bits

The sketchbook project arrived today. I'll see what I can do with it tomorrow, which is a day off. It is so beautiful already...

Esme has a kiddie pool from Grandma and is enjoying it. She was so set on having it made up for her last night, at least got her to wait until today! Right now she is amusing herself with a small log floating it around the pool and throwing it in and watching it float again. Simply amused, but there are scientist tendencies there. She threw every outside toy (including the electronic one, which I saved at the last minute and may dry out) into the pool to see if THEY floated. *headsmack* Daddy wouldn't mind if that toy died, he doesn't like the noise it makes. I picked the garden and watered the plants down in the valley. Mark's birdhouse gourds are huge - weighing down the plant so much that the fence it is crawling up is sagging as well. There was one ear of sweet white/yellow corn that had a purple kernel in it from the ornamental corn crossing. That was interesting.

I have green beans and blackeyed peas, carrot, zucchini and more simmering in a pot downstairs. I've taken something like that to work most days the past few weeks, and it has always been delicious. Now to drink some coffee and get ready for the late shift tonight. I need to finish a shirt tomorrow as well, and replant a few things that didn't survive the past few days.

notes: for Grandma and Grandpa 'penguin water' or 'penguin juice' is cranberry pomegranate juice mixed 1/5 with water being the other 4/5. I don't know why we call it this. We just do, Daddy can't say pomegranate as quickly and Esme can't either... If Esme asks for it, at least you'll know what she is asking for! There is some name brand called 'penguin juice' but it is in no way affiliated.. just a nickname.

I was just given a sandwich made of two plastic plates dipped in the swimming pool and then she washed dishes and put them away under her slide. She told me she had went 'hiding' in the water, underneath the water, even though her hair was dry and it is about five inches deep. Now, I am bringing her lunch outside and she is telling me she has swimming foots that are cold. She has tried several times to drag one of the dogs to the pool to give them 'showers'... but they have good sense and get away long before she gets them near it!


6583 Simplicity

I'd like to get this pattern to use when it is cooler again. I like the back neck yoke and think it is a challenge.

imagination antics

I don't know where she gets some of this from...

The bus asked the baby doll to come ride because it was brown bear time (dark outside) and it was dangerous. Come quick baby, come ride! It dropped the baby off at a house, and then started across the room again. The bus was crying because it crashed and all of the people fell out. Then all of the people were okay, but she said that the bus hurt it's foot and we needed to fix it, so I had the Grandpa 'change a tire'... and we told the bus not to get hurt again. The bus did not want to be driven by anyone else after that - or give any rides.

She saw a picture of a little girl looking at candy in a store and told me the girl was 'grocery shopping' (I've never heard her say that before!) and that she needed fifteen dollars to go shopping for building blocks. I said we had blocks in the box and she said oh.. no fifteen dollars, not want to have. She has a little trunk with pretend money printed on the inside of it and is calling it the fifteen dollars oh wow look...

When she was blowing bubbles again she told me she needed a 'bubble map'. She caught a big bubble in both hands and held it up close to her face and said 'ooooohhh.. I see a house. I find my way home.' UH oh.. map popped! Need another map. ??

Grandma got her a baby swimming pool for the yard and the package has ladybugs and butterflies on it. She says it is a 'bug swimming' and we need to cut it (open the package) and is trying to blow it up without it being out of the package. I told her we have to wait until morningtime to use it... and she finally said okay.

The things they say and do....

Here are some things I've collected the past day or so. Hilarious, at least to me. And mostly, she is being serious and doesn't understand why mom is snickering so VERY much.

to Grandpa Playmobil from Grandma playmobil and two dogs: "go away we play dogs. Right now. Go over there." (I take him and start dancing him around on the desk). No dancing. I SAY NO DANCING. GO AWAY from doggies we play." (the playmobil goes over to the other side of my computer) "Ok. You be sad now. SAD. NOW. Ok. be better." (lets him come back and play with the others)

In the bathtub with her bubble wand: "I build. I build bubbles. (She starts to blow bubbles and push them together to make stuck-together bubbles.) There, I build a house! (She gives me the wand and I blow bubbles onto her arm) "AAAHHHHHHH bubbles. I've GOT SPOTS. (said at the top of her lungs as if it was the end of the world, then softly and with sneakiness) I'm a kitty. (her kitty puppet we made last night had spots) Oh no! SPOTS! (waves arms around, the bubbles pop) "whew. I saved. I'm ALIVE." There was more after this, too.. about her hand needing a bubble which was big so it could be a house and she could go in it from under the water. "Oh, I have a house. Thank you, I go in. OH NO MY HOUSE it fall down.. "

In the garden this morning after I asked her to go out because she was not listening about where to step. I told her to go out because she was stepping on babies (plants). "No, I no go away, I LOVE YOU, I'm the baby girl your mama (comparing herself to the plants, she is the baby, not them), I STAY! please give me hug? (I hug her) give kiss? (kiss her forehead) 'Oh thank you. I help you. I HELP. I throw not a radish." I tried to give her the hoe and she said it was too heavy for her. She did go out after the next time she stepped on something, then came back and said she was scared, and she needed to help me again.

Other: We ran out of popsicles the other day.. so she has found other candy she can reward herself with for the potty. She is still trying to go use the potty like a big girl, but she fell asleep for a nap on our bed (instead of hers) and we had to clean up :(

She is also asking me every once in a while for 'fifteen dollars.' I have no idea where this is coming from.. but she apparently has big plans to buy some 'eatings' with it. It is always fifteen dollars.. which, coincidentally, is the highest number she usually counts to before she starts to stumble and need help.

