'I can DO this' grin on her face. She has fallen over some and we've worked to teach her to get to something she can pull on or try to right her feet by herself. If she can't right herself I'll go and help if she is far away, or have her edge over to me if I am right there and give her a hand to pull on.

I did get some photos tonight of a little fun.
These are some shots of Esme 'giving' her toy horse a marker to 'draw with.'
Melita (a friend on FB with a little boy six months older than Esme) noted she is drawing with her left hand. She is kind of ambidextrous, like I am. That makes the pictures here with the 'handing over' from right to left even cooler ;)








Then the horse 'draws' on the paper.
It was drawing 'grass' and 'bugs' for a cow toy she had given me. The cow 'ate' the drawn grass and 'bugs' which were lines and dots. The spirals are attempts at flowers and snails. I drew her some flowers and a puppy with a drink cup as well.


Then she pats it on the head and says 'good boy horse you DRAW, it pretty!'

Esme ate an ENTIRE can of ravioli to herself today - Mark winced in pain at the thought of it. And she begged me for more when I got home! We were having a lot of fun building with blocks as well, and a lot of simple fun :) Esme even got Daddy to participate. 'Daddy TRY!' So Daddy would try to put a block on top of a very wavering tower. Then, 'Mumum TRY. Esme TRY. I did it! I did it!' and 'It fall down.' and she would try to hide behind this tiny tower of blocks and jump out and say 'boo!'. 'I hide! I hide! BOO Daddy! Boo Mumum!' etc... She's eating applesauce and drinking juice now. She wanted more ravioli but I told her if she had ravioli again she would need to go to BED right afterwards but if we saved the ravioli for another day she have applesauce and could watch another show before going to bed.

A few other pictures:


concentrating while drawing with the right hand (before the horse decided to draw).


saying 'aaaaahhhhh they fall down!' at the screen when two cartoon characters fell off a cliff.

LONG RANT : Esme's stories, interests and etc...

I was talking to someone at work the other day about Esme watching Muppet Show and singing along with actors this coworker had never heard of (Danny Kaye, Lou Rawls, laughing at Don Knotts and Milton Burl etc..) and making up elaborate stories with her toys and blocks etc.... She said something to the effect of 'why would you do that to a child her age?' I asked 'What?' She said: show them something that OLD like that! like it was 'normal' tv, and not let them watch Dora and the Wiggles and Yo Gabba Gabba... things other kids their AGE will watch. She won't be able to RELATE to any of her peers in school! She also went into all of those electronic toys (Dora dolls etc) she is apparently missing out on being a 'normal' kid of her 'day and age' etc.. because I tend to like non-electronic toys and we don't watch 'modern' children's programming.

uh huh...*as if that will make her a weirdo?* really now...

And there was a discussion on a board I saw about parents who would like other parents to stop actually teaching their children 'boring' things other kids their age 'wouldn't know' and instead let them watch Nick and listen only to popular music and 'nursery rhymes' (no classical or even stuff we like) and then they would end up normal. This mom believed kids under five wouldn't ever ask questions about anything in a BOOK or about anything not shown on a children's television show etc...and anything else would be pushing a child to learn things 'above' them.

uh huh... again.

There is some to 'growing up different' that these people are talking about... but everybody grows up differently, and parents can't try to be something they are not just to 'be normal.' Mark and I are geeks, and we kind of like it that way ;) Esme will come to some of that by proxy and everything else by her own interests.

I try to follow her interests. If she is interested in 'tick tocks' (clocks) I read her the numbers. If she likes colors lately I will let her pick out her clothes and say 'oh you want the PURPLE shorts, they're pretty' etc and then let her pick out fabric at the store the same way... When she started to play with the money in my wallet I made her play money and told her what each piece was. Now she asks me for a 'quarter' or a 'dollar' at the store etc... If I am making a quilt with hexagons, I tell her what they are and am prouder than punch when she brings me the hexagon out of her shape puzzle. She always makes connections I don't expect - and I find them cool. She did that before she could talk as a way of communicating with us, and they are only getting more interesting now that she can talk better.

