Esme Update

Esme took about a week to get adjusted back to the west coast time zone after our last trip.  The first morning after we got back she woke up at 4:30am which is 7:30am in North Carolina.  Yikes!  It was a little bit of a shocker for us but luckily it's staying darker in the mornings now so we would leave her in her crib for an hour or so and sometimes she'd fall back asleep or she'd just talk to herself for awhile.  Each day she woke up later and later until she got back to her normal waking time of about 7am.  Now that we can handle!

The tantrums have entered our lives in the past few weeks and Esme goes to town with them sometimes.  It's a little stressful when we're trying to get ready for school and work in the morning but with a lot of patience and redirection we've been getting by.  She still lets me pick out her clothes but she's all over her shoes.  She's got a bin in the garage of her shoes and she's very particular in which ones she wears each day.  This girl REALLY loves her shoes.  If we're in a store and she sees kids shoes then she takes hers off and wants to try on those ones. 

She's still pottying a lot at daycare and at home it's hit or miss.  Sometimes she wants to sit on the potty and other times she doesn't.  And whether or not she produces anything varies too.  I finally put away the small potty seats that were on the bathroom floors cause she really just likes to use the ring on the big potty.  Now we need to get a stool so she can climb up there on her own. 

Esme continues to be an awesome eater.  We make it a point to eat dinner together every night which is a little tight since I get home around 5:30pm and we start her bedtime routine at 6:30pm.  As long as we're prepared then we can whip something up pretty quickly and she's good about eating the same things we're eating.  We're also letting her drink out of a small cup without a lid when she's in her highchair and she likes that. 

I've recently cleaned out her closet and drawers to replace all her summer clothes with winter clothes.  She's also grown out of anything sized for 12 months and now she's into 18 month clothing.  She still really loves sucking her thumb for comfort when she's upset or tired.  Another thing that comforts her are her "bee-la's."  That's blanket in Esme language.  When she wakes up in the morning she collects all her bee-la's in her crib so they're piled so high in her arms that it's hard to see her face and then she wants to be picked up.  It makes for a little difficult trip down the stairs to the kitchen.  Then once we wiggle them out of her hands we can sit her down for milk and whatever else she wants.