Corn harvest

This is our corn harvest. It is all in the freezer now.

We did nothing for Fourth of July. I had to work until late and it is too far and too crowded around here to go to any of the events once it is already late.

We pulled all of the cornstalks except a few of the ornamental corns out of the garden. It is very bare now in the back end. We had a good soaking rainstorm, so maybe the soil will be good enough to work in and see if there is anything else we want to put in there. Or I might just work it out over time and plant the next set of things in August.

The big pumpkin has started to turn orange. There is another one about half that size now and several smaller ones trying to make it. Someone at work said I should save one of them for Esme's jack-o-lantern. I think that is a good idea.

Another note: It is nice when Esme gets up and wants to go to pee first thing in the morning. However, it is not nice when she takes forever doing it and I have to pee, too!

Esme and my dad, and a camp shirt

My dad made a surprise visit last night, and had been playing with Esme all afternoon when I came home from work. They had a lot of fun.









I had this shirt down to needing sleeves and buttons at that time. I finished it around midnight and she wore it to bed.


camp shirt with buttons


from the back

Overall I'm happy with it as a first try. It needs more handsewn reinforcement on the buttonholes and I had to bend the front facings underneath and sew them down 'blazer' style because the neckline was up around her chin at first. She likes it. Mark says it looks 'professional.'


Simplicity 4969, 1950s era, undated

NOTES: The lima beans are beginning to pod, following several days of HOT weather. The squash looks absolutely miserable today... can't wait for the sun to go down so I can water it extra long. I forgot to put a diaper on Esme the last time she went to the potty last night... and she slept through the night - got up, went potty again and only then did I realize she had went through the night without peeing the bed. She has had several accidents during the day... but at least there is huge progress going on.

We harvested about 8 gallons of corn, blanched and froze it! We put a diaper on Esme after her bath and she came up, took it off, and went potty! She is making it, slowly.

44 months

Playmobil having dinner with the pig in the dollhouse

It's a few days earlier, but she has had a big cognitive leap this month in a couple of stages. The difference from the beginning of the month to the end of the month is large! She has learned to use my computer mouse (the kind with the little button in the middle of the keypad and the click keys elsewhere) and get on her own Starfall game from an open browser using the star icon in my bookmarks toolbar. She plays all the games on there mostly without help and closes it back up when she is done. I am very impressed by that. She can also open the front door much better, the refrigerator and freezer using a chair for the freezer, and can poor a half-gallon of milk by herself although of course, with supervision as it gets away from her.

She can put on her pants when sitting down on a bench, but still needs help with it. She can balance on the big potty even though she is not yet tall enough for her feet to hit the ground. She takes off her pants completely but holds her long dress skirts up with one hand and balances... which is pretty impressive to me as well especially because she figured it out herself. She got her own popsicle out of the freezer once as a reward! While I was washing my hair earlier she came down to the bathroom and said she needed to pee - wasn't wearing a diaper and wouldn't come downstairs with me because she was playing a game. She was not wet. She did what she needed to do. I helped her put on her pants and she went back upstairs and went back to play.

She is also talking in a much more complex way, and I feel more comfortable using different and 'odd' words around her and explaining what they mean to her. She actually listens to the explanations instead of demanding I use the words she is used to. That is a big leap for her. She allows me to call her 'child' and 'slowpoke' and 'little monkey' and other things when she used to demand loudly 'I am not a *adjective*, I am the ESME, I am the little girl!' etc... She wants to know why I said that word instead and then may accept or deny it after talking about it. She told me 'no mirror, that a window' one night, and I told her it was a reflection, like a mirror, see yourself in it like a mirror - and she has been using the word reflection now. She told Pollywog kitten she was 'really soft kitten' today. She told a bubble it was a 'really dead bubble' in the bathtub. Both of those are putting together more than she usually has in the past. She is also actually listening to choices given instead of saying yes or no on tone of voice or saying yes or no to just the first thing she hears. She asks us 'what do we think' about things and also says 'I'm thinking.. I'm thinking about colors...' while pacing with her hands behind her back. Then she says 'I know! A lollipop.. a purple and a green lollipop!' The 'wow, that's really cool' vibe continues. I am holding my urge to giggle when I hear that much better than before!

Her imaginary play has catapulted into the weird and the wonderful. Things go to the moon, they make food, they do laundry etc.. Sometimes aliens or dragons or dinosaurs come, or things fall down, or other animals misbehave and she puts them 'in line.' Her playmobil grandparents just had dinner with a pig and a dog that were allowed on the table, then they weren't, then she gave in and gave the pig some pie again. They stopped to do laundry and wear imaginary crowns and dance around. They told the pig and dog to go to bed in another room and be quiet because they were oinking and woofing at each other trying to look at moons and read books and look in 'junks' (treasure chests). They went downstairs and did dishes and fed a dragon monster that was at first not allowed in the house and then they gave it a place it could look at moons and read books and go to sleep with his cereal bowl. I love it.

new words in the past few hours I've perked my ears at: stay, leave and left, soft, love/like used much more and differently before, child, grow and garden used daily, want to have, don't want to have, alive/dead for things existing when she thought they were gone and things that won't move when she thinks they should, laundry, wash/make dishes, make food / sandwiches/ fish sticks etc... lunchtime, dinner I am hearing a lot of 'it is *adjective or activity* day' Come - it is blocks day, play blocks.


Dollhouse and a kitty


Petting the cat, she is 'really soft'
Pollywog the kitten likes Esme!