She also likes her letters and numbers - has been very interested in the idea for a long time when she would see them in books, on signs, at the supermarket and on Electric Company. She traces her fingers over some letters and sometimes says them out loud - but she really isn't a performer just because we ask her to etc.. She is often VERY stubborn about showing what she knows to anybody (I remember hearing 'NO 5, NO 8' etc.. when she saw them drawn out and then she would erase them angrily and tell me what she DID want me to draw. _I_ didn't think she knew those numbers, which is why I drew them on there to see... and hey, she knew them.. and wasn't amused!

I also used to get begged daily to go to Starfall.com but she has mostly outgrown that now. She does want me to open my wordprocessor so she can play with it quite a bit lately. And just try to put away the PAIRS in PEARS game once she has begged it out onto the table.. or telling her I don't want to play MEMORY for the fifth time today etc...so instead her kitty toy begins to eat the cards and she finds all the food cards and shares the food with her dolls etc...

If Mama is reading about it or she finds a picture of it - she wants to know what it is, even if she can't pronounce it or have any way to understand it right now. She wants to be involved. She will open magazines, and textbooks and anything she can find - sometimes it is just to get attention and other times because she really truly likes what she sees (our atlas, for example, or the science book with all the diagrams).

She goes through her collections and asks me to identify all the fruit, or all the colors of something, or all her shape cards. She will take something away too, and play keepaway not letting me see the card - and still expect me to answer *hate that*. She loves to match pairs of things and thinks it is cool and funny to find two of something. She is creative and likes to make up stories so she can have fun with us. She will ask me to draw aliens and bears on the magnadoodle and dress them in hats on every 'head' and boots on every 'foot'. Her animals and dolls have interesting busy lives doing things sometimes I have NO idea what it is etc... Tonight her new cow toy had to meet every single other toy and say it was a cow. I didn't understand much more of it but Daddy was pretty sure that was the gist of it.

She would ALSO love electronic toys that make lots of noise like any other kid her age.. but for how long? Would she get bored quickly when they just say the same thing every time you push the foot or hand? And those bother Mark's ears after a bit, so it becomes more about getting a reaction out of the noise than it is about playing with the toy.

She does watch a lot of TV, compared to the 'reccommendations'... but we don't sit her in front of it all day, either. We play TV during and after mealtimes for a bit. She has quite a few shows she really likes, and usually it is something we like or at least tolerate. We have no broadcast TV, all DVDs. We rented Yo Gabba Gabba once on Netflix, she HATED it. She cried NO NO,NO. I asked her if I should put it back on the next day and she again cried NO. She likes things with long storylines best, like Pixar films or cat/dog movies. She does like Shaun the Sheep a lot.

As for music, Mark listens to hip hop and 60s and 70s and Beatles and Zappa etc... mostly when I am at work. I put on the classical and the folk music and jazz, and enjoy some of what Mark does as well. He says he has a copy of Beethoven's Ninth besides the one I have - and he guards it heavily so it will never be scratched! Esme has her own tastes as well. She doesn't like some of the music that we really like, but we give her a chance to listen to a lot for someone her age. Sometimes she surprises us like when she dances 'mosh' to Digital Underground's 'All around the world' with Mark or when she talked to the 'Ode to Joy' the other day like it was a phone conversation ??

