like a dying ostrich with the croup

I'm coughing about that much, and exactly how you might picture that - or perhaps a seal falling over on a wet deck and sloshing around a little. *ha* I have to keep my sense of humor up! I get tomorrow off but going to try to make it today - as they have 'big plans' they want to get finished. That is why I stayed longer yesterday than I really should have - and have to cut that time off of today. I'm getting sick pay for the day and a half I did take off this week, I hope. I didn't think a day and a half qualifies but an employee who has been there longer says they tell you that because they don't want you to try to use it - to 'save it up for later when you need it' etc because most people abuse it... I put in for it and I'll probably hear something if they decide against it etc... I was at the meeting for my sales level yesterday and everyone there thought I was about to die - using my rootbeer bottle as an ice pack. I told them I can look like I'm about to die here - there are no customers.. I have to save my strength ;)

Esme has been wonderful this morning. She came downstairs with me after a very perky hello. She told me her drink cup was VERY heavy and made a big deal about handing me this empty drink cup as if it weighed 50 lbs. That made me smirk. She said a few other things this morning that were both 'more complete' and/or subtle - but I can't remember them atm. Then she cooperated fully with changing her clothes and going down for breakfast. Esme coughed some drinking her first drink of the day - but she still isn't running a fever and I haven't seen any more nose drainage from her. She played with the cats like usual in the middle of breakfast - capturing not only the baby kitten but also Ninja in a clothes hamper and dragging them around the kitchen. They were dis amused by the idea.. but not truly frantic. I think they thought as long as they had each other in there it couldn't get too bad. There was a lot of 'pet pet' kitty and 'you're a good kitty' and 'kitty bite tail!' as they were playing with each other in there. I think Ninja was both proud of herself and also wondering what she got herself into at the same time.

Esme finished her cereal, picked out her own shirt and helped me put it on - and now is watching 'Putty Tat' Sylvester and Tweety. I'm coughing every few minutes and producing much yuck... but at least the cats are still in their skins and relatively calm about it. I didn't even wake anyone up last night coughing so I guess it isn't too bad yet.

well enough

I'm not well, but well enough - so I'm going into work. Mostly it is coughing up the junk out of my lungs now and dealing with the headache that comes with that, and flashes of fever coming and going. But my nose isn't running down my face and I'm not coughing terribly and I can stay awake for more than an hour at a time... so...

Esme was cute this morning. She was all ready for a bath and perky perky little girl at 7 in the morning. And then she gave up eating her applejacks to go play with the little cat, putting her in a big box and laughing when she got out - playing 'cat basketball' putting her back in again and again and picking her up after she got out. The cat was cooperating. This is the last one that was left from the outside litter and we would like to give it away, too... but haven't managed to yet. Ninja thinks it is a wonderful playmate and is usually found not too far away from the games.

Esme was trying to repeat the word 'assistance' from me this morning, which was cute - and she might need to hear that one a few more times to differentiate it from Wallace and Gromit 'assistance' which is being hit with a large hammer when Wallace is too fat to fit through the fireman's hole in his floor. ha! She is picking up more and more words and longer ones - trying to say a lot more that we understand and then goes off on long running sentences that we have to very listen very closely to. She corrected me this morning when I asked her if she wanted to take a 'bathtub', and said NO MUMUM 'take a bath'. Uh.. yea, that works too ;) I've always said take a bathtub to her because she never used to understand 'take a bath' the same way!

One of her new bathtub games is to line up her marker covers (little cylinders 2 inches long and have an open hole on one side) on the side of the tub and put superballs on top of each one - then say it is a 'burfday cake' and blow on them. She's getting in practice! She still won't answer how old she is, or will be - but she knows birthday has a cake and you blow on candles and sing a badly sung rendition of the song.

We watched Date Night last night and it was pretty good. Mark was sweet and remembered I had wanted to see it, so when he was out for supplies he rented it from our local shop.

The Put Upon Bunny Dog

When Mark went to the store for supplies today I hung out with Esme and snapped a few pictures. She was being very good and the dogs were helping me babysit some :) Esme has been insisting on wearing her 'pink shirt' daily now.

Bunny dog was put upon quite a bit.. and she does a wonderful expression.

The fever went down some this morning and back up this evening... and the sinus drainage is beginning to congest in my chest. I'm drinking the chicken soup trimmings from Mark's semi-weekly chicken fry up. Esme is in bed. She has been snorking a little more and had some green drainage after a bath tonight. Her temperature is not up but I'll check it one more time before I'm off to bed again myself.

fever

I had one of those weird fevered dream states last night that felt all too real, and all broken up, and things happening that had no way of going together etc... Something about teapots walking together choosing the determination of their shadows and calling a 'code 3' on a banana at my register at work to check to see if it had a faucet buried inside it (I think Rowlf and Fozzie were there from the Muppet show Esme was watching too)... so surreal. There was a long dream where everything I was trying to install in this house kept changing size, position and orientation on me minute after minute.. .until I was utterly confused and frustrated in the dream and realized it was me - not the house - that I had to wake myself up because I was dreaming.

