Peter Nathan's expressions:

Sept. 3, 1995.

Peter is taking his first walking steps. Today is Sunday. On Friday just passed he stood up on the driveway and took two or three steps by himself before tipping over or giving up. Today he walked several steps to get from me to Mary and back, while we were seated on the living room floor about four or five feet apart. He falls down now because he gets too excited that he's walking.

August 2, 1996.

Peter is now learning to talk. He understands quite a bit, perhaps more than he lets on. If you tell him to get his diaper changed he knows where to go, and sometimes says "bum?". He might also say it when his diaper is full. He knows about going to the bathroom for a bath when you say it, and other simple things like that. He also understands "NO!" but seldom responds until the fifteenth time.

Some of his expressions:

Bottle: "Baba?", "Ba-baba?" (he says it with an extremely high pitched rising question sound)

Juice: "Doo", "Dioo", maybe with a bit of "s" sound at the end, but not much

Shoes: "Joo" (similar to the way he says "juice")

Otto: "Oddo" or "Oddoo" (our cat)

Chester: "Oddo" (our other cat)

When something falls (or maybe when he dumps something on purpose) he says "U-oh!"

When we were at a cottage in P.E.I. he came in and tripped over a towel lying on the floor and landed on all fours. As soon as that happened he exclaimed "Oh Wow!". It was so funny!

June 23, 1997.

Peter has learned quite a lot since my last entry. I still wouldn't say he can talk, but he can certainly get quite a few points across.

Some of his expressions now:

Yucky: "Nucky" (often in combination with other words, such as "Eeeeewwwwww! Nucky!", or "Mommy, Nucky" meaning Mommy made a mess.

When he nods his head to mean yes (which he does often when talking on the phone), he uses his whole body, similar to a Japanese bow only with eye movements to affirm the affirmation.

Juice: "Jew"

Chester: "Chechew"

Please: "Pea Mommy" or "Pea Daddy"

Thank you: "Doodoo Daddy" (both "please" and "thank you" are done in a very cute singsong voice)

Johnny: "Donny"

No: "Mo"

More milk: "Mamomoke"

More juice: "Mamojew"

Underwear: (thank goodness he's toilet trained now, for about two months) "Ummomo"

Shirt: "Jitz"

Bandaid: "Banay"

Spot: "Pot" (We have a little cartoon called "Spot". When it starts he says, "Pot coming"

Batman: "Maa-maaaaa" (It would be "Mat-maaaa" but the first syllable is choked off before it can be articulated)

July 28, 1997.

George of the Jungle: "Junna Joegits"

Hercules: "Miclees
December 8, 1997.

Peter is now over three years old and is a happy, pleasant, agreeable little boy.

Waffles: "Awefuls"

Peter is talking a lot now, and everyone comments on how cute he is. If you offer to shake his had he'll take it and say, "Pleased to meet you!" You can see him concentrating as he averts his gaze to recall the proper phrase.

This past weekend Mary took him skating for the first time in his life. At first he fell down, of course, but he saw Johnny get back up again and soon he was doing it all by himself. He didn't have any mittens so when friends let him wear hockey gloves he was in heaven. He went all around telling everyone about his hockey gloves. But since he fell every time he stepped onto the ice he got frustrated and actually went out and practiced getting on and off the ice! All of the little old ladies at the rink were nudging each other and pointing to him, saying "Premiere fois!"

Mary's parents gave the boys a videotape of the Nutcracker. After watching it only a couple of times they have absorbed an amazing amount of music. I can play music from the Nutcracker on my CD player now, and when I ask him what the music is, he says "Hotcracker!"

January 7, 1999

January 10,1999

Yesterday Peter was wearing his new Batman pyjamas while playing by himself downstairs. As usual he was chattering away to nobody in particular, and I wasn't paying much attention. Then I hear, loud and clear, in a very imposing voice, "I am FrankenBatman!"

Mary tells me that a little boy in Peter's class had shingles. The other day Peter said he didn't want to go to school. He said, "I've got the jingles."

Here is how Peter sings the theme to Spiderman:

January 18, 1999.

I arrived home this evening to find a plastic cup of milk sitting on the table. The plastic was all deformed around the top edge, and a chair with Peter's booster seat was sitting in front of the microwave oven, whose door was wide open. I asked Mary how long Peter had microwaved the milk and she said, "I don't know, but when I came upstairs there was still thirteen minutes left on the timer!"

January 21, 1999

This time when I got home there were three blobs of something duct-taped to the kitchen wall roughly at thigh level. Later Peter informed me that one of them was Spiderman, one of them was a frog, and the other was a globe. You figure out the meaning behind all of this.

Feb. 21, 1999

Peter and Johnny were at the kitchen table. Recently Johnny learned how to make oatmeal all by himself so now he and Peter are always eating oatmeal. It was after supper. Johnny had finished his oatmeal while Peter was letting his own cool. Finally, when Peter was just about done he declared that he was too full to eat any more. I said, "If you eat any more will it come out your ears?" and he said it would. At exactly the same time and in the same way, Johnny and I both said, "I want to see that!" Mary began laughing hysterically, and I sat down to eat my own dinner, telling Johnny how proud I was of him. When he asked why, I said, "Because of the things you say." Then Peter said, "Johnny says stupid things, too!" Mary laughed even harder and I told Peter I was immensely proud of him, too!

