Milestones

from Carolyn

“Were you amazed that I didn’t have to hang on to the banister? I’m becoming one of you guys!”

Later: “Mom! In 4 years, I’ll be 10!”

We're already regretting the storytime ritual

Ono: Pete figured out his first spelled word today (the name of his friend Jack). The Parental Spelling Code Era begins its fade into twilight.

Thinking big

We finally got around to swapping Pete's crib and changing table out of his room to give him his own twin bed, known as the big boy bed. He's been excited about the idea for a while. After we put the bed in his room on Wednesday, Carolyn told Pete that we had a big surprise waiting for him at home. "Is it a sucker?" asked Pete. "No," said Carolyn, "it's much bigger than that." Pete: "Is it a big sucker?"

Boy writes name, receives feedback

A few months ago, my son (who turned three in January) wrote his name for the first time. As a teacher of writing, I thought it appropriate to give him some comments. Here follow the image and my response.



Assignment: Writing Your Name
Peter Simpson
Introduction to Reading and Writing
April 2008


Dear Pete,


Congratulations on writing your name for the first time! You have done an excellent job learning the three letters necessary for completing this assignment, and you wrote them in sequence with only minimal supervision and guidance from Mama. She and I are both proud of you, and we hope you look back on this as one of the highlights of your three-year-old year.

I also have some suggestions you might consider as you continue writing your name in the future—as I would encourage you to do, given this promising beginning. The first point involves spacing. As you know, you ran out of room on this sheet of paper after the first three letters, so you had to make the final “e” next to the initial “p.” It would be better to plan out the spacing of your words in advance to avoid confusing the reader. Also, most readers and editors will expect any capital “e” to have exactly three horizontal lines. Drawing many more horizontal lines on each “e” is fine if you are writing for Mama and me, but when composing for a wider audience, try to stick to three. Along the same lines, you seem at this point to be capitalizing the letters “p” and “e” but not “t”; I would suggest either capitalizing all your letters or only the initial “p,” to make either “PETE” or “Pete.” If you want to know which of those two forms is preferable for a given piece, consult your teacher or editor. Finally, though I certainly understand your desire to reduce your spending on school supplies, especially since you will not even get an allowance for some years yet, I do think you’ll find that readers prefer letterhead or plain white writing paper to hotel stationery. Mama or I can show you where to find such paper at home.

Do not let these details overwhelm my main point, Pete: you have done very well with this assignment, and I sincerely look forward to seeing what other words you will write soon. Nice work!


Best,


Professor Simpson (Papa)

How fetching

Pete and Erik this morning--

Erik: Hey, Pete. I'm going upstairs to get my shoes. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to stay here and play with your cars?

Pete: I get them. I be right back.

Erik (confused--this hasn't happened before): You want to come with me?

Pete (starting up the stairs): You stay here.

Erik: OK. I want the brown ones, all right?

(Pause of about three minutes, punctuated by clunking and clomping upstairs. Pete slowly makes his way back down the stairs, carrying two of Carolyn's white sneakers, which do look like my white sneakers, by his fingers in one hand.)

Pete (on the stairs): I be careful. I have fingers in them!

Erik: Good job!

Pete (at the bottom, handing the shoes to me): Here you go! I did it by self!


Sometimes the most interesting milestones are the ones we never knew to seek.

Oh, baby!

I have NEWS!

To wit:

[pip],

a.k.a. Peter Jacob Simpson (trochaic trimiter),

a.k.a. Pete,

joined us in the outside world at 10:00 (on the dot!) last night, January 20th. He weighs 7 pounds, 12 ounces, stretches out to 19 1/2 inches, and delights his parents utterly.

During labor, Pete's wee head got caught slightly out of position for the descent, resulting in a difficult stretch for him and Carolyn and ultimately a caesarian section. Everyone got through that all right, and we've now had a very good night and morning together. Carolyn is doing very well today.

We’re scheduled to be in the hospital until Monday. Somewhere along the way, I’ll be getting pictures and whatnot on the internets. There will soon be a picture here, but I don't know when.

We all thank you for your good wishes.

Hic

The baby had hiccups (or hiccoughs, if you're old school) for the first time a few nights ago--steady little movements, in rhythm, for about five minutes, then the usual unpredictable squirming again. My mom was happy to hear it; she says I had hiccups a lot before I was born.

Light

[Fathead] can now see light from the outside world.

Kick!

We have kicking! I've felt a little kick!