Oddly, nobody else seems to be playing the same game.

Some parts of adjusting to London have been hard. I always have trouble with new places, even when they aren't that new to me. It's been up and down for all of us, including Pete, who has been delightfully excited about England but also sometimes cranky, understandably so given that the trip made him so tired he fell asleep at dinner yesterday while carrying pizza from his plate to his mouth. The best part for me has been taking walks to play baseball (specifically, "Giants vs. Dodgers" simulations with a tennis ball) on Hampstead Heath.

Pondering the effects of early fame

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to extract the photo from the slideshow, but Pete made the Omaha paper! He's, um, 11th up from the bottom of the thumbnails on the left.

I hope she said yes

from Carolyn

Pete, looking at an awesome photo of Ozzie Smith: "Is that Papa?"

One step from The Show

Pete has played his first "organized" "game" of tee-ball. "Organized" meaning a split into two teams, with everybody getting a turn to hit a tennis ball from the tee into a small mob of preschoolers who do not even pretend to spread out or play positions. "Game" meaning one inning, every batter and runner advancing on every hit, no scorekeeping. No mechanism for putting a batter/runner out, for that matter. Pete ripped the ball through the crowd when he had the chance and recovered ("caught" would be hyperbole) three or so of the other team's balls, though he afterwards lamented turning his head on one ball, letting his friend Will gather it. He'll now graduate to the "league"! With team shirts! I'm gonna go sharpen some teeny spikes.

So that's what they do behind the cameras

from Carolyn

Pete asks for an adventure every night, and tonight we went over and had a picnic on campus, about half a block from the house. And then we went with Pete to hit balls with his new baseball bat on Mac Field. Pete was getting creative--stepping away to let "another batter" hit, etc. At one point he walked over to the left of the "plate" and said he was "going where the baseball players live" "behind the gate"--i.e., to the dugout. Erik and I played catch, waiting for him to decide it was his turn to hit again, and when I looked over a minute later, his pants and underwear were around his ankles and he was peeing on the grass.

Baseball and then some baseball, please

Pete has become utterly obsessed with baseball. He has been mildly interested in baseball for a long time, but something clicked when I got a new toddler-sized wiffle ball set for him. We started playing with it about a week ago, and to my surprise, he picked up the basics right away. He started out missing most pitches, and he still misses a lot, but he makes a lot of contact now, and he can handle overhand pitching. He lined a ball at my head yesterday, hard enough to make me flinch. The entertaining parts of this are two:

1) The sheer intensity of his love for hitting. Now when we're at home, every little while, the idea of hitting will come to him, and he begins a relentless campaign: "Hit some baseballs? Hit some baseballs? Hit some baseballs?" He'll make his way to the front door, desperately trying to entice us outside: "Hit some baseballs?" This morning, during one of these episodes, Carolyn said, "Oh, Pete, can you give me a little kiss?" Pete walked to her, put his face up to hers, put a little hand on each of her cheeks, inclined his head slightly to the side, and said, "Hit some baseballs?"

2) Out of nowhere, Pete has made the shift from wanting to play sports to wanting to imitate sports mannerisms, which is much funnier. Jackie Brown's kids taught him to run after he hits a ball; after seeing the Cedar Rapids Kernels play on Friday, he added the step of tossing his bat away with a flourish. The Kernels also seem to have taught him the art of tapping his bat on the outside of the plate before each pitch--Pete now gives his favorite anthill a few gentle whacks. And when we watched the French Open final on Sunday, Pete started swinging his indoor (foam) bat like a tennis racquet and doing Rafael Nadal grunts with each pitch. If you see him and ask him "What does Nadal say?" he'll give you a great little "Ah!"

Ice storm!

Yesterday's was the second major ice storm I've seen--the first was a legendary storm in Virginia and elsewhere in 1994. This one was much more localized but much more damaging. We were without power from about noon yesterday until early this morning, and four or five large branches fell on our little property, including one that tore off the side mirror of what Pete calls Papa car. We were very lucky compared to a lot of people, including our next-door neighbors, who have at least a dozen large branches down, some of them huge, and some damage to their fences and perhaps also their deck. We were also very lucky in that we got our heat back overnight when radio reports were warning the outage would take "not hours but days." I walked two blocks last night and saw dozens and dozens of downed branches and a couple of power lines. The amazing thing about ice storms is that the damage is all about having the perfect temperatures for making ice accumulate on surfaces, so they can be ordinary-seeming winter storms, slow and fairly calm. It's like getting hit by a train that has almost stopped. It doesn't look like much, but you don't want to be hit by a train.

We had to get seriously creative about playing with Pete. We were well and truly stuck in our house. Two of the day's highlights:

1. In the morning (before the outage), we persuaded Pete to wear a bib when he refused by putting one on a doll of Shakespeare (a gift to Pete from one of our friends). Background information: Pete's big fabric model of Thomas the Tank Engine was folded flat on the couch.

Erik: Pete, do you want the blue bib?
Pete: No!
Carolyn (knowing this had worked before): OK, we'll have Shakespeare wear the blue bib. (Puts blue bib on Shakespeare, sets Shakespeare on another seat at the table.) Would you like the green bib?
Pete (hesitantly, eyeing Shakespeare): No.
C: Would you like the blue bib?
P: Uh-huh.
(C moves the bib from Shakespeare to Pete.)
(Pete looks at his cereal, thinks. Gets down and walks to the other chair.)
P: Shake speare seepy.
E: Shakespeare's sleepy?
P: Uh-huh.
(Pete takes Shakespeare to the couch.)
P: Move train.
(Pete tosses Thomas to the floor and gently sets the Bard, face down, on the couch.)
P: Shake speare seepy.
(Pete heads back to the table to eat his Kix.)

2. After learning volleyball hits earlier in the week (he now has spotty setting skills and an uncannily good bump technique), Pete turned his attention to baseball yesterday. He started out wanting us to pitch to him--underhand, with puffy balls aimed at where he usually swing--and later in the day decided to pitch to us. He's very good at the step-and-throw pitching motion, and yesterday he decided to extend that to many steps. As you recall, we were inside for many hours, so this had time to develop into its culmination. Carolyn or I would stand with a bat (a toddler maraca) by our front door, with Pete about five feet away. He would consider throwing the ball, then decide to get a head start and run with his quick toddler steps to the adjoining living room. (We have a small house with the kitchen gated off, so this is all the space he has to work with.) Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp (circling around the dinner table and then getting louder) stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp THROW!

And the pitch would come in from about four feet away, very fast and completely unhittable at that distance. Pete would collapse, laughing, then pick up the ball and start again. Stomp stomp stomp ...