Is this my punishment for studying Adam Smith?

Pete told us over the weekend that he doesn't want to be a paleontologist after all. Instead, he wants to build robots that will dig up dinosaur bones and discover new species. By having the robots do the digging, he explained, he will have more time to write comic books.

Nowadays?

The Second Revelation of the Secret Books of Pete Simpson:

"Cheese sticks aren't so good nowadays."

(Scroll down a few posts for additional context.)

As Carolyn put it, "We are so doomed."

Richard Scarry book: "You can be a doctor or nurse."

Pete: I can't be a nurse. You have to be a woman to be a nurse.

Erik: Well, some men are nurses. Men and women can be doctors, and men and women can be nurses.

Pete: (skeptical look)

Erik: It's true that most nurses are women, but some are men, too.

Pete: Actually, I have secret books. And I was reading them, and one of them said only women can be nurses.

Erik: . . .

Pete: These books are real! And they can tell you about anything!

It is about mercenaries

My book arrived at the house.

I showed it to Pete and had him read the dedication line: "For Carolyn and Pete." He was delighted, to a degree that surprised me.

"Did you make this for ME?"

Yes, I said. I suppose that's right.

He smiled broadly and almost hugged the book. He paused as his eyes widened.

"Does it have BLASTERS in it?"

Preparation for The Waste Land

from Carolyn

Pete Takes after His Parents:

Pete is obsessed with his first literary allusion. It's the framed picture on the wall in Goodnight Moon that reproduces in black and white a colorful illustration from Runaway Bunny. He holds both books in his lap, both open to the correct pages, and looks back and forth. He wouldn't hand them over, last night, and I left him in his crib, in a room too dark for him to really see the illustrations, still marveling at seeing a picture long-familiar in once context (the oft-read Goodnight Moon, newly discovered in another (the more-recently-added-to-our-collection Runaway Bunny).

Speaking of Goodnight Moon, Pete is obsessed with the "old lady whispering hush." When I used to read this book to him every night, he never noticed her. But now that we're reading it regularly again, she's the main focus for him. When we're looking at the pages where she doesn't appear, he always (ALWAYS) asks where she is. In some cases, where the picture depicts the room in such a way that she is simply out of the range of the illustration, I point to a place off of the page where she would appear if the illustration were larger. He's started to do that, too. But he's still unnerved about where she is when the book begins (and her chair is vacant) and ends (when it is vacant again). We talk about how she's probably doing the dishes at the end (since that's what I do after I put Pete to bed), and he'll sometimes suggest that's where she is, but I don't think he's convinced. Her comings and goings really seems to puzzle him. Goodnight nobody, indeed.

I think I should write an essay about all the disturbing things about the books we read to Pete. Like Harold and the Purple Crayon. Being and Nothingness for the toddler set is what that is.