Compound sentences
Today Devon and I were talking about the various balls she plays with -- her tennis ball, whiffle ball, ping pong ball, green ball, red ball and blue ball (the last three being generic balls with no particular purpose). Yesterday when Walt dropped her off at Elaine's, she insisted on taking her whiffle ball and blue ball with her, so I'm certain they've dropped into the childcare maw and won't be seen again.
The other balls, however, are still at home, and I was trying to explain to her that while the whiffle ball was at Elaine's, the tennis ball (among others) was at home. She asked me more about this and after a minute or so said, "Whiffa ball Eaine's, tenn ball home." I was rather amazed; I think this qualifies as the first real sentence I've heard from her. Usually I'll hear a word or two strung together (like "blue ball" or "teapot," which is the signal to sing I'm a Little Teapot) but not a whole phrase, especially not something with a complicated thought strung together. It was pretty neat to hear this.
She also seems to have crossed a barrier with the telephone. Previously when someone called (like Paw-Paw), she'd want to "talk" on the telephone; but that consisted of Devon holding the phone up to her ear silently and the other person having to carry on a one-sided conversation. The other day when I called Walt and Devon wanted to talk to me, I asked her if she went to the playground today and she said, "Yes." She also said "green ball," so I knew that she had been playing with it recently. She seems comfortable now talking without seeing the person in front of her. Previously she knew who was calling and wanted to listen to them talk but didn't seem to understand that she had to say something back.
We're getting a little more moved in, although we can't really unpack and enjoy the kitchen because the other cabinets still have to be installed and painted. Even though I'm putting things in existing cabinets, I'll have to take them out again when we do the painting (hopefully near the end of the month). But it's nice just to get some boxes unpacked. The extra room is still full to bursting with boxes, most full of kitchen stuff, plus the uninstalled cabinets and the kitchen hood, so it's not winnowed down the way I'd like it to be. I'm hoping we can make some progress this weekend and especially move the kitchen table into the kitchen. We've been eating on this ugly coffee table from Walt's studio and it's really a nightmare -- Devon won't sit still in her chair at the coffee table, so consequently we have food all over the rug constantly. And I'm getting tired of eating Japanese-style on my knees.
We might also have some window coverings in by early October. I had originally thought perhaps they'd be in by the end of the month, but of course the help-that-knows-nothing at EXPO threw a wrench in those plans. Walt got a call this week that the shades we had ordered couldn't be manufactured; apparently you can't get a valance plus top-down/bottom-up functionality on a Roman shade (no need to bore you with these arcane fenestration terms here, suffice it to say that what the first sales person said we could order was later contradicted by this other woman). So after spending 4+ hours with the first idiot at Home Depot, it turns out that she still screwed up the order and they had to call us to restructure it.
Of course salesperson #2 was equally stupid; first she called me and said that there was a problem with a different set of shades. Then about an hour later she called back and said, whoops, forget what I said the first time, there's a whole different problem here and told me about another issue. I ended up having four phone calls over two days with this woman to straighten out the order. This, of course, delayed their placing the order, so now we won't even hear from the installer until the end of September. I was so enraged by this that I started to compose another flame mail to the manager of the Emeryville EXPO, but then I remembered that I had sent a flaming email lambasting the incompetence of the salesperson at Floorcraft and then the very next week I had to work with him again because they delivered the wrong cabinet. I think this time I'll wait until we actually get these window shades installed and then send off my letter.
The other balls, however, are still at home, and I was trying to explain to her that while the whiffle ball was at Elaine's, the tennis ball (among others) was at home. She asked me more about this and after a minute or so said, "Whiffa ball Eaine's, tenn ball home." I was rather amazed; I think this qualifies as the first real sentence I've heard from her. Usually I'll hear a word or two strung together (like "blue ball" or "teapot," which is the signal to sing I'm a Little Teapot) but not a whole phrase, especially not something with a complicated thought strung together. It was pretty neat to hear this.
She also seems to have crossed a barrier with the telephone. Previously when someone called (like Paw-Paw), she'd want to "talk" on the telephone; but that consisted of Devon holding the phone up to her ear silently and the other person having to carry on a one-sided conversation. The other day when I called Walt and Devon wanted to talk to me, I asked her if she went to the playground today and she said, "Yes." She also said "green ball," so I knew that she had been playing with it recently. She seems comfortable now talking without seeing the person in front of her. Previously she knew who was calling and wanted to listen to them talk but didn't seem to understand that she had to say something back.
We're getting a little more moved in, although we can't really unpack and enjoy the kitchen because the other cabinets still have to be installed and painted. Even though I'm putting things in existing cabinets, I'll have to take them out again when we do the painting (hopefully near the end of the month). But it's nice just to get some boxes unpacked. The extra room is still full to bursting with boxes, most full of kitchen stuff, plus the uninstalled cabinets and the kitchen hood, so it's not winnowed down the way I'd like it to be. I'm hoping we can make some progress this weekend and especially move the kitchen table into the kitchen. We've been eating on this ugly coffee table from Walt's studio and it's really a nightmare -- Devon won't sit still in her chair at the coffee table, so consequently we have food all over the rug constantly. And I'm getting tired of eating Japanese-style on my knees.
We might also have some window coverings in by early October. I had originally thought perhaps they'd be in by the end of the month, but of course the help-that-knows-nothing at EXPO threw a wrench in those plans. Walt got a call this week that the shades we had ordered couldn't be manufactured; apparently you can't get a valance plus top-down/bottom-up functionality on a Roman shade (no need to bore you with these arcane fenestration terms here, suffice it to say that what the first sales person said we could order was later contradicted by this other woman). So after spending 4+ hours with the first idiot at Home Depot, it turns out that she still screwed up the order and they had to call us to restructure it.
Of course salesperson #2 was equally stupid; first she called me and said that there was a problem with a different set of shades. Then about an hour later she called back and said, whoops, forget what I said the first time, there's a whole different problem here and told me about another issue. I ended up having four phone calls over two days with this woman to straighten out the order. This, of course, delayed their placing the order, so now we won't even hear from the installer until the end of September. I was so enraged by this that I started to compose another flame mail to the manager of the Emeryville EXPO, but then I remembered that I had sent a flaming email lambasting the incompetence of the salesperson at Floorcraft and then the very next week I had to work with him again because they delivered the wrong cabinet. I think this time I'll wait until we actually get these window shades installed and then send off my letter.
posted by Devon Szalva at
8:26 PM
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