bits

Treehaus blocks
bought on clearance at BBB last month


The 'ladder' to the top she built

Esme has become fond of Mickey and the Beanstalk, and asks to watch it nearly every day. It shows up in all of her imagination, as well. She has finally learned to have confidence that she can open and close the front door to the house by herself. She could do it for a long time, but always said she was too little and needed help. She has been doing it by herself to let dogs and cats in and out for days now. I hear a lot more about 'school' in her pretend, as well - even though I haven't told her about the proposed one day a week that we are working on.

Her play with Minecraft has become intense. Yesterday she abandoned my computer screen because I did not have the materials to make a nether gate - and Daddy did - so she begged him to make one. She is making a ladder out of her blocks right now to reach the top of a hill - balancing them against the side like Minecraft.

The story is that the two little figures are 'with Mickey Mouse' and they are climbing the ladder to the giant's house. The alien is on top of the 'school' and is the daddy of the alien kids in the bus that are coming to school.

She does get it from her mommy... (blocks)

Esme does get her block building stuff from me, but she has to be in the mood to try. She can make some pretty elaborate things, or just throw them around the room until they cover every surface. *ha* Poor Daddy has had to pick them up every day from everywhere in the up and downstairs areas.

But - I bought more blocks because I like to play with them, too. Last night I made a hex-sided tube of various shapes alternating about two feet high. Esme thought it was cool - but wasn't in the mood to build. She did like counting the different numbers of things available, and lining them up. She built just a little bit.. and then knocked them down. I need to sit down with her on a more regular basis to encourage her again. She has lost some interest in doing the large bits because 1.) we were running out of blocks before she was 'done' and 2.) because we were short on blocks mumum didn't play WITH her much, which was a large part of the appeal.

Why we bought her blocks

This is why we have bought her blocks for her birthday *shhhh don't tell her and glad she can't read it yet!* :)

She gets to doing these patterns and then she runs out of materials... and gets sad, but starts over again with something new. I don't often catch them, because of this. I asked Mark to hand me the camera before she knocked them all over and got upset. She has lots of cylinders and blue squares and more of these red and green blocks exactly like these waiting for her to open in November. I know she'll be thrilled :)



For the record - I tried to make a pair of footed pants last night and failed :( I'll have to try again with a few modifications. I took the feet off them entirely and made a hem at the bottom. She is wearing those in the picture above 'clown pants' Mark calls them. I need to make a pair of footies for HIM - as he got cold last night. He says perfect them for her, then triple the size ;)

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.