Destructo

Devon's been fascinated with the windows lately and especially throwing items out of the windows. She started with her ping pong ball, which she threw out her bedroom window and then turned into a game -- she'd throw it out the window and then expect us to run all the way down and retrieve it for her. We're trying to get her to stop this behavior, but the interesting thing is that even when she ruins something by doing this, she still loves it.

I had given her a little teapot set that I bought in China several years ago when Burke was studying abroad. It's one of those small ceramic sets that has a very specific use for a particular type of tea (which I'm sure I never used properly); but it's perfect for small children because even though it's meant for adults to use, it looks like it's sized for kids. The teapot probably holds about 3 oz. and each cup is about twice the size of a thimble. Devon was really excited with this, and when I first gave it to her, she kept asking me to put water in the teapot or in the cups themselves so she could drink out of them.

Then the other day, for no apparent reason, she threw the teapot out the window (this was on Walt's watch, so I only heard about it secondhand). Of course the thing shattered into a million pieces on the sidewalk. When I got in and Walt told me about this, I took Devon downstairs so we could look at the broken teapot (my intent being to impress upon her that she should not throw things out of the window because they broke). It didn't take at all, since now she's just been running around saying (with a certain amount of pride), "Teapot boken, teapot boken." The really strange thing is that she seems to understand the concept that it's broken and is not coming back -- but it's not a deterrent. Now that the teapot is broken, and I've shown her the broken pieces, she really hasn't asked for it -- and ditto for the blue ball that she threw in the Bay on a trip to the farmer's market. It's gone (although not forgotten). Today she threw the ballerina from her music box out the window (luckily it's plastic so no harm -- although frankly this music box is so annoying it might be a plus if she did throw it out the window). She seems to know enough not to throw any of our things out of the window, but we definitely haven't figured out how to stop the behavior entirely.

This is a propos of nothing, but Walt found it on The Huffington Post (or "HuffPo" as the cognoscenti call it) and it had both of us laughing out loud. Apparently a "guerrilla artist" placed a life-sized figure of a Guantanamo Bay captive in a Disney World exhibit, and it was there for an hour and a half before someone discovered it. The figure was wearing a hood and shackles and was placed inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride. I noticed that the official Disney World web site description of the ride doesn't mention the GitMo captive... I think Florida, which is hosting the jaw-dropping campaign of Republican Katherine Harris for Senate, could use more guerilla art.