A Monday hurtling towards vacation...

At least, I hope it will continue to feel like that.  The vacation starts the 17th, hoping for zoo on the 20th.  I haven't heard anything yet about my interview for the promotion... we'll see.  Either way, things will continue.  Trying to organize a little bit, think about what we really want to accomplish with the garden, what I need to sew for school and household.. how to get over this sinus cold for good etc.  Little things with long tendrils.

We've been watching 'Rough Science' that Grandma loaned us.  It is a PBS series about scientists dumped into an abandoned workshop and told to make specific goals happen.  Esme surprisingly likes it.  We watch 'Fringe' and that is a 'science-r movie' she does not like too much.. we watch this series and she is asking questions and cheering them along.  She told me she needed to find a cup of water in the bathtub, like the science-rs (we're working towards scientist, but it hasn't taken yet) were trying to find water.  She loves it when they put things in pots and cook them, and the electronic gadgets they build.  We should dig up our Junkyard Wars again and have her watch that again.

Continuing the self-sufficiency thing with Esme.  Pouring cereal this morning from start to finish, putting on her own headband using the mirror instead of screaming about it.  Critical thinking skills, stick-to-it-iveness, 'you're growing up'...  She's taking it about as well as she can - she is so prone to frustration when something doesn't go her way...

Sweet peas, green beans and a baby zucchini out of the garden this morning...just enough for a one person meal mixed with a little chicken, garlic, olive oil and paprika.  The flowers are very pretty - the gladiolus and zinnias are getting ready to bloom.

Very simple dishcloths for my lunch box and a table mat for Esme's table for when she eats supper...

small wonders

Esme washed her hair with only vocal assistance tonight.  Considering she is 'Rapunzel', this is a major step towards being ready for Kindergarten next month.  Further, I insisted she remove her dress from her hanger by herself and get it on without help.  Mark has been encouraging her to get her own glass of water and add Dr.Pepper to it from a 2 liter in the refrigerator.  She got a glass and filled it mostly with water today - put a little bit of Dr.Pepper in it - then claimed it was 'ok' and tried hard to drink it for a while before putting it in the refrigerator and not touching it again.  Little steps...

crashed bit at the end of the week

This was my first day off (non sick day) in a while, and even though Esme got to do a lot of what she had intended to do today, she had anticipated and planned so much herself for the 'day' that nothing satisfied her much, and her attitude was pretty sour, whiney, wanting things but not really wanting them, just the attention from wanting something etc.. so Mom and Dad (who are both slightly under the weather still) didn't want to cooperate in all of the little repetitive type games - so she has went to bed crying at 7:30 and crashed deep for a nap.  She may also be coming down with the same cold for second time around.. I hope not.  I'm sure some of it is just five years old normalcy, too... but even Mama sometimes has to say I've had enough of it for the day.

She might also just be tired out - which she should be.  Early in the morning (around 9 am) we took her out to the park, to a yard sale, and then home again.  She ate a big bowl of cereal before we left - and was rearing and roaring ready to go.  I played with her a lot on the slides, monkey bars - getting her to run and use her muscles.  Then we came home, played in the sand in front of Grandma's house and she went to see Grandma for a few hours, during which I planted six tomato plants Grandma gave us and then had a computer re-install when I meant to be cleaning my sewing table and cutting out a project.

We picked up Grandma and headed for town to a landscaping company's sale - picked up a few things - Stella d'Oro daylillies and lantana camara.  Grandma got some very interesting plants, including a mallow and a bee balm.  Esme started her whiney fits there - wanting everything her way, seeing what she wanted to see - not walking or waiting nicely, not wanting to look at the plants at all out of disdain for not spending hours looking at the water fountains, bumping into some people and wanting me to ask the waterer to make her puddles where she wanted them (Which I did not.)  I found myself asking her in public just to be quiet for a little while.  There is irony there.

 From there we went to get some ice cream cones to bring home - added on some strawberry syrup for a sundae for her at home - instead of going out for one.  More whines...ate her sundae at home and wanted me to play play play geckoes and all the other games she wants to play in order each time for five minutes at a time...as soon as you ask her what the game is she wants to do something else, something else -- daisy-chained short attention span type thing that gets annoying for me.   Instead I planted flowers, which she protested greatly the entire time and then came back inside not letting her take off with the shovel for her 'little child statue' game.  More whines.

She wanted to play her games on the computer but it was not entirely reinstalled with all the addons yet - so she whined some more.. and then we sent her to her room complaining she was not tired.  Ten minutes later she was out like a light.  Early day again tomorrow, and no more days off until Wednesday.

notes as I climb back out of my sinus cold into normal functioning...

The other day on the way to town we were looking at the beautiful sunrise and Esme said she saw a cheetah running fast in the clouds.  It really did look like it - she has the eye, and she communicated it beautifully as well.  She looked at some leftover food on the stove and told me I needed to 'clean this grill' - which was true... she then asked me what that was called - the grill - was that the word?  I told her it was a cooktop (I couldn't think of the word burner) and that grill was a very good word to use.  She called 'coolmath' 'cool mammoth' the other day - which was funny, but she described the game as being the ball with the tongue that sticks and goes whee... which is the iq ball game on coolmath ;)  She saw me looking at some clothing designs on a children's clothing website (to copy), which showed lots of pictures of the same little girl in clothing and asked me where was the 'Esmegirlworld' website - and if we could find it and go there.  She then paid very close attention to the URL and asked me what that spelled.

