Phantom of the Playground

This is what the Princeling looked like upon waking up this morning:

"My mom calls me Meatloaf Face."
(And yes, that's his thermometer he's playing with.)

Since we live in a pedestrian city and therefore we walk everywhere, we got a lot of stares this morning on the way to daycare. People's general reaction to seeing this on such a little boy was a combination of horror and pity, as if I was pushing Quasimodo in the stroller. As we walked out of the elevator and our upstairs neighbor walked in - our neighbor whose dog the Princeling is in love with and plays with - he said, "Oh my god, is he OK?" I said that yeah, he's fine, just ate some sidewalk yesterday, as kids do. The neighbor got onto the elevator with a look that clearly said he was keeping an eye on me and had the Department of Child Services on speed dial.

Meanwhile, today while I was out I took a photo of the spot where the Princeling fell yesterday:

The scene of the crime.

This is on the north side of 10th Street between 7th Ave and 6th Ave, in front of the first brownstone closer to 7th. The Princeling was running from the top of the photo area to the bottom. It slopes down, so he gained a lot of momentum from running, and that uneven part where the two pieces of sidewalk meet is a good 2 inches or so. When you're only 20 months old that's a huge gap, and so he lost his footing and fell face-first. Poor little guy.

I'm working on finding out to whom I should complain about this. I love the trees here, but the roots are killing the sidewalks and this is a real hazard.