In most every way she is completely and utterly a two year old - running and screaming and spinning around in circles and loving the carousel at the fair, playing with cats and dogs and in mud puddles and throwing tantrums over potty training or not getting a lollipop etc... and to us everything else she does is perfectly normal, too. And I'm not going to stop listening to what she wants to do (letters, reading, asking me hard things) because a few people at my work are uncertain if it is possible for a three year old to know who Don Knotts is or read off the letters in the breakroom signs to me and say 'YEA THAT's RIGHT' etc.. They've either never had kids, or never had curious ones ;)

I think the basic thing is she knows what she wants and we listen to her - she has a good memory and a curious streak and isn't afraid to show it when she wants to. AND, she hasn't been made to think she is 'bothering' us every minute of the day by showing it. Sometimes I feel that is what my sister and sister-in-law have beat into their kids - leave me alone and stop asking questions, stop wondering, stop imagining, be quiet etc.... I don't want to do that to Esme - I want her to be able to think and express and ask away - even though sometimes I will have to say 'wait a minute' or 'after X' or 'let mama finish typing this' etc.... She is getting better at that, too...

Minor nose catastrophe

The nose in question

Minor nose catastrophe yesterday morning as I was serving Esme her breakfast. I set it on the table, she took three bites and ran off after a cat. As I was calling 'Esme - come back and eat your breakfast!' I hear TH-THUMP TH-THUMP at the bottom of the stairs. Somehow she managed to skin her nose falling after the cat there. She cried - and I carried her to her chair and set her in front of her breakfast. Then she stopped crying and asked for a 'zebra cake' sweet. I told her no, and she pretended to cry again and then ran back after the cat. *sigh*... the nose took a few hours to 'develop' while I was at work - but it looks like it will be all better in a few days, unless she bumps it again somewhere.

This morning she was having swing rides for her dollhouse girls on a leash hanging on the wall for the dog. One doll was swinging and saying 'this is fun! push!' and the other girl was 'pushing' and/or riding as well and saying 'we're going to fall AHHHHHHH' then they had a fight over whose 'mine' the swing was, and one girl fell. I told them to play nicely on the swing *roll eyes* and they did for a few more minutes. Sometimes she cracks me up with the things she comes up with.

Saturday night and 33 months update

Home from work and back early tomorrow. The sewing machine is now doing the opposite problem it was doing a week ago... and it is just too hot lately to mess much with it. I might drag myself over there to disassemble it and try to squirrel out the problem a bit later... I might not. I was handsewing the hexagons during a movie last night just for something easy to do that would not be something I would normally do with a machine. And I saw non foursquare hexagons on somebody's blog after finishing the wall around Eden by Joan Slonczewski, which has hexagonal fields and 'eyeglasses' and other hexagonal things.

I scored a light canvas weight curtain display the other day I am making some more hexagons out of, and would like to dig in my fabric for a light weight red canvas or medium weight cotton... I'm sure there is something in there just have to find where it is.

This morning before I went to work I printed out a lot of label words for Esme's teaset, fruitstand and sandwich toys and a few of her animals. I taped them to colored cardstock and we had some fun with those before I had to go to work. I just wish I would have 'bold ideas' like that some more than an hour before I have to leave in my vehicle, so we don't have to put it away just as we are having fun.

Right now Esme is begging to play with the remote control car but Daddy and I have told her it is asleep. In another year she won't believe us when we say things are asleep and can't be played with, or that they live on the toy store shelf so they have to go back with the others etc... but we're enjoying those 'fibs' while they last.

Some development notes: We measured Esme at 36 inches tall the other day. We haven't weighed her in a good while - but Grandma said she was over 30 lbs when she played on the scale at her house months ago. I'm sure she has gained weight since then. She is very solid, not spindly - and she has MUSCLES in her arms when she tries to pick up something big it is impressive. She is in a size 9-10 toddler shoe and I am still using 3-4 sewing patterns for her. She knows all of her alphabet letters (individually, still won't sing the song) and most of her numerals and all the 'regular' colors blue, red, orange, yellow (has trouble saying), purple, white, brown, green, black, pink. I haven't tried hard to teach her anything like gray or turquoise 'fancy' colors. I have heard her singing along with some CD songs in the car and the Muppet Show and Electric Company themes.

