Step one

Whoa! First step! As reported earlier, Pete has been standing up pretty solidly, and sometimes he has appeared to think about walking. This evening, we set him down in front of us to practice standing, as we have many times, and boom! That little right foot popped forward and set itself down again. He fell on his little bum almost immediately, of course. Then he did the same thing two more times. Waddya know--I guess that's the last of the big firsts, isn't it?

Oh, and Pete's vocabulary has now expanded to four words, with "uh-oh!" (after he drops something, usually on purpose) joining hi, ba[ll], and mama.

Ba[ll]

Pete now says "ba" for "ball"--and also "mama." The usage is imperfect in both cases, but he gets them right often enough that I'm willing to say he has a three-word vocabulary of varying reliability. He's also getting really close to taking that first step.

Useless flippers

From Carolyn--

This I miss: Do you know those little wind-up toys that move around if you put them in water? Do you know how silly they look if you put them on the floor and let them unwind there instead, flippers flapping uselessly? When Pete used to get really exited, he'd collapse on the floor on his stomach and kick his legs and pump his arms over and over, just like those toys. Now that he's able to stand up, he really doesn't do it any more. He still gets excited, but he shows it in different ways.

However, he does now occasionally give big sloppy open-mouthed un-puckering kisses, which are pretty great.

New sets of photos

Here are the Petey pix including his first Christmas, first big trip east, and first birthday. Again, I recommend the "view as slideshow" function.

Happy birthday, Pete!

Happy birthday to Pete! The big oh-one! We explained to him this morning how he amazes us with all the things he can do now, and also, by contrast, what an utterly incompetent human he was a year ago. Man, you couldn't even eat right! Fortunatly, Pete has a wonderful sense of humor.

Pete says hi.

First word! First word! At Saints Rest this afternoon, Pete started saying "hi" to people, in the right context, with a little wave. He kept it up through the evening, greeting [cjacobso], her dad, me, my mom on the phone, his new rocking horse. For the almost-year he's been alive, I've probably asked him "Can you say [x]?" thousands of times, always rhetorically. "Can you say amphibious? Can you say Oscar Peterson trio?" Tonight, I said, "Can you say hi?" And he looked at me, gave me that little wave and a smile, and said, "Hi!" Wonderful boy.

Pete hits the road

Since that last update on December 22nd, we've taken our first big trip east (an annual winter event before last year) with Pete. Two and a half weeks and 2,800 miles later, we're back, enjoying getting used to our house again, and trying to catch up on a lot of things at once--including notes to some people who might be reading this. Soon!

Pete has gone through one of his phases of hyperdevelopment. When we left, he couldn't climb a stair; now, he can climb a flight. (Only up--he's eager to go down head-first, so we have to work on that.) When we left, he was eating prepared baby food and some training puffs, perhaps with a Cheerio here and there; now, we can hand him a hunk of bagel, and he'll cheerfully pick away at it on his own. When we left, he was babbling but seemed not to have the sound of words yet; now, a set of words--prominently "mama," "baba" (bye-bye), and "light"--are contending to be the first that he definitively and exclusively connects to their referents. He stands himself up with ease and releases his grip for quick moments without falling. If someone playfully falls from a sitting position, he falls too, and laughs. It's a whole new world for the whole new year, with a first birthday approaching in less than two weeks.

One great trip moment: we walked outside of our hotel building in Allentown, PA to get some breakfast. We were surprised by a sunny morning (rare on the trip) and a big flock of Canada geese making its way across the sky above us in a series of groups. We directed Pete's attention upwards, not knowing whether he could see or would notice the squawking birds, but he did--he pointed up, tracked groups of them, grinned, and squeaked himself, making a sound generally reserved for sightings of cats and dogs. Sky puppies! Every morning should start so well.

Dadaism

Pete has seemed to be getting the idea of language lately. He picks up his books and pages through them while babbling. He points at things around the house, generally the Christmas ornaments and ceiling fans, and likes it when we name the things.

And THEN. Yesterday evening, I went to get Pete at day care. He was with another baby (Ezra, the younger son of [praitis] and Roger Hill) and two of the women who care for him. When I arrived, Pete was uncommonly cheerful; he smiled and clapped and reached for me to pick him up. When I did, he turned to the other adults, smiled again, and said,

"DADA!"

The bell of the proverb could not have been clearer. The other three adults were agog.

