The rise and faux fall of Stumpy Pete
Today was supposed to be the day of Stumpy Pete's demise, but the stump had the last laugh. This is the one right in the center of the yard that used to house a big stone pine that some "arborist" had massacred in such a way that it would never be able to grow back into any semblance of an attractive again. Walt rented a chainsaw today to saw it out in preparation for (finally) putting in a patio in the dirt lot that has been our backyard for a year in the new apartment. Devon and I went to the playground while Walt threw down the gauntlet with Pete. What I heard, in the later report, was that the he first tried the chainsaw out on a smaller root off of the main one -- it cut through "like butter" and he assumed it would be an hour of two of work to get the stump out. Then when he got to the main, central stump, it was incredibly dense and the chainsaw couldn't actually cut through it all of the way. So the end result was that he cut up as much as he could, and now we're going to have to buy an axe to hack up the rest of the main root. It looks like it will be a few more days before we even get the stump out, much less start leveling the yard.
Devon and I went to the Presidio playground, which is the extra-fancy one that's not too far from us. There were the usual birthday party balloons to taunt us -- I think someone has at least 1 birthday party each Saturday in that park -- but the director of the little clubhouse had a nice surprise. He had set up little xylophones (this make it sound far more elaborate than it was -- small little instruments with strips of wood or metal that chime when hit with a mallet) and drums outside so kids could come by and play. We went to this twice, first when we initially arrived and then again right before we left. Devon insisted that I also play so we could get a duet going. She had a ball with this -- she was literally flailing away with the mallets on the notes and making an immense amount of noise. It was a good thing that no one else was near, because otherwise we probably would have been served with a personal injury lawsuit.
She was pretty wound up by the time we got home and refused to take a nap, so I let her stay up longer in hopes that she'd get tired and fall asleep easily. This was a mistake. We went for a little walk in the stroller, and when we got back, she was practically asleep in the stroller. If I had had any sense, I would have just parked it in the hall and let her sleep in it. Of course I decided to carry in inside to sleep, at which point she woke up and has an incredible tantrum -- almost 45 minutes of full-bore screaming in bed, and she was never remotely close to falling asleep at any point during that. I had actually gotten a handout at the pediatrician's yesterday about toddlers and tantrums, essentially saying, here's what to do now that your child is at the age to have tantrums, so I had ample opportunity to practice their advice. She was completely overtired now, so I got a repeat about an hour later over some minor thing that she wanted.
This handout also talked about how toddlers do not like to share, and kids between the ages of 18-24 months really need to have their own toy; so if you're trying to get a toddler to share a toy, you really need to have two toys -- one for him and the other to "share." The interesting thing is that just within the last 2-3 days I noticed that Devon has gotten the hang of the concept of owning something. She's said "mine" a few times when she's had something, and it's a word that hadn't been in her vocabulary until very recently. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more of it.
We're trying to wean her off the bottle before bed and in the morning, and yesterday was my first successful switch. I used her regular bottle but put a sippy cup valve on it, so it didn't look too different from what she was used to. When she tried it, she clearly knew something was wrong -- she kept taking it out of her mouth and looking at it -- but she used it, which is more than I can say when I just tried to substitue the regular sippy cup. I think she's starting to get accustomed to it, since she didn't protest at all this evening. But then again, she was likely really tired by the time she had to go to bed, and it might have been as much of a relief for her as it was for me to get her in bed for good at last.
Devon and I went to the Presidio playground, which is the extra-fancy one that's not too far from us. There were the usual birthday party balloons to taunt us -- I think someone has at least 1 birthday party each Saturday in that park -- but the director of the little clubhouse had a nice surprise. He had set up little xylophones (this make it sound far more elaborate than it was -- small little instruments with strips of wood or metal that chime when hit with a mallet) and drums outside so kids could come by and play. We went to this twice, first when we initially arrived and then again right before we left. Devon insisted that I also play so we could get a duet going. She had a ball with this -- she was literally flailing away with the mallets on the notes and making an immense amount of noise. It was a good thing that no one else was near, because otherwise we probably would have been served with a personal injury lawsuit.
She was pretty wound up by the time we got home and refused to take a nap, so I let her stay up longer in hopes that she'd get tired and fall asleep easily. This was a mistake. We went for a little walk in the stroller, and when we got back, she was practically asleep in the stroller. If I had had any sense, I would have just parked it in the hall and let her sleep in it. Of course I decided to carry in inside to sleep, at which point she woke up and has an incredible tantrum -- almost 45 minutes of full-bore screaming in bed, and she was never remotely close to falling asleep at any point during that. I had actually gotten a handout at the pediatrician's yesterday about toddlers and tantrums, essentially saying, here's what to do now that your child is at the age to have tantrums, so I had ample opportunity to practice their advice. She was completely overtired now, so I got a repeat about an hour later over some minor thing that she wanted.
This handout also talked about how toddlers do not like to share, and kids between the ages of 18-24 months really need to have their own toy; so if you're trying to get a toddler to share a toy, you really need to have two toys -- one for him and the other to "share." The interesting thing is that just within the last 2-3 days I noticed that Devon has gotten the hang of the concept of owning something. She's said "mine" a few times when she's had something, and it's a word that hadn't been in her vocabulary until very recently. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more of it.
We're trying to wean her off the bottle before bed and in the morning, and yesterday was my first successful switch. I used her regular bottle but put a sippy cup valve on it, so it didn't look too different from what she was used to. When she tried it, she clearly knew something was wrong -- she kept taking it out of her mouth and looking at it -- but she used it, which is more than I can say when I just tried to substitue the regular sippy cup. I think she's starting to get accustomed to it, since she didn't protest at all this evening. But then again, she was likely really tired by the time she had to go to bed, and it might have been as much of a relief for her as it was for me to get her in bed for good at last.
posted by Devon Szalva at
11:04 PM
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