"No, focus on the puppet spell," Esmeralda appeared up close to Regina to hold her hand and prevent her from flipping through the pages. Her plan from the beginning was to get Regina to master a spell that could place a soul in an object which in this case would be a puppet, and then bring it to life to take over the object used.
She was angered by Regina getting sidetracked by other things. There was enough time for Regina to learn a way to communicate with Aurora but she had lied before. There wasn't enough time for Regina to take things slow when learning her spells and potions. She was only trying to cheer Regina up so that she wouldn't become discouraged.