In retrospect, it seems a turning point in the primary campaign

Pete and Barack gave each other some (disputed) type of "five." They discussed a "high five" in the seconds before it occurred, Pete then offered what I'd call a "low five." Obama, after returning with an appropriate reciprocal gesture, referred to the interaction as a "soft five," and Pete referred to it this morning as a "small five."

Knowing your station in life

Something put Pete in mind of Space Shuttles this morning. After
noting the shuttles' salient features--wings, huge nose--he paused and
declared, "I'll be astronaut." Carolyn immediately pointed
out the wisdom of this ambition: space exploration is probably the most
prestigious profession that allows, and even requires, the wearing of
diapers.

When parents overestimate their children's readiness for public events

from Carolyn

Whoops. The first note of a percussion ensemble concert tonight did Pete in. He then inserted his own solo during the otherwise deep silence: "I want to goooooo!" Sorry about that, percussionists.

No connection with the voters, no nomination

from Carolyn

The phone rang last night, and it was a recorded message from Chris Dodd. Pete ran over, clammering to talk on the phone. So I handed him the receiver, saying, "It's Chris Dodd." Using one of his most friendly voices, Pete said, "Hi, Chris Dog!" Then a pause. Then, again very engaging, "Hi, Chris Dog!" Then a quizzical look at me, since Chris Dog wasn't pausing in his monologue to say Hi back.

Limits

Pete's favorite number has long been five. He insists that he has
five grandparents, for instance, and this evening he wanted to go to
five restaurants for dinner. He recently decided in the singing of
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame"--a frequent event here--that it
is, in fact, FIVE strikes you're out at the old ball game. I think we
have a healthy sense of the value of imagination over undue literalism,
but come on! Three strikes. Three. Carolyn is with me on this
one.

Let me tell you a tale of the upper Midwest ...

Pete has started to love "stories,"
whether established (we can struggle through a passable Goldilocks or
Three Little Pigs) or made up. I've been using a formula I think I got
from Adam Gopnik's brilliant essay "The Rookie" (about
telling stories to his son): make the main character like the kid and
throw a bunch of obstacles in for drama. Every evening, Little Petey
Fish tries to make it up a stream to find a sandwich (obstacles: log
and rapids, overcome by alliances with frog and salmon, respectively).
Or, in a Carolyn creation, Pete gets a family of ducks off a runway
using duck food from the zoo, thus rescuing a family vacation. Pete
loves this stuff, to the extent that stories even capture his attention
and calm him when he's really upset about something (e.g., having to
get out of the bath). Last week, Carolyn told me she had asked Pete
to tell his own story, but he just named a bunch of things from our
stories--the ducks and so on. Said Carolyn, in totally unironic
disappointment, "It was completely derivative." Little Petey
Fish meets a tough crowd!



During Carolyn's current absence, Pete understands perfectly that
Carolyn is in a place called Cleveland "running a
convention"--a phrase he has allowed me not to explain very
thoroughly. I hope this week doesn't give him a lasting,
little-understood aversion to northern Ohio.

Lit theory moment: language fills the gap left by the absent mother

Carolyn is running her convention in Cleveland until Sunday. Night
one of solo parenting is in the books with only a little crying from
Pete. He's gotten very good at saying "Cleveland."

Love and candy

This was Pete's first real Hallowe'en--the first time he was able
to anticipate the event, to know what he was going to be, to leave the
house.

He was Tigger. We got a great costume from a consignment store in
Davenport. Pete loved the idea and had been willing to roar and bounce
for weeks. When I picked him up from school yesterday, he was all set
to get into the holiday mood.

Then, a setback. We wanted to have a quick dinner before heading
out, but Pete was unwilling to eat. This would be normal for many
preschoolers, but it's very strange for him. It was the first sign
that he was uncertain about the whole business. But all went well when
first trick-or-treater--the older daughter of the family next
door--arrived at our house dressed as Carmen (as in Bizet). Pete came
with us to talk to her and seemed to like doing so.

Then, a big setback. The younger neighbor girl, Ryn, arrived in a
ghost mask. Nothing fancy, but Pete was truly spooked. He hopped into
my arms and hung on HARD. Fortunately, Ryn is very sweet and was in no
hurry, so she stayed for a few minutes, mask off, and talked to Pete.
Pete seemed able to separate his fear of the mask from his affection
for Ryn--he cheerfully waved and said, "Bye, Ryn!" between
bouts of cowering--but he wasn't getting over the fright anytime soon.

Back to dinner, with Pete now uncertain about the whole costume
business. The highlight of this time was not directly Hallowe'eny.
Pete and I were sitting at the table.

Pete: Mama's a sgurrial.
Erik: Mama's a squirrel?
Pete: Mama's a guirrel.
Erik: Mama's a girl?
Pete: Uh-huh! I love girls!

This is an instance of Pete's very recent tendency to declare his
loves. As far as I know, the first such declaration came last weekend
in Kansas City, during one of Pete's rare exposure's to cable TV--in
this case, the Food Network.

Pete: What's her name?
Erik, seeing Rachel Ray on the screen: That's Rachel.
Pete: I love her!

Talk about screen presence. No wonder Rachel Ray is a very wealthy
woman.

Anyway, we eventually coaxed Pete into the Tigger costume because
his fear of other costumes was temporarily conquered by his hope that
he himself would be scary.

We went around the neighborhood trick-or-treating, a process that
consisted mostly of our carrying a mildly anxious Pete to the doors of
people we knew. Another child in a mask caused another mild panic, but
everything went pretty well overall, and Pete gained confidence as he
went along. At most places, he was willing to bounce (like Tigger) or
roar or say "trick or treat"--sometimes before, sometimes
after lunging for the candy bowl. He did pretty well with saying thank
you and being generally sweet.