June 24, 1999

Today was the last day of school. We decided to celebrate by going to Pizza Hut for dinner. At one point during the meal he told us he was "fifty kimomiters tall"! Up until early May, both Johnny and Peter were getting into the bad habit of buying toys with every cent they (we) had. They were just consuming them, and didn't even play with most of them after a week or so. To put a stop to it we decided there would be no more toys until school was done. Well, they certainly didn't forget about it. Finally, Peter got this humongous Spiderman helicopter from "Kids 'R Us", as he calls it. When we came home he went right up to his room to put it together and play with it. Johnny bought a dominoes game and he and I were playing it at the foot of the stairs below Peter's room. Mary said, "Well, Peter sure is happy." Just then, out of his room emanates a loud, "You'll pay for this, Spiderman!"

July 17, 1999

The other day Peter accompanied Mary to the mall, and happened by a shoe sale. Since he needed new shoes Mary took him in. But Peter was sockless, so in order to try on shoes the clerk lent him some socks. Woolen Sorels, good to about a hundred below! After trying on the shoes the clerk wanted the socks back, but nothin' doin'. Peter had to have those socks. So he sold them to Mary for half price.

Later that day I arrived home from work to find Peter out in the back yard playing basketball in his new socks. It's been over thirty degrees outside for the last week, but you can't get Peter out of those socks!

On the same trip Mary bought him a Batman baseball hat to replace the one he lost. He loves this hat and we have no trouble getting him to wear it. He explained to Mary that he was wearing it on his "fivehead". "What's that?" she asked. He pointed to his forehead and said, "This is my fourhead, and this," he said, pointing to the top of his head, "is my fivehead."

Just now I plugged his nose and told him to sing "Happy Birthday." Here's what he sang:

Hafty birfday to you.

Hafty birfday to you!

Hafty birfday dear Grandma,

Hafty birfday to you!

(It's Mary's mother's birthday today).

Week of August 7, 1999

We were at the cottage this week. Peter was collecting seeds from maple trees and throwing them in the fire. For some unknown reason he called them "army fish".

August 20, 1999

Mary was explaining to Johnny that Peter is also in French Immersion. Peter said, "I can speak French, too. My name in French is Zaire!" (Johnny quickly corrected him with a perfect French accent)

First week in October, 1999

Peter has chicken pox, exactly two weeks after Johnny got his. Around midnight, 'round about the third night, Peter was lying in bed, still awake and crying. Mary asked him, "What's wrong?" Crying, he said, "I'M HUNGRY!" Calmly, she asked him, "Well, what do you want?" Still crying, he said, "I DON'T KNOW! I'LL TELL YOU TOMORROW!"

February 2, 2000

(Peter is coming up with so many cute things these days that we can't possibly keep up.) Today he was on his belly at the top of the stairs, wearing his Batman cape and a towel as another cape. I said, "Hello, Peter." He said, "I'm not Peter, I'm a snake," and started to slither down the stairs. I said, "Oh, a snake!" and he said, "Yah, I'm the kind of snake that takes off its skin." and proceeded to shed the towel!

A few hours later he said, "When your heart splits open, that's Love."

February 19, 2000

Ambulance: "Andlivance"

Important: "Unportant"

Tobogganing: "Bonogganing"

April 10, 2001

Last Saturday we went to Glenn's house. At one point I stood up from the couch and Peter slipped in behind me and stole my spot. I made some remark and pretended to sit down. Peter said, "Do it. Sit on me!" so I did. His hands got stuck under me and he was completely at my mercy. You know what he said? He said, "What do you want for Christmas?"

Then I tickled him.

April 21, 2003

Sometimes I like to give the kids a hard time:

Owen: As Peter was getting dressed, I said, "Is that your GameCube shirt?"

Peter: "No, it's my bicycle shirt," pointing to the bicycle printed on his shirt.

Owen: "Then you should go biking."

Peter: "I can't. I have bare feet."

Owen: "Take them off."

Peter: "I can't take them off! I just have bare feet!"

Owen: "You have bear feet? I didn't know you were a bear!"

Peter: "I'm not a bear! My feet are just nakey!"

March 31, 2004

I told Peter his fingernails were too long, it's making him play the piano with flat fingers. Not liking to get his fingernails cut, he said, "It's not my fingernails. I always play like that--it's a hobbit."

Oct. 16, 2005

I was tucking Peter into bed and got to telling him about the shelf I plan to add in his room, under his new window. I rubbed the wall because it looked like it had dust on it, but the dust didn't come off. Peter explained that he had put a bunch of stickers on the wall, but decided to remove them because he thought I might not want him putting stickers on the wall. I said, "Yeah, you can probably see why." Then he told me about the other things he had done to the walls, and pointed out a few holes I hadn't noticed before. Peter had been pretty industrious for awhile, screwing drawings to the wall and colouring parts of it. I've been letting it go, hoping that he'll feel ownership of his own domain. He was showing me the holes he made while being indecisive about the location of his dreamcatcher. Since he had rearranged his room a couple of days ago I remarked that he would need to move it again, over his bed in the new location.

That's when the lesson came. Peter then explained to me that his dreams bounce all around the room and eventually end up in the dreamcatcher. "What if the door is open?" I asked. "They just bounce out there and then eventually bounce back in again. If the door is closed they just bounce right off the door and go under the bed. Bad dreams are really fat," he explained while balling his two fists next to one another, "so they go straight to the dreamcatcher and get caught in the holes right away. Good dreams are long and skinny, and they take a long time to get there." All these things I didn't realize about dreams, nor dreamcatchers. My whole life has been enriched.