First purchase

     Big sister Zoey is in town and while she and Tina were off hiking yesterday, Esme and I made a plan to go downtown:
     "I want to go to the bakuwrly."  (Sorry, but it's very hard to accurately transcribe just how she talks at times.  I'll continue to do my best.  Today was a beaucisul day, and we'll have anudy one toNAno.)
     Just on a whim, I asked her if she wanted Daddy to buy her something at the bakery, or if she wanted to spend some of her own money.  She wanted to do it herself so she started looking for her money.  She ended up finding four crisp, one dollar bills in her cash register.  And no matter how I tried to advise other possibilities, she would have none of it -- she was going to carry those dollars in her hand all the way.
     Which she did.

     When we reached the bakery, she let the kind woman know which cookie she wanted.  Even to the point of helping the woman pick out the exact cookie from the tray.  She handed over her money and took her change.  I tried to help by holding her change, but she would have none of that until I pointed out that, with a dollar in one hand and change in the other, she had no more hands left to hold her cookie.  So she kept hold of her dollar, took her bag of cookie, and we headed outside.
     As this was her trip all the way, I asked her where she wanted to sit.
     "In the shady parts!" she replied clearly.  She led us to a bench and sat.  I was a little surprised when she only ate a small portion of the cookie before declaring it was time to head home, but not nearly so much as when she offered part of her cookie to Tina and Zoey when they returned from their hike.

     How many of you can say the first thing you ever purchased with your own money was a chocolate decadent cookie that you offered to share with others?

It's the Little Things She Does (part IV)

     I don't even know where to start.  This girl is learning and exploring so much, it's hard enough to try to keep up with her -- when am I supposed to find time to blog about it?!  But fear not, intrepid explorers, she's going to bed with mom tonight and I'm going to steal a few minutes for writing.  (Which means I'm not planning for school, grading, playing my guitar or bass, practicing Aikido, planning Aikido classes, gardening, or reading (gasp!) for pleasure.)

     One of the biggest moments for me recently was about a month ago at Good Earth Farms, where we have a seedling CSA.  We'd stopped by to pick up our first tray of frost resistant plants and had a great time exploring while we were there.  At one point, Esme was a little tired and was in my arms, with her head on my shoulder.  I'm busy talking to the folks that run the place about gardening and music when I hear, over my shoulder, Esme clearly say, "N - E - S - H - O - B - E, F - A - R - M, S - T - A - N - D.  What does that say?"

     I turned around and realized that, on their red barn, they have written in white letters 'Neshobe Farm Stand'.  (The Neshobe River runs through town.  Esme's eventual school is Neshobe Elementary School.)  Somehow, this little 3-and-a-half year old is recognizing letters out of context.

     She's also listening closely when we try to teach her that "an-uhn-uh" is actually pronounced 'another' (which she worked at to reach "an-uhd-er," so there's that), and she doesn't actually need her toy binoculars to watch the birds (and squirrels) at the bird feeders outside our kitchen window.  Perhaps not listening so closely when we try to teach her to only water the plants (not the driveway, or the house, or the garage) and that Daddy is not always a climbing apparatus.

      She's entering the arena of imaginative play, whether with her imaginary friend, Flower (who has an amazing capacity to be large or small, here or there, whatever the situation requires); her stuffed animals (which require medical attention at an alarming rate, or at least they did the first few months after Esme got her doctor's kit -- does that mean she's got a limited attention span or that she's an amazing physician?); her kitchen (which sometimes requires one to promise to finish cooking the food in order to get her to go to bed); or with her imitation of so many of the daily activities that happen around our house (and you should see the girl fold clothes -- you never thought of doing it that way, I guarantee you).

     She captures hearts wherever she goes, especially at the Brandon Free Public Library and the local bookstore, Book & Leaf.  We go to the library at least once a week, for books, movies, and music.  It seems she never fails to step up to the counter at some point and engage one of the three librarians.  At the book store (where both my books are on the local author shelf!), she bounces back and forth between her parents and seeking out the woman who runs the store.  (Yes, they sell coffee and tea and some incredible cookies.  We rarely leave without at least three items, whether they be literary, gustatory, or coffee-y.

     She continues to 'play' instruments, though I must admit to being a bit worried when she came over to the door really upset one day with my guitar in her hands.  She had perhaps knocked it down trying to get to the window?  Mostly she strums or pounds, but her whistling is developing past a single note and her capacity to sing a melody (whether or not she kept the words from the original song) astounds me.

     And now my writing time has expired for the evening so I'm throwing a few photos your way to make up for the past few months of no contact.  There are so many more stories to share.  Until next time.

Esme with the first section of her strawberry garden.

Love and kisses to all!

Emergent Musician

     I have been meaning, for some time, to compile video of the various instruments Esme 'plays'.  Thus far, she owns a kazoo, two shakers, a drum (featured in the latter three videos), a xylophone, bells, and any two objects she can bang together to create sound (and sometimes, rhythm).
     She also enjoys playing her daddy's bass, guitar, drums, and has been experimenting with her mama's pan flute and her sister's keyboard.  (She even dragged me from the very out of tune upright in our living room to the keyboard upstairs, indicating along the way that she doesn't like how the upright sounds and prefers the better sounding keyboard.)  She's certainly not yet making what most would call music, but she is showing interest in playing and caring for the instruments.  Today I grabbed three videos of her musically multitasking, and it seemed like this would be a good time to start the musical posts.  Daddy may play bass, but Esme plays everything!