After trick-or-treating, it was clear that we had to work through
the frights. Pete talked about the scary masks many times, and then,
in his bath, he pretended to put on a scary mask himself. We would act
properly scared, then he would take it off, and we would express our
relief that the scary creature was just Pete. He repeated this perhaps
a dozen times.

By morning, however, the masks had largely faded from memory. Pete
is now, emphatically, all about the candy.

See how much you like it after the first stomach flu, kiddo.

from Carolyn

We're grandparents! Pete announced to me tonight that he had a baby, and proceeded to cup his hands together around what I gather is a very small baby. He then said, "I put her to bed," and disappeared into his room, turned off the light, and came back to me, hands at his side. "I threw her into bed. [pause] I missed." But he then went and retrieved the baby and gave no indication that she was hurt at all. I asked what her name was, and he wrinkled up his nose, as he does when he's thinking hard. Then his face opened back up with a smile and he said, deliberately, "My . . . Baby." A little later, he went to bed with no trouble, since his baby was there, and seemed to appreciate the little towel I gave him to cover her up. He seems to be adapting to parenthood a lot more smoothly than I did.

Would that all these moments were the reassuring kind

It's a cliche of parenting: parents are first horrified to hear something their child said and then experience a second horror when they realize that their child is just parroting back something that they themselves have said. Luckily, the same type of realization can happen with something really nice:

Pete: Can I have more cereal, please, Mama?
[I put more cereal in his bowl.]
Pete: Thank you! That's awfully nice of you!

I was first really happy about his manners (which aren't always quite that good), and then I realized that I could hear "That's awfully nice of you" in my own voice. It's good to have moments of reassurance that we're doing some things right. As Pete might say, Good job, MamaPapa!

The very special kitchen implement and other stories

from Carolyn

Last night Pete, out of the blue, started jumping on big pillows and hooting [the name of our friend, biology professor] "Jackie Brown! Jackie Brown!" Then he looked at me like he'd had a big revelation and said, "I'm Jackie Brown!" and went back to jumping and hooting.

He's been having trouble getting to sleep this week, and last night he seemed stuck in a bad place--cranky, wanting Erik to come and fly his planes around his crib, thinking he was wet when he wasn't. I decided he needed something to kick him out of the mental bog he was in, so I grabbed a small whisk from the kitchen and brought it up to him. I explained that it was a whisk and that he was going to be in charge of it for the night. I left him marveling at the shape of it, and that was the last we heard from him. Oh, thank you, whisk.

This morning:
Pete [flying a toy airplane around his crib]: Look, mama! Airplane!
Me: Yes!
Pete: There are people on the plane!
Me: Yes!
Pete [suddenly serious, as if he were correcting me]: *Pretend* people, Mama.

Seriously, you could just snap his nose off at any moment

from Carolyn

When Pete really really wants something, and wants you to know he's really serious about his request, he'll come over and in a low voice state his request very firmly right into your mouth. It's sort of the equivalent of getting in someone's face and looking right in their eyes, except several inches lower. Sometimes he holds your cheeks in his hands to make sure he has your attention. Although such moments are very serious to Pete, they always make me laugh. In part because they tickle.

Blog updaKA-BEEP!

Recently, Pete has reached the point of altering the routines he
has mastered to create jokes. For instance, if we ask him a language
question to which he knows the answer, he will often replace part or
all of the answer with "ka-BEEP." So if we ask him the color
of a purple car, he'll say "Purpaka-BEEP" and laugh. And
after learning how to steer one of his cars along the sidewalk when we
push him, he now sometimes steers it suddenly into the grass to shake
things up, again with much laughter.

What they ARE!

Within the standard big developments--picking up language and
movement and such--we see the oddest little developments. A few weeks
ago, Pete started asking about things he saw by saying waving his hands
excitedly, drawing his breath in sharply, and saying "Oooh! What
HAPPENED what they ARE?" The same phrasing would apply for
singular or plural referents, and often remarkably unexciting ones--for
one of many examples, we were walking downtown and had this exchange:

Pete: Oooh! What HAPPENED what they ARE?
Erik: Well, that's a door.

This kind of conversation happened all the time for about ten days,
and poof, no more.

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.

I'm just axing!

In today's raised eyebrow category:

Pete's been testing the limits of being aggressive. He knows he's not supposed to hit, but when he's upset at us, he'll form a little fist and press it against, say, one of our arms, with a little push. He'll see if he can get away with that, and then try pushing a little harder, or pressing a little more suddenly. What is hitting, what isn't?

So the other day, he was doing this with (to?) me, and I said: "No, Pete. We don't hit."

He responded: "I not hit. [pause] I drum. [pause] With my ax."

More like it

from Carolyn

Making up for all the axing, Pete, for the first time completely unbidden, said, "I love you, Mama."

Also the phrase "rigor mortis"

from Carolyn

Pete [pointing to a cemetery we're driving past]: Was dat, Mama?

Me [flustered]: Um. It's where people go to remember loved ones.

[pause]

Erik [dryly]: Way to avoid the word "mouldering."

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.

EVERYTHING.

Scene: friendly conference with Pete's daycare teacher, Stephanie. Erik and Carolyn ask how she organizes lunchtime so we can reinforce the class's little rituals. Stephanie describes how she encourages kids to try everything on their plates before she gives seconds of anything.

Erik: And how does Pete do with that? Does he do all right with fruits and vegetables?

(Stephanie's eyes grow wide.)

Stephanie: Oh. (beat) Pete eats EVERYTHING.

Note the difference between a casual "Oh, Pete eats everything!" and this. It was an expression of a kind of mildly frightened wonder, one I immediately recognized from the comments of previous teachers. And from descriptions of a number of Pete's relatives on both sides.