A spoonful of sugar
This evening Walt and I realized that I hadn't caught quite all of the previous moving preparations -- our internet connection was disconnected today. Originally when I thought we were moving last weekend, I had turned off all the utilities (electricity, gas, etc.) including the web; I remembered to turn most of these back on (including telephone service) but then apparently forgot the DSL. When I called AT&T to try to extend service for another 10 days (since now we're moving next week), they told me no, the service was already disconnected and they couldn't reconnect it. Frankly, it's probably totally untrue, they just don't want to reconnect it -- and when you're a monopoly (or just about), it's easy to lay down the law.
Originally we were thinking about moving into the new place and forgoing land line service and just using cell phones, but then when I investigated this, it turns out that AT&T requires land line service in order to get DSL. Greedy bastards. So now we have to get a phone just so we can get an internet connection (I did investigate cable modems, but they're almost 3x the cost of DSL, and I'm not willing to spend that now). Anyway, we'll be dark for the next week and a half, so blogging will be spotty. I'm trying something today where I'm writing my post on the train on notepad and will then post it when I get to work and have a connection (now that I'm about to do my last performance review, I'll actually have some time to do things on the train other than write performance reviews).
I'm wondering if my mom slipped Devon some sugar yesterday when she was there. She seemed fine last night -- not really overly hyper or anything -- but when we tried to put her to bed, all hell broke loose. It was quite clear that she wasn't remotely tired. She kept standing up in her crib, yelling to get out, asking for more toys, etc. This was especially vexing for Walt, since he had gotten up at 4am yesterday and was ready to go to bed at 9pm; however, Devon was just getting her second wind at 9 and wasn't even close to being sleepy.
Since we're still in the current studio apartment, when she yells or cries, it's basically like being right next to her -- there is no option to close the door to a room and let her yell. I got her out and tried rocking her for a while, but that didn't do any good; she wanted to be read to and generally entertained. Walt finally tried letting her out of the crib to wander around, at which point she came into the bathroom and decided that she wanted to join me in the bath. She had already had her own bath over two hours earlier, but no matter. The whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that we couldn't find Zeebie, the stuffed zebra that she usually sleeps with, and she was very anxious over the loss of Zeebie. She threw it out of the crib at some point during the evening, and even though Walt did a very thorough search with a flashlight, we couldn't find it. We were completely exasperated at 10pm and just decided to let her yell for a while in her crib; after about 15 minutes of ear-splitting shrieking, she quieted down and finally fell asleep. Walt was really cranky last night and into this morning because of the whole thing.
It's rather astounding to me how quickly the interests of children change. I've been thinking about favorite toys that Devon had 6 months ago and how those favorites have changed entirely. When she was a year old, she loved this toy that my friend Kaaren gave me, a plastic thing with all sorts of levers to pull and push that make noise; now it's not at all interesting to her. Our friend Vicky had given us a great pop-up book called Bow Wow, and for weeks, I had to read Bow Wow to her 2, 3 and sometimes 4 times a night. She's now moved on to other books, like the Peace book that Walt's sister Cathy gave her, and we rarely hear a request for the formerly beloved Bow Wow. Her interest in the alphabet books, which was at an all-time high a couple of months ago, is also waning (although these aren't completely out of her firmament by any means).
Her current toys are the following:
blocks
wooden puzzles (the kind with cutout shapes -- we also have wooden alphabet and number puzzles from Chris that she loves)
ping pong ball (or other balls of various shapes and sizes, although the ping pong has risen to the top of the list lately)
frog and unicorn puppets (only if Walt and I create some kind of staged "play")
Peace book
Of course we've had to pack away a lot of her other toys, so she's probably forgotten anything else that she has -- and she can really only play with the ones that aren't packed (which include the above). But she's very excited about them, especially the blocks -- she's been playing with them so much that I can see her dexterity improve over time. It's pretty fascinating to see something like that; it makes me appreciate the value of good old fashioned persistence and practice.
[Note: clearly this process isn't working, since I've had this post on my computer for 3 days now!]
Originally we were thinking about moving into the new place and forgoing land line service and just using cell phones, but then when I investigated this, it turns out that AT&T requires land line service in order to get DSL. Greedy bastards. So now we have to get a phone just so we can get an internet connection (I did investigate cable modems, but they're almost 3x the cost of DSL, and I'm not willing to spend that now). Anyway, we'll be dark for the next week and a half, so blogging will be spotty. I'm trying something today where I'm writing my post on the train on notepad and will then post it when I get to work and have a connection (now that I'm about to do my last performance review, I'll actually have some time to do things on the train other than write performance reviews).
I'm wondering if my mom slipped Devon some sugar yesterday when she was there. She seemed fine last night -- not really overly hyper or anything -- but when we tried to put her to bed, all hell broke loose. It was quite clear that she wasn't remotely tired. She kept standing up in her crib, yelling to get out, asking for more toys, etc. This was especially vexing for Walt, since he had gotten up at 4am yesterday and was ready to go to bed at 9pm; however, Devon was just getting her second wind at 9 and wasn't even close to being sleepy.
Since we're still in the current studio apartment, when she yells or cries, it's basically like being right next to her -- there is no option to close the door to a room and let her yell. I got her out and tried rocking her for a while, but that didn't do any good; she wanted to be read to and generally entertained. Walt finally tried letting her out of the crib to wander around, at which point she came into the bathroom and decided that she wanted to join me in the bath. She had already had her own bath over two hours earlier, but no matter. The whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that we couldn't find Zeebie, the stuffed zebra that she usually sleeps with, and she was very anxious over the loss of Zeebie. She threw it out of the crib at some point during the evening, and even though Walt did a very thorough search with a flashlight, we couldn't find it. We were completely exasperated at 10pm and just decided to let her yell for a while in her crib; after about 15 minutes of ear-splitting shrieking, she quieted down and finally fell asleep. Walt was really cranky last night and into this morning because of the whole thing.
It's rather astounding to me how quickly the interests of children change. I've been thinking about favorite toys that Devon had 6 months ago and how those favorites have changed entirely. When she was a year old, she loved this toy that my friend Kaaren gave me, a plastic thing with all sorts of levers to pull and push that make noise; now it's not at all interesting to her. Our friend Vicky had given us a great pop-up book called Bow Wow, and for weeks, I had to read Bow Wow to her 2, 3 and sometimes 4 times a night. She's now moved on to other books, like the Peace book that Walt's sister Cathy gave her, and we rarely hear a request for the formerly beloved Bow Wow. Her interest in the alphabet books, which was at an all-time high a couple of months ago, is also waning (although these aren't completely out of her firmament by any means).
Her current toys are the following:
blocks
wooden puzzles (the kind with cutout shapes -- we also have wooden alphabet and number puzzles from Chris that she loves)
ping pong ball (or other balls of various shapes and sizes, although the ping pong has risen to the top of the list lately)
frog and unicorn puppets (only if Walt and I create some kind of staged "play")
Peace book
Of course we've had to pack away a lot of her other toys, so she's probably forgotten anything else that she has -- and she can really only play with the ones that aren't packed (which include the above). But she's very excited about them, especially the blocks -- she's been playing with them so much that I can see her dexterity improve over time. It's pretty fascinating to see something like that; it makes me appreciate the value of good old fashioned persistence and practice.
[Note: clearly this process isn't working, since I've had this post on my computer for 3 days now!]
posted by Devon Szalva at
9:31 AM
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