And then I had to explain that we don't call me Dada, or even Dad. (I'm Papa.) Pete might hear other people call me Dad occasionally, but not often, and almost never Dada. "Dada"--in keeping with the movement of modern art that goes by that name--is just a sound Pete happens to be able to make.

It was a great moment, though.

Chuck of the upward persuasion

From Carolyn:

Pete just threw up a l l o v e r m e. And all over himself. Repeatedly. There was nothing to do but step right into the tub with all of our clothes on. We have both recovered, though. And Erik was a hero who brought towels and helped take my watch off and collected the messy clothes in a bag and wrapped Pete up in many towels once he was clean. Thank goodness there was no chain reaction vomiting. And thank goodness for washing machines.

Clapping and crawling

Pete, by the way, has enjoyed two breakthroughs in the last few days. First, on Thanksgiving, he learned how to clap. I noticed that Carolyn's cousin Mike was clapping at Pete. Then I looked and saw Pete clapping back. "My goodness!" said I. "You got him to clap!" And Mike explained that it was actually the other way around--Pete clapped to him first. The next day, Pete developed the skill enough to make a little pat-pat sound with his claps. The day after that, he really got the hang of it: we were in a big group of people, including another baby, and when everybody else clapped, Pete would respond with huge sweeping claps, starting with his hands way out to the side of his torso, always smiling. BAM BAM BAM.

And last night going into this morning, he really figured out crawling. We've seen the elements falling into place for a while. Most recently, he developed the ability to move from a sitting position into a very confident crawling stance on all fours--this was so smooth that it always looked like he was set to zoom across the floor. But then his arms would go forward, and his knees didn't know how to follow, so he would just go down to the floor on his belly. The knees have now figured out how to follow. Which means, of course, that we're in big trouble.

Up and at 'em

During his usual roll-around-the-floor time after second breakfast, Pete has sat himself up twice. He seems to have understood immediately that this well let him reach things, such as the top of the coffee table, that were previously inaccessible. Yikes.

Fall photos

Here are the latest Petey pix! I recommend the "view as slideshow" function.

Papa got a blog

In case any readers of this blog care to see posts on topics other than Pete from Erik, they can have a peek at Underlying Logic.

Where's Pete?

Pete has added a new element to his peek-a-boo game. Now, he covers himself up, and as we're saying, "Oh, where's Pete?" he sticks his hands out to the sides, raises his legs way up in the air, and then slams the legs down. Repeatedly. So we're there saying "Where's Pete?" as Pete lies in front of us, twitching with excitement and slamming his legs, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Hey! I'm not here to play background music!

Pete started to get fussy a little before his nap time this morning, so I decided to play piano with him. Playing or hearing the piano almost always settles him down. This time, he joined in hitting the keys for a few minutes, then leaned back against me while I practiced some things. During the next ten minutes, he got more relaxed, which let me concentrate more on the playing, which I could do with both hands in a limited way. Then I looked down and realized that Pete had fallen asleep! I had been working out a solo over a Gershwin tune, and he was happily snoozing on my lap. Nice.

An October thought

Pete's near future?

Nature boy

From Carolyn:

We took Pete to CERA for the first time this weekend. The weather was gorgeous and everything there is turning to fall colors. I hadn't been there since the new lab opened, and from what we could see from the outside, it looks fantastic! We used our baby backpack for the first time and tromped through the woods a bit. Pete had a great time (loving the outdoors with a passion that is a bit unsettling in its intensity), and Erik and I , in our more restrained, less screeching way, loved it, too. I found some good-sized snail shells near the trail. I'm not sure I've ever seen those before. (I left those where I found them, but I did remove a tic-tac box that didn't seem native to the area.)

Sudden sitting

I think I've mentioned before how much we've been surprised by the suddenness of Pete's developments. The latest: he figured out how to sit up (meaning, how to stay in a sitting position when placed there) in the last 24 hours. BOOM--he could do it, and now he's perfectly stable for long stretches. The downside is that if he starts to crawl that suddenly, we will be lost.

Comedic interlude

This is a rare post not directly about Pete, but I must call your attention to Calvin's snow art.

Incident report

At day care today, some one-year-old BIT MY SON AND HEIR ON THE HEAD. Aside from a couple little scratches, he's fine, expect for having been BITTEN ON THE HEAD. We got an "incident report" with gems such as "[form] WHERE did the incident take place? [answer] In the Honey Bunnies room." Given that, I say it was Colonel Mustard with the Candlestick.