Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Hawkeye of peace, and a floor show

Pete has been ridiculously happy this weekend, so much so that it's been hard to keep up with. This morning, we sat down in church, and he spent a minute checking out the silhouette of the dove of peace on the bulletin. Being the product of daycare in Iowa, he thought about it for a second, then pointed to it and yelled, "Hawkeye! Hawkeye!" On the way home from Iowa City, he said "Iowa Hawkeye." Note that he knows very few two-word phrases at the point--they don't go far beyond "big ball" and "big puppy"---so that's a remarkable development.

In the evening, in Iowa City (at Z'Marik's), Pete attracted the attention of a table of three female UI students. So he started waving. And screeching. And then spinning in circles, grinning, until he fell down from dizziness. Then dancing, in full groove. Then alternating among those activities and absolutely refusing to be removed from his little self-decreed stage in front of their table. This contined for a good while until the students finally left. As I said, a happiness so extreme it's tough to manage.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Take that, Eve!

Last night, Pete ate a whole apple. As in peel to core--the WHOLE apple. Less than a year ago, a tiny corner of an apple-flavored baby puff made him throw up because he couldn't handle such a big bite.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Summer photos

Here are updated Pete pictures, with scads of new ones from the summer.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Studio 916: The Art of Peter Simpson

From Pete:

I'd like my blog readers to know that instead of posting occasionally about my art here, I now put that material up at Studio 916: The Art of Peter Simpson.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Language acquisition runs hot and cold

From Carolyn:

Pete has been saying "hot," and making attempts at blowing on his food when we put it in front of him. We thought he was clearly a genius. Until this morning when he took a bite of his cereal and (cold) milk and insisted it was "hot."

He has been coming to grips with the concept "two." Often he says "two" when he sees two of any one thing: two cats, two birds, two cups. And although he occasionally says "two" when staring into a bowl full of dozens of pieces of Kashi, he has seemed to reserve the term for things that are actually in pairs.

Last night he blew us away by saying "two towels!" when I showed up with, in fact, two towels to wrap him up after his bath. This was the first time he had linked "two" with a plural noun. However, he then proceeded to say "two towels" when he saw the two cats together, two bugs on the wall, and two feet in one of his books. It's so hard to understand what he thinks some of his words or phrases mean.

He also said "two" and pressed the number "2" on a toy keyboard last night. I was ready to call the local news to proclaim the discovery of prodigy RIGHT IN OUR MIDST, and then he said "two" and pressed lots of other keys. Woah, Mama. Take it easy over there.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Dancing fool

We went to a fantastic dinner put on by Grinnell's International Students Organization--great food, lovely atmosphere. Pete was especially fond of tortilla soup and sweet potato pie, but he sampled a bunch of things. And THEN! There was world music playing, mostly dance-oriented stuff with a heavy beat, and Pete started dancing with his little friends Emma and Bea and Shivani, occasionally joined by Timo. The girls and Pete were all dancing like crazy, in Pete's case well beyond anything we'd seen before--jumping and waving and squealing and grooving. For a long time!--at least half an hour. All this was punctuated by occasional sprints around the gym where the event was happening. (We are grateful for the tolerance and sidestepping of everyone in the kids' path.) Pete's giddiness persisted until bedtime. He should sleep well tonight.