notes and language exercises for Esme

Grandpa is in the hospital again. Grandma, Daddy and Esme will go see him again in the big city today. I have to work. I hope they can get his flu and etc. under moderation.

I have been working some the past month with Esme - it seems to be working for several reasons. 1.) she was already in a spurt (big one) 2.) she is in an 'acceptable' mood and will take direction and corrections lately without too much frustration ie: she is listening and understanding. I am asking her to describe pictures she sees and also talking a lot more about what we are doing and asking her to repeat it from her point of view. I am hearing much more complete sentences and the big thing - she is slowing down to think a sentence through instead of just charging along. She does still sometimes charge along - I heard 'I not the Esme's nose does not hurting.' today, but it is balanced with things like 'I having your hands full with soup and milk and I carry the juice.' That is closer, and takes a lot of think for a little one! She also made a funny comment about a blister I had on my foot. Mom - you have a cat scratch there. A cat scratched you? I told her it was from using my foot a lot at work - walking for a long time. She said 'It is bad your foot is hurt from walking, but good - because you were walking carrying food in the WalMart, at work!' Uh huh.. we had a discussion again that Mama works at the house building place and that makes the money they give me - so that we can go buy the food in the WalMart and carry it home. She thought for a few minutes, and then agreed. Yesterday we had a discussion about why she could not 'I ride and you drive and we take food for lunch and I sit and you work.' etc.. I told her she could not come to work with me, even if she was good and sat still, because I could not watch her there. Someone could come and take her, or she could get hurt while I worked on the computer or moved tubs and toilets etc.. Finally she reluctantly agreed that it was a better idea to stay at home with Daddy, who could watch her and make sure she was alright, then to go with Mama while she was busy at work.

Oh the things I explain lately... but she is taking it in.

We also were both amazed last night watching her play Minecraft. She was building waterfalls with buckets of water placed in complex patterns all around a pool. Then she was building a staircase out of blocks she had mined - to make a high place to jump into the water from. Without any help, she was planning all of this and getting it done quite well. Mark and I sat back and watched her mind at work - and giggled at each other. He said we have switched places a bit - I have been worried about her development and 'knew there was something up' for a long time, while he has told me to just sit back and watch. Now, I am certain and 'grooving' with it and he is the one worried about just where we will be in a few years, what she will be doing etc. I told him to expect her to start taking pictures and posting to the blog in about two years or less. He said if she gets a cell phone (Which she won't) it would be sooner. Plus I still don't want her to handle the camera yet, it is heavy. ;)

off to work.

We have something more on the question front...

She stopped me after she had been looking at a bite mark/scratch on her arm that was now almost gone - from her playdate. I wanted her to get in the bathtub and she holds up her hand and says STOP. then proceeds very slowly : 'What is ....house .....the lady with the animals .....name animals?' (with raised voice and hands spread out at the end) She couldn't remember the name of the animals at the house - they were ferrets. She was happy she got the answer she wanted.

'What is that?' (asked her about different things five times, while she says NO THAT) Then what? Point to it. It looks like water. "NO - That. The window in the water all shiny - what is that?" That is a reflection, a reflection of the window in the water - like the reflection of Esme in the mirror. "OH. Yea. reflection, That."

We have something...

Beautiful January day

It was a beautiful day outside - and we played in it for a while today. Then we went to visit some new friends, and Esme had a good time playing with them. She was very happy playing with the 1 year old little boy and then warmed up to the girl (who is a little younger than her and was feeling worried about her toys so Esme sensed to back off for a while...) as well and was running all over the house with them within a few hours. She didn't want to leave, though - she said it made her 'not feeling any good' to have to leave them there and that her green house was not home anymore when she was not feeling good. Well, at least that is communication! She didn't mean it, though... we took the purple shovel into the bathtub with her and she made 'soap soup' in the shovel and chicken pie. We are going to go out to Jackson tomorrow with Grandma and Grandpa.

Also - she fell asleep before 9 o clock pm. That, is amazing.

She also said she was a 'Futurama lady' but I couldn't understand the name she was saying. I asked if it was Leela or Amy ... and then said it couldn't be Fry because he was a man. Esme said, no kidding: 'The rocks turn Fry to a lady, once', and held up her finger to me with her little 'aha' look. We watched that episode once a few weeks ago, and then she suddenly remembers that... Yes, the rock aliens did change everyone's gender in that episode, and then they changed them back.

What a day. Let's see what we do tomorrow.

The Update on the language testing I spoke with the language tester briefly the other day. She could not tell me much, as she wants an official meeting to see what we can do for Esme through the school district. The next time our schedules meshed is not until the 17th of February. That is a long time. I did ask her to tell me 'something', and she said she actually had 'good' vocab, 'decent' speech sounds (just a few off, that are normal to be off at this age), no major hearing problem, but she 'did qualify for services' because of a vast difference between her receptive and expressive language abilities. She scored 'very high, nearly all of them' on her receptive language. She is getting the message loud and clear. But, she scored 'a bit lower than expected/average' on expressive language. I'll know more specifics when that meeting happens.

In short: she is understanding a LOT, unable to express much of what she wants to, and it is frustrating her. She tries to express what she can with the words she knows - and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't... The lady did not say this but we know she is highly creative, because she uses words in combinations that approximate what she means - but often in 'Engrish' sounding ways because she does not remember/know the 'usual' form of saying what she means ie: today 'My friends no come with us, they stay there, in the door (their house). I am no feeling any good now.' It takes a second longer to process that type of sentence - but the meaning is clear. Not all of her approximations are this clear, that was a really good one.

Add this with the wide range of things she remembers - but may not be able to express what she is trying to 'connect' to the present at any given time... yes, I can see where all the angst and argument is coming from lately. Her expressions of displeasure and disagreement make it much harder to work through the day, but at least they are expressions - we try to work through them, and help her understand. It is better than her bottling it up and/or throwing frustration fits we have no idea what they are about at all. I will go to the meeting to see what the lady offers, and what kind of activities she thinks would benefit Esme the most. If she wants her to come back once a week for exercises (like I did for speech when I was little) I'm not sure if we could do that with my schedule, and I'm not sure if they'd let us do it when the schedule did meet up. But - knowing where to 'put my finger on the issue' will help a lot in itself... knowing it is not a different issue, not trying to treat a broken leg when there is just a cold etc...