Waterbaby

Esme is SUCH a cool kid. I mean it - we are so proud of her. This is maybe the fifth time she has ever been in water over her head (with waterwings on) and she is doing so well! We didn't even have to hold on to her today. She watched Daddy 'swim' around the pool a little and then had a pretty good idea how to do it herself. She was launching herself from one side of the pool to the other going 'WHEE' and blowing water with her mouth. We were impressed! She didn't want to get out again but we were freezing! It was warmer than yesterday but our fingers still tingled when we were warming up later.

Also cute - we showed her waterwings to her before we went outside. She held out her arm and then went 'pffft' with her mouth on her upper arm. I am constantly amazed by the things she knows how to say without words.

With words I could have sworn she said 'I watch t.v.' several times in the past few days. Today I started singing 'twinkle twinkle little star' to her downstairs and she said 'I watch t.v.' or something that sounded like it and wanted to go upstairs. We had watched The Wiggles song and she wanted to see it again when she heard the song. We don't watch t.v. that often and I definitely don't say 'watch t.v.' often - but she also has used this phrase on the computer to go see Youtube videos.

She devoured her pizza in record time and then fell asleep on her plate. It was a long hard active day for such a little one! She had even 'helped' Daddy bring the trash up to the road earlier in the day - trying her best to drag a trash bag and push the wheelbarrow. That is a lot of walking and swimming and stair-climbing she is doing every day now!

Cool Pool

We bought a kiddie pool today. It's eight feet across. It was too cold to even swim in today! We'll have to wait for tomorrow and hope it doesn't rain. Esme thought it was great - but I drug her out after a bit because our deep well water is so cold I was afraid she was going to get sick. She was so mad at me! I let her 'swim swim' in the bathtub for a little while afterwards (in lukewarm water).

So many new words lately. She tried to say motorcycle and Lespedeza and succeeded in saying quite a few other words she hasn't before, 'rock rock', 'swim swim', 'ball', balloon, slide, play, green, belly, 'what are you doing?' and a few others. Our little girl is breaking out of her comfortable vocabulary and trying to say a lot of new things! You should have seen her trying to talk to a lady about getting fried chicken and to the lady at the fabric counter about her coco milk and pretty shoes and the fabric etc etc...

No 'toucan' yet but she has pointed at her shirt several times and then wanted me to say the word.

Friday Afternoon

Watching Kermit


Press that key!


driving two at once


draw draw
(yes we have a plastic skeleton on our wall)
and a defunct chiropractic ultrasound machine under our whiteboard which Esme likes to play with the dials on


Striking a pose at the windowsill

Note: Esme is finally getting her canine teeth in both the upper and lower jaws now! It is funny to see those little sharpies pointing out of her previously bare gum. They are the last 'baby' teeth she had left to get.

Our own slide whee!

Took these pictures Wednesday (as you can probably tell by the lounge pants) but had to work the last few days so I'm just getting to posting them now. I have more pictures to post tomorrow - and the weekend off. So nice!






Esme loves the little slide Daddy bought her! This is in the workshop downstairs near the kitchen. She nearly runs herself dizzy going up and down over and over!

Also thanks to Elizabeth for the cute green toucan shirt! It fits great!

Lounge pants

When I'm home I usually just wear a pair of drawstring 'lounge' or 'yoga' pants instead of jeans. But I've been looking for a sewing pattern to make my own for a while. I saw one for 2.99 that would be alterable for what I wanted.

This took a while yesterday (including a power outage) - but here is my first pair from the (altered) pattern. We'll have to see if they survive the wash - the grey fabric was a 1.00 a yard fabric stashed last year and may or may not be strong enough for the stitches. Any way - it is a good experience and I can make a second pair out of better fabric if this doesn't work out.

The red, white and black fabric is Michael Miller 'First Sight / First Village' - which is actually made (I found out) to be high-contrast for young babies. It was so cute I couldn't resist it at Gwenifer's Attic on Etsy. I usually save the 'cute' fabrics to use for Esme's clothes - but after making a mistake on the seam allowance on these pants I added the panels to make them more like 'yoga' pants.

Esme and I were going to go up to Grandma's house this afternoon but Esme decided instead to dive into a mud puddle up to her knees. I cleaned her up and put her down for a nap while I make lunch. I guess we'll try a visit after that.

Note: A few things I'm proud of Esme for doing lately. She has learned to put her spoons and plastic cups in the sink by herself when she is done. She will throw things away for us if we ask. She is getting so much better with a spoon all by herself but not a lot more luck with a 'big girl' cup. She tried to wash her own face in the bathtub last night when she was full of spaghetti sauce. She still HATES me to wash her face with anything - but she is trying to learn to do it herself. She will also go to dry her hands on the hand towel after we help her wash them at the sink. I think that's all pretty cool for a not quite 21 month old! And - she is finally learning to help take her own clothes off as well as pull her pants up after a change. The 'What to Expect' book says they should be doing this at eighteen months - but she didn't show any interest in trying until just recently.

Playground

Mark caught such good pictures at the playground! I was reccommended to go to this one by someone at work.



Esme thought the bench was as much a toy as the rest of the place. She looks 'so innocent' here ;)




WHEE!


a good shot of both of us


The hippo has 'innards' labelled on the inside - molded into the plastic. Cool yet kind of gross, just right for kids.


watching kids in the pool and being thoroughly confused