Water, water everywhere
Today was a water day for Devon; she spent the day with my mom and they went swimming in the afternoon. Devon was so excited about it that she wouldn't take off her swimsuit, so she came back with her swimsuit top still on. My mom was helping her to jump in the water, and she also learned how to blow bubbles (I tried to get her to demo this for me later in the bathtub and she promptly inhaled a big mouthful of water -- needless to say, a demonstration did not ensue).
Then when I picked her up and we came home, we went out into the backyard. It's been extremely hot in San Francisco lately, like the rest of the country (although I'd note that for us "extremely" hot is weather in the 80s -- although I'm personally having some trouble sleeping at night because I'm used to it being quite cold and now it's downright hot at night. The one big plus, however, is that there hasn't been any fog for several days, and usually in July one can go days without ever seeing the sun). She immediately spotted the hose on the ground and said, "Wawa, wawa!" She really loves the hose with the sprayer attached -- one of those garden sprayers that just screws onto the end of a hose -- so I stripped her down to her swimsuit top and diaper and turned on the hose. I'd spray the water into the plants, and then Devon would put her hand in front of the spray (spraying water all over herself in the process) and squeal with laughter. After about 15 minutes of this she was showing no signs of fatigue, so after a little fiddling, I finally figured out how to keep the sprayer on (she's too small to turn it on herself, and she doesn't like the hose without the sprayer). This was a huge hit. I just kept the water at low pressure and she played for a long time with it. After spraying the plants for while, she found a plant saucer (one of those terracotta saucers that go under pots), filled it up with water and spent a very long time splashing in the saucer, filling it up again, splashing, etc.
After all of this water play in the backyard, she was pretty muddy, so I bundled her into the bathtub right after dinner (Walt has been trying to transplant some of our herbs from the old apartment to the new one, so there is a lot of additional dirt on the patio right now). Devon has recently discovered the drain, so for the last couple of baths she's played around in the water and then pulled the plug on the tub to watch the water drain away (and of course she won't let me intervene to keep the water in it).
Today I went out to heat up her milk while she was splashing away, and then at some point she must have pulled the plug from the drain; not too long after I left, she started yelling, "Mommy," at the top of her lungs. 
I came in and she was standing in the empty tub as if she was expecting me to conjure water back into it.
Well, we had another setback in the apartment. Yesterday I called the place where we ordered the cabinets to get a count on drawer pulls and knobs so I could order them. They called back to tell me they had no record of my order. ARGH. I had called this place before the 4th of July to place the order, so this was a total screwup on their end. To make matters worse (or I should say, to make me even less comfortable with the whole situation), when I asked them to go over the order with me before they resubmitted it, the guy read out the wrong order! We had changed our measurements from our first ideas, so I had gone in a second time to give them new measurements before (I thought) placing the order. The really awful part about this is that it takes 5-6 weeks to get the cabinets, so now we're looking at early September before we have cabinets in the kitchen (and by extension, a sink, a dishwasher, etc. since the cabinets are a prerequisite to getting any of that installed). This also means that we need to convince our painter to come back later to paint these cabinets (delightful -- he'll probably charge us more money) and do the same with Aaron, who needs to install them. The final delight is that we'll be in the apartment for at least a month (probably more, since after they arrive they still need to be painted and installed), washing our dishes in the bathroom sink.
When I called Walt to report this latest disaster he cried, "This building is cursed!"
Then when I picked her up and we came home, we went out into the backyard. It's been extremely hot in San Francisco lately, like the rest of the country (although I'd note that for us "extremely" hot is weather in the 80s -- although I'm personally having some trouble sleeping at night because I'm used to it being quite cold and now it's downright hot at night. The one big plus, however, is that there hasn't been any fog for several days, and usually in July one can go days without ever seeing the sun). She immediately spotted the hose on the ground and said, "Wawa, wawa!" She really loves the hose with the sprayer attached -- one of those garden sprayers that just screws onto the end of a hose -- so I stripped her down to her swimsuit top and diaper and turned on the hose. I'd spray the water into the plants, and then Devon would put her hand in front of the spray (spraying water all over herself in the process) and squeal with laughter. After about 15 minutes of this she was showing no signs of fatigue, so after a little fiddling, I finally figured out how to keep the sprayer on (she's too small to turn it on herself, and she doesn't like the hose without the sprayer). This was a huge hit. I just kept the water at low pressure and she played for a long time with it. After spraying the plants for while, she found a plant saucer (one of those terracotta saucers that go under pots), filled it up with water and spent a very long time splashing in the saucer, filling it up again, splashing, etc.
After all of this water play in the backyard, she was pretty muddy, so I bundled her into the bathtub right after dinner (Walt has been trying to transplant some of our herbs from the old apartment to the new one, so there is a lot of additional dirt on the patio right now). Devon has recently discovered the drain, so for the last couple of baths she's played around in the water and then pulled the plug on the tub to watch the water drain away (and of course she won't let me intervene to keep the water in it).
Today I went out to heat up her milk while she was splashing away, and then at some point she must have pulled the plug from the drain; not too long after I left, she started yelling, "Mommy," at the top of her lungs. 
I came in and she was standing in the empty tub as if she was expecting me to conjure water back into it. Well, we had another setback in the apartment. Yesterday I called the place where we ordered the cabinets to get a count on drawer pulls and knobs so I could order them. They called back to tell me they had no record of my order. ARGH. I had called this place before the 4th of July to place the order, so this was a total screwup on their end. To make matters worse (or I should say, to make me even less comfortable with the whole situation), when I asked them to go over the order with me before they resubmitted it, the guy read out the wrong order! We had changed our measurements from our first ideas, so I had gone in a second time to give them new measurements before (I thought) placing the order. The really awful part about this is that it takes 5-6 weeks to get the cabinets, so now we're looking at early September before we have cabinets in the kitchen (and by extension, a sink, a dishwasher, etc. since the cabinets are a prerequisite to getting any of that installed). This also means that we need to convince our painter to come back later to paint these cabinets (delightful -- he'll probably charge us more money) and do the same with Aaron, who needs to install them. The final delight is that we'll be in the apartment for at least a month (probably more, since after they arrive they still need to be painted and installed), washing our dishes in the bathroom sink.
When I called Walt to report this latest disaster he cried, "This building is cursed!"
posted by Devon Szalva at
7:41 PM
1 Comments:
Blaire, I'm so sorry about this latest development. We had something similar happen -- the cabinets arrived, but several pieces were broken, and you need all of them to install at once. So we lived in our house with boxes as counters. One thing that worked well was that we bought a cheap IKEA kitchen sink and had that hooked up so that we could do dishes and stuff there. For you, presumably, the bathroom sink wouldn't be as bad -- our bathrooms were not on the same floor as our kitchen, so it would have been a bigger drag. Plus, you've been using the kitchen sink as a bathroom sink for some time so you must be used to improvisation!
The part about Devon and water is cool, cool, cool. Henry enjoys swimming (he had lessons on Saturdays all spring and now has 3x/week at camp), but maybe not as much as Devon. Can you find lessons for her? It's fun to see them get better at something they love so much.
By
Jim Sailer, at 11:02 PM
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