So Ess drew up this to-do list in early August. This is the list of things she wanted to do this next day:
Hi, Ess. I really should check in more often here, but of course I have many excuses: all those little things I’ve been working on that seem big now and I’ll forget in the future. In between those, I get to see you. I’m not always there, though. For that, I am very sorry.
Sometimes you dress up as Super Essie:
Some library books we’ve been reading to Ess recently:
Herman and Rosie is a jazz and NYC-themed love story and when Ess wanted a story read to her in the middle of the night, that’s the one she picked. I think she picked it because it’s long for a children’s book, but it still has a nice gentle pace for late-night.
“I was born to be me.”
—Ess
“A single pond means it’s not married to a puddle or a lake or an ocean. Because single means not married and that’s the things a pond would be married to.”
— Esmé
Me: “I spy with my little eye, something… BROWN.”
Ess, without hesitation: “My eyes!”
Here’s a collage of the covers of the books we currently have checked out from the library:
Ess enjoyed the narwhal and penguin fact books very much. She gets super-interested in different animals; penguins a few weeks ago. It has been ducks for the past few days.
Yesterday I sat down at our piano, a piano purchased by my mother’s mother. It is a lovely Baldwin Hamilton upright with acceptable action, lovely bright sound, surprising resonance. I play it when I can, though Ess sometimes asks me to stop. The point of this story, though: I didn’t have to earn it. It was given to me. In the care of my mom’s sister, who was moving, it found its way to me because I still played piano.
We’ve gone from pumpkin to Elsa to octopus to bat back to pumpkin. Pumpkin for a while. Now, we’re at penguin: Essie wants to be a penguin for Halloween. Since she has, essentially, no concept of time, we are struggling to articulate the importance of sticking with the costume once it has been ordered. When time has no meaning, Halloween is in the nebulous future, and there will always be time to order a different costume.
“Oh dear!!” is one of my favorite things Ess says.
Hot, humid summer weather + dreams = Ess waking up drenched in sweat.
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