She keeps telling me 'there's just one more thing..' or 'the one more thing is..' which is different to hear from her.  We walked down to the lake and she looked at all the daisies and told me not to step on the flowers - they were all in blooming, pretty white ones.  I know she must have used the word 'blooming' before, but it was music to my ears.  She asked if the tiny fish that ran away in the water lived there in its home.  I said yes.  She asked why it ran away, and I tried to say it didn't want to be where she squished the mud.  Because she would step on it?  I said no, because the mud is all over where it was now - and it ran away to get away from the mud cloud.  Because it cannot see?, she asked.  Yes, exactly.  I told her the ground was mushy and was squishy.  She asked which one, mushy or squishy or both.  So I described mushy as sinking beneath your feet and squishy as sinking and stuff squirting out as you sink - so it was both.  She then asked me where the part of the shore was where the octopus lived - was it the orange rocks there?  No octopi live in our lake.. I am sure ;)  She was disappointed.

She wanted to sit up on a branch in a tree so badly earlier today but I couldn't find one that didn't have poison ivy on it or sharp bits or too weak etc etc... I told her we would go to the park tomorrow and had a lot of arguing about wanting to go today....She went to bed early (9 pm) on the promise that I didn't have to go to work tomorrow and we can play more, go to town and go to the park.  I made up the pair of pants I had cut out weeks ago at the library, adding a pair of contrasting cuffs to the bottom.  I have to get on the ball and start sewing more bit by bit.. and I have to organize my table - all of our paint stuff has dominated it and I am not sure where else to put it.

I found some of what I believe is this pencilflower growing out on the roadside... it looks so pretty, tiny little orange yellow flowers.  I took a tiny piece of it into our garden and we'll see if it survives.  It is in the bean family ... that fits with me I guess. ;)

Handmade art by Mom for Esme's room

I still get my paintbrush out once in a while -although not for anything as elaborate as I used to make.  Here is a pirate painting for Esme's room and also some animals I painted on her new closet doors.

Pirate dreams painting - details asked for Esme are the scene on the left with the treasure island and the dreaming pirate, and the stars, and a 'whale' which I made an attempt at by the sunset/sunrise.

Once the closet was in place in her room the doors looked a little plain.  So, I grabbed a paintbrush and freehanded some animals onto it - I had intended two giraffes facing each other and instead made a tiger in pants and shoes, and a giraffe with a coat on :) 

We already have some dresses hung up on hangers inside and I am trying to get her to keep her boots and shoes in here at the bottom - socks and loose thins in the shelf above.  She has taken the dresses on hangers out and played with them saying it is dress up time - is this too small - is this just right?  Try this on, won't you?  I need to get more hangers - and looking at her clothes I know that August is just a little ways off.. I will need to get sewing if she is going to have something in decent condition for school every day. 

I just haven't had a lot of time for sewing since that last coat.. and even that took me weeks from cutout to finish.  Note to self:  Need pants too, have one pair cut out but they are summer length - and now that she requires nearly a full two yards for a pair of pants, they have gotten more expensive - not as much as jeans, though... still have to think if we might have her try on some jeans to see how they fit, and compare the investment now that she has grown so much.

 Esme with her horse pretending the pirate ship is a castle and she is a 'knight girl with the armor'

This is where the painting is in her room, by her sleeping light on the shelf. 

day off with cloning machine cardboard box fun

 Esme wanted to play with cardboard this morning.  I have a head cold, but this seemed like a better bet than wandering around outside behind her in the mud.  I robbed a length from my pvc tent bag for the rod and would like to get some plastic hangers and a few wooden knobs to finish the project.  She wanted a 'tube with the (lever) that you turn and open the door and there will be a sister inside, or maybe a brother - and it will be all the things and go 'boom' and it will be fun.  She told me this while she was in the bathtub this morning and was very upset we could not build a real one -- she has been on this kick for a while, actually... and we finally discussed we could make one like 'pretend'... 'no not the park with all the things pretend - the part with the (building) like pretend' (her strange words), but finally accepted that we would build the machine like pretend.  We found a few boxes in the garage and talked about how to build it.  She got inside it and pretended she was a Mummy coming out of a sarcophagus (like a Scooby doo mystery show) she said, and then we finally settled on putting doors on it.

The doors are laced on the side with yarn after punching through with a crochet hook and a double pointed needle (mom work)... She wanted to keep all the white part white (good!) and I insisted we paint more than just the doors so it would look nicer.. She had a mad fit about that - but then came back with the blue and we continued.

Helping me paint the doors yellow like the sun coming inside... the other door ended up pink after she used up most of the yellow paint ;)

This was earlier when she was playing Velma with her glasses and trying to make hot dogs out of playdough.