In this video, Esme find a way to use a Lincoln Log as a bow to play Daddy's guitar.

http://youtu.be/a-Z9DStirTQ

And for these next three, she's playing both her drum (Thanks, Cathy!) at the same time that she plays guitar, whether strumming or as another percussion instrument.

http://youtu.be/WDnIEpxClgg

The 'Weather Watcher' song featured in this video comes from her child care center.

http://youtu.be/zA1aDlMLPC8

http://youtu.be/wvJ1VFQYbf0

     I hope you have enjoyed our little emergent musician.  I look forward to being able to play actual songs with her in the not too distant future.

Raising a Reader

     We have, of course, been reading to Esme since she was a baby.  There have been many evolutions of this process over time, but the leap that we saw today was astounding and emotional and joyous.  All the more so as it happened with a book I loved as a child, but haven't shared with her that much thus far.
     On another blog post, I can remember writing about how, as a child, I always read The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter with my mom.  I can remember saying, repeatedly, as we would finish the book, "When I grow up and become Peter Rabbit, I'm not going to go into Mr. McGregor's garden!"  I pointed out the irony in that post that I grew up to be Mr. McGregor instead of Peter.  (So much so that I have been known to chase rabbits, squirrels, and groundhogs around my yard with a rake.)
     Today, along with a pile of other books, Esme presented me with The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  She even told me to read that one first.  So I gave her a little background ("Daddy loved this book!" "When you were a little boy?" "Yes, when Daddy was a little boy, Gran would read this book to him almost every day."), and launched in to reading.  One of the new facets of reading with Esme is to ask her to find things in the pictures, or she will say she sees things that we have to find.  I had her point to Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter under the tree, and Mother in front of the tree.  I had her point to the tree itself, as it is the last thing mentioned on the opening page.  But, before I could turn the page, she pointed to the beginning of the story, "Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits..."
     "Oh," she said, pointing to the first letter.  Not quite getting what she was saying, I asked her what she saw; what she was pointing at.  She again said 'O', pointing to the larger-than-the-other-letters first letter on the page.
     "Yes," I skeptically said, "that's the letter 'o'."  I might have left it at that if she hadn't pointed to the middle of Flopsy's name.
     "Oh," she said, then pointed to Mopsy's, and both of Cottontail's.  "Oh, oh, oh."
     At this point I got really excited.  Keep in mind we're on page 1 of the story.  I flipped the page and before I could start reading, she found and identified all the o's on the page.  (Okay, so some of them she pointed to multiple times on her way to pointing out all the o's, but this is letter recognition in a 3.4 year old.)  I read the page and asked her to identify Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, which she did in their red cloaks.  Then I asked her where Peter was, and she pointed to the little bunny in the blue coat.  (How she knew which one was Peter isn't clear to me, but she was certain -- and right.)  We continued this process throughout half the book.  Turn the page, she finds all (most) of the o's, then I read and she connects the picture to what I read.
     She did point to some other letters, seeming to ask me what they were, so I identified N, T, and b for her.  She seemed to not be as excited about that, but then she put her finger under the beginning of a word and said sounds as she ran her finger along the word.  She stopped, moved to the next word, and repeated her sounding process.  She did this for about a line and a half of text, not matching sounds with the letters or words, but indicating that she understood the concept that these strings of letters, one of which she could identify, related to the concept of speaking, or at least making sounds.
     I then started at the top of the page and followed her process, pointing along each word as I read it to her.  She let me do that as Mother got her basket and went to the bakers, but that slowed the story down and she didn't want it to continue on the subsequent pages.  She did continue to point out o's, to Tina's and my disbelief.  We each watched in amazement as we transitioned from upstairs to downstairs.  She held the book and told us what was going on in the picture as she scanned the lines of text with her finger.  When we got situated all together on the couch, Esme showed Tina how she could find the o's on a page.  It did take a while, but we finished the book.  Esme also identified the picture from the book that's at the bottom of her cereal bowl, a gift from my mom a year or two ago.  And she was clear that Peter was a naughty rabbit who ought to listen to his mother.
     If it stopped there, this would be an amazing enough day, but she didn't stop pointing out o's.  On other books, on Tina's purse, on other pieces of paper.  There were several times that she was starting to put herself in a vaguely dangerous situation (climbing on the table, stacking things so she could reach higher), but when asked what she was doing or being asked to get down, she would reach just a little further, point out an o, and proudly climb down safely.
     Still later in the evening, when Tina was typing on her iPad trying to get some work done, Esme cuddled up next to her and started quizzing Tina on what the letters were on the screen's keyboard.  Tina had to abandon work and set up a new document for Esme.  For the next 20 minutes, Esme would type a letter and Tina would say the letter and it's main sound.  At first, Esme's keystrokes seemed random, but there towards the end I watched Esme meticulously work across the keyboard from l to a and from p to q.
     So, in the professional language of our trade, Esme today proved herself to be an emergent reader. Odd how one person gaining access to means of communication can leave others speechless.