No, seriously

preschool humor: completely fascinating. Pete LOVES this, and laughs right along with the other kids.

Maybe they weren't screwed in all the way yet

Carolyn and Erik are jabbering about something at the dinner table

Pete: Mamapapa, do you know what? I'm putting my listening ears on!

Erik: Really? What do you want to listen to? Do you want to listen to us talking?

Pete: What?

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.

Where did your parents go to grad school again?

Pete, unprompted: "When I grow up, I'm going to be Ben Franklin."

I hope this wasn't the science lesson.

From Carolyn --

Pete [somewhat grimly]: Mama, did you know that there are people with arrows. And they PUT them in other people!

Me: [trying to figure out if he's talking about Indians or pirates or some superhero with arrows I'm not recalling]

Pete: And then they FALL IN LOVE!

We should probably avoid The Hindparts Album, too

From Carolyn --

Scene: I'm driving Pete and one of his friends to College Preschool. We're listening to a somewhat age-inappropriate song sung by a female friend of mine that includes, I confess, the phrase "James Marsters' buttocks."

Ezra [cracking up]: She said "buttocks!"
Pete [sternly]: You shouldn't laugh, Ezra. It's just a name.
[pause]
Me: Actually, Pete . . .

So today, Pete learned what "buttocks" means. And I'm thinking we need to stop playing my friend's awesome Buffy tribute album and go back to Winnie the Pooh on CD. At least while other people's kids are in the car.

Under 50 inches? Gotta throw 'er back.

Pete: Mama, did you know that boys chase girls?
Mama: Oh?
Pete [reassuringly]: But not mamas. [pause.] Just kid girls.
Mama: What do you do with them when you catch them?
Pete: Just let them go. So we can chase them again.
Pete: When I was in Lambs [the name of a specific room at his daycare], I chased three girls. [He holds both arms straight out in front of him.] I had my pincers out!

Is this how Mark Fidrych got started?

Pete had his first organized sports event last night: Happy Feet soccer. It was a friendly, fun bout of kicking and running and flailing, and Pete loved it. This morning, he informed Carolyn that he'd like to eat the same dinner before future sessions of Happy Feet because the food made him run so fast.

As far as we know, he has never heard about lucky sports foods. So after his first 40 minutes of sports, Pete has begun developing superstitious rituals. He's got six years to build them up before Little League.

In which sense of "your"?

From Carolyn --

Pete: "Mama? Do you know what your lips are called? They're called pork chops. They're called that."

I think he had his thirteenth birthday while I was gone

Pete wanted to get up early today, so I made a deal with him: you can go downstairs and play, and I'll lie on the couch. This worked pretty well, and I dozed on and off. Then I woke up and realized that I didn't know where he was. I went upstairs to find him pressing his head next to the stereo in his room, listening to They Might Be Giants.

Yes, if you'll call me "fine young thing."

From Carolyn --

Pete: "Mama, when I'm seven, can you call me George?"

Good jobbuh

Pete and I went to the community day at the observatory last
night. He had lots to say about it to Carolyn this morning,
including an almost verbatim repetition of Bob Cadmus's description
of the way the mirrors of the telescope work--I had no idea he was
listening at the time. Then this:

P: Mama, do you know what the man's name was?
C: What was it?

P: Bob! [Heavy emphasis on both Bs. Bobbuh.]
C: Oh, like Spongebob!
P: No. [Helpfully, with a touch of condescension] He's
not a sponge.

From a recent trip, at my parents' house:

I walk into Pete's room and find him climbing up onto the bed,
which is piled with stuff and way too high for him.

E: Pete, what are you doing?
P: Getting on the bed.
E: Why?
P: There are some sheep behind it.
E: How did they get there?
P: I don't know.

[E climbs onto the bed]

E: I see the sheep, Pete. You must have thrown them there.
Please don't throw toys in this room, Pete!

[Carolyn enters]

P: I didn't throw them. I dropped them.
C: What's the word for someone who argues finely like that?
E: A casuist?
C: Yes.
P: Papa, you're a casuist!
E and C (in striking unison): No, Pete. YOU are a casuist!
P: But Papa's the one who's arguing!

One of us is cute, and one is wrong

Pete, feeling this morning's warm air: Papa, is today spring?

Erik: No, today is March fourth. Number four. Spring starts on
the twenty-first.* Twenty-one. That means 17 more days until spring.

Pete: Seventeen days? Oh, my heart!



* An alum pointed out that I was wrong: it's the 20th this year.

Like Dickinson without the creepy

Pete, on the way home from school, with pauses indicated by line
breaks:

The pinkies
and thumbs
on my hands
love each other

Not that I would have done much better in the evening

This morning, I come home from the gym and bustle about getting ready to shower. I hear Pete starting to wake up. Then boom!--he realizes I'm in the hallway, and he's at full speed. As you read this, bear in mind that I have at this point had no coffee.

Pete: Papa, when I'm seven, I'll like scary movies.*
Erik: OK.
P: Or maybe six.
E: Sure, maybe six.
P: Or nine.
E: OK.
P [holding up two open hands]: Grownups are ten!
E: Well, ten is more of a big-kid age. Grownups can be more than that.
P: When you're a grownup you get all big and then you shrink [squeaky voice] a little bit [regular voice] and then you die.
E: Uh, yeah. [again: no coffee]
P: And when you get your head cut off, you die.
E: Um. I guess so, but usually people die because they get old and sick, and their bodies just wear out.
P: Because they don't have any medicine to drink.
E: Or because sometimes there's no medicine for the way you're sick.
P: But sometimes they get their head cut off.
E: Well ...
P [nodding vigorously]: Sometimes!
E: Uh.
P: And sometimes they get shot with a gun!
E: Uh, well, not usua...
P: SOMETIMES!
E: Pete, hey, it's morning! Do you want to go see if Mama's awake?


*The scary movie he has in mind is one of the later, dumb Disney adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. Not, say, The Silence of the Lambs.

Image me this

Pictures galore comin' atcha.

An old gag made new

Getting ready to play "volleyball" (i.e., the classic hippie non-competitive game of hitting a balloon back and forth, counting how many hits you can get) tonight, Pete said, "Papa, if we get to 17, I win. If we get to 12, you lose."

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.

Four more years!

Last Inauguration Day, we were in the hospital, enduring a second day of induced labor, finally going into surgery at night. Pete was born at ten o'clock on the dot.

Which is to say, today is Pete's fourth birthday. It's hard to believe that Bush was President for two of his lifetimes. Pete has been wonderful about the birthday, exuberantly pleased at passing the milestone. On Saturday, while getting his gifts from Carolyn's family, he said to nobody in particular, "I am lucky to get so many nice presents." We feel lucky, too.