She walks around backwards for fun and swings on her swing by herself, hanging on tight (cross fingers). She swims well wearing her floatee life jacket. Most of the time she loves to tell pretend play stories with her animals and plastic dolls and their cars, dollhouse and etc.. We get attacked by fanged walruses and dinosaurs wanting lettuce sandwiches and sometimes her plastic dolls have a grape-stomping party in the crayon box where they all jump up and down and then pretend to eat the crayons. I have no idea what that is about, but it does make me laugh. I get stories about mama and daddy and little girl dolls going to town and to work, and to find grandma and grandpa dolls and plastic dogs and cats etc etc.. they have a very busy schedule, these dollhouse dolls. She also loves to draw with crayons and serve pretend food and stack towers and line up patterns of blocks on the floor.

She really knows what is going on in her shows now - and makes commentary like 'bye alien have a good day!' when the alien takes off in his ship. We often hear 'poor sheep' or 'poor dog' when she thinks someone has reason to be sad or is in pain/trouble on a tv show. She also tells the tv characters (like mama mouse in secret of nimh) that they do a good job when they accomplish something big. Her memory is still outstanding, remembering things about tv shows and town trips and other things that I have to think hard about. Her language has gotten so much better. She can say full sentences most everyone understands but sometimes I still need to translate some of her words, especially those with 'l' or 'm' in them or when she runs them together oddly (usual for her age!). An example is 'This (is) a purple sticker with EYES Daddy, it funny.' etc... She had gotten a purple silly face sticker from the lady at the bank and even I had to look back and realize she was saying 'with EYES' because it didn't seem to go with the sentence at first and it sounded like one word. Still calling me 'mumum' which I think she finds easier to say even than 'mama.'

Mark adds: We'll forget these things if we don't write them down - like the fact that she was ever such a good girl.. haha.. when she is crashing cars at age ten and blowing up the chemistry lab etc etc... Today while I was at work he was brought a pear and a pink pig and asked if the pink pig can eat the pear. He was also attacked by the walrus today and licked as if it was a puppy. Also at 7:15 he asked Esme to pick up all her toys so they would be 'pick up put away' when Mama got home from work. She did that - and then waited for me at the door expectantly, as if it would cause me to appear! I didn't actually get home until 7:45, and she got sad somewhere in there... but was happy when I got home and we immediately went for drink cups in the kitchen.

Animations of Esme drawing with a marker

This is a test. Attempting to show some of the Esme expressions and actions that video would capture - but putting up video is something I have yet to master!

These are animated gifs that will open in a new window, if you click the image.

little things

Esme's hair and legs and arms are all getting longer...She has been going through some sort of epic spurt the last month. Her hair in the back is to the middle of her back even with a little bit of curl in it. She has leaped forward in the potty training progress - and drank from an open cup all by herself. Both of those she refused to do just a few months ago. When she sits on the little potty chair I can tell her legs have gotten a LOT longer than when we first got it, her knees bend up now. And the pants I made a few months ago with fabric from Grandma used to be below her anklebones. Now they are just above them.

She has been repeating a lot more of what we say and coming up with some ideas all by herself.. And, even though her pronunciation is still limited - I can identify more words. She is also coming up with odd connections etc... She has been trying to write letters, identifying 'words' by first letter IE: Anything starts with a 'j' is a jelly/jellybean and anything with a 'b' is a ball etc.. I've heard more counting as well, as she stacks blocks. She is singing along with the Muppets and repeating words on the Electric Cmpany. She is also saying sorry and thank you again in social situations in town - and even 'thank you Daddy/Mumum' when we give her something. I love that I finally have my own name 'Mum-mum' and am no longer 'Daddy.' I think I've even heard her say her own name a few times this month.

Another little thing I wanted to remember was that she was going through my fabric the other day and found a small piece of alphabet fabric. She came to me and said OFF SHIRT and then wanted me to make the small piece of fabric into a shirt for her. She understands part of it! She was so disappointed when I told her it wasn't big enough, and it takes a long time to make a shirt!