I think I drank a gallon of water every few hours last night in the middle of all that - just chugged it down and went back to sleep, woke up (for obvious reasons) an hour after that, then drank more water and went back to sleep immediately again. Esme kept waking up too, and saying 'Mumum it's morning!' and I would have to tell her it wasn't morning and to go back to sleep. I just hope she doesn't get the same kind of thing because I feel like I lost brain cells in the fever ... and I don't want her to go through the same thing.

a few bits and christmas in august (just kidding)

Woke up with sore throats today, sneezing everywhere .. guessing it is the pollen count or the burning they were doing on the highway etc. Hope it doesn't turn bad on me. Esme seems okay, a little snorking, but she is being her usual self. We went for grocery store (oj, coffee, necessities around here) and got some fried chicken. Esme really enjoyed going to town and was charmingly happy about all of it. We were looking at dinosaur skeletons on the Internet and she tells me they are 'dragon bones'. When she sees them all jumbled up or separated they are 'broke dragon bones.' Dragon bones still go 'rar'... and she likes their feet. She has been getting in a lot of trouble today because she is chasing the cat into a corner and then sitting over there by the stairs. That's hard to explain, but there is nothing to do in that corner but pull things down off the bookcase and/or trap the poor cat, so we are telling her to get out of there and go do something else. Mama doesn't feel really good, but I'm still trying to play with her nicely :) She is burying her cow in memory cards and having the piggy toy go 'oink oink where are you cow?'

I was looking for some more things to sew for her. I might get in the mood again sometime soon. The sewing machine is acting half-right, enough that the pants weren't too hard to make lately. Maybe my thread bobbins were warped -- Mark and I looked in awed horror at two the other day where one was noticeably misshapen compared to the other. I think it came from the factory that way. That could definitely mess up the machine. Going to up that elastic size to 16.5 inches because the pants did leave a slight mark on her skin overnight. It seems to be a trial and error thing.

Have accomplished a bit of birthday/christmas shopping even though we aren't really big on that around here. It has been a large topic of discussion on the parenting board I visit -- and I guess I gave in a little and started thinking about what I would like to give her this year. The set of wooden blocks coming is for one of those, and a set of 'parquetry' blocks and cards for making designs is another one. Both of those were won off of Ebay for not much. The hardest part of all that is waiting to give them to her.... can I succeed at that? We'll see.

I've got a few other things in my own mind - not going to put them here right now. I'm amazed at how often things I've seen before and thought 'she is way too young for that' come up later and I think 'I really should have gotten that and saved it!' But I didn't on some of it.. I did do that with the rollerskates grabbing them for three bucks at a rummage sale back when she was a year old - and now she loves them. All of the plastic animals we bought her last year are still part of the 'daily lexicon' - getting into discussions with other animals and climbing block towers and swimming in cereal milk some days etc.etc... I've definitely got my eye out for a few animals she talks about a lot but we don't have one of, or don't have two of. She has this thing with needing two of any plastic animal sometimes.. so they can fight or talk. 'Hi I'm a cow. I'm a cow too! WOW, we're two cows.' etc..' She even has her fabric snake and her wooden snake talk to each other like that.. and the two dragons, and the piggy figures etc etc...

Headstand and 'fly'

swoosh

'I fly, Esme fly!'
I liked those pictures and Esme pointed to them on the screen and said 'Esme fly!' Well, right you are little one... you do fly :) She is using her name so much more often now. I did it! Esme did it! etc... and calling herself by name in the mirror and in pictures even though sometimes it feels like she still thinks that is 'another person' and not herself.... she has most of that down now.

I made her several pairs of pants the past few days - because she needed them. I cut them out at work and sewed them after I got home. They are size 3 with about two inches added to the bottom length. The medium-weight elastic is 15.5 inches, although her waist is 20.5 inches. I'm writing that down because I keep forgetting it and keep having to check again and again! She liked this pair quite a bit although Daddy says it looks like 'Florida old man golfer' fabric. I also asked her to show me her headstand she is working on. And she did. She had us all doing headstands in the kitchen earlier!


rolling giggle


headstand

I got the full five act version of how to cook a fish stick also - for her playmobil daddy doll she had downstairs. Esme told the daddy doll to sit on the chair while she pretended to take fish sticks out of the freezer, put them on a pan, put them in the oven, beep beep beep to mean they are done, and then take them out and give to the daddy doll, and put the empty dish in the oven and the plate after eating in the sink. All of this without actually opening the fridge or the oven - but making herself very clear. And she wasn't hungry - the daddy doll was, because the daddy doll said 'RAR' at her (me actually). She has so much more to say lately, Mark says, and is working ever harder on communicating it. She had a discussion with me tonight about 'need baby wipe wash hand draw blue EW!' That was her way of trying to say 'I've got blue marker on my hand please help me find something to wash it off with.'

Now she is upstairs here hunting bugs with her flyswatter and scattering blocks all over the floor for the third time tonight. I bought her a new set on Ebay - that look a lot like her red and green ones. She'll have fun with them, and I'll have fun with them, and Daddy probably will, too.

And for comic relief, as if we need more... she is now spinning around near me with a box on her head saying 'I'm in box it dark got a box (on my) face HI! I hide. Peekaboo! I hide. yea, box on HEAD.' Daddy made her a balloon hat which she puts on her head and says 'I did it - I'm a funny baby!' She also called Jeff Foxworthy a 'bad funny man' tonight when he did the bit where he falls down on the floor and rolls around while everyone laughs at him. In her mind the actor is bad for rolling around on the floor like that -- but funny as well. She took turns calling the other comics on Mark's show bad and funny...she has really gotten into adjectives lately and also into saying whole phrases like 'what's happening', 'what are you doing', 'how are you' and one sentence 'o* sh*t', that we don't want her to say! But she does use that last one in proper context... when someone is falling, or people are shooting at each other in a movie etc... something bad is happening, watch out!