Adventures in solid foods

What is this? Two posts in two days... crazy! Actually, we have lots of great pictures of Cameron that I want to get posted, so I will try to post something new every couple of days.

As I said in the last post, Cam has started eating real food. Here are a few pictures.

Mama, I don't think i like green beans so much...

Well, maybe they are okay - as long as Daddy makes funny faces while I eat.

Mr. Messy Face

The first cheerio starts with shock and surprise that I am allowing something so tiny near his mouth (usually I cover his mouth and take away the offending little object).

Why isn't this mushy like my other food?

Very interesting... I think I like it!
Where did my Cheerio go?

Six months old! (and Five months old!)

Wow, has it really been more than a month since we have posted?? Oops... we could give any number of excuses: vacation, nice weather, laziness. But we won't bother with that, nor with the fact that we completely missed the five month update. So here you go, the first in the line of a bunch of updates, combining Six Months Old! and Five Months Old!

Food:
During month five, Cameron tried each of the rest of the cereal options. He really likes all of them, but we haven't given him barley cereal in a while because it makes him very gassy and cranky. These days, he mainly eats rice or mixed grain cereal, but occasionally has oatmeal cereal.

Once he turned five months old, we started in on the veggies. Our plan was to go with green veggies first, since they are not as sweet as the orange ones. We figured that once he got a taste of the sweet stuff, he might not be so keen to go back to the green ones. Peas were the first non-cereal food he tried, and he liked them quite a bit, and did a great job eating them. It didn't take him too long to figure out how to open his mouth like a little bird, and then to swallow the cereal without pushing half of it out of his mouth. Since then, he has made it through the full veggie circuit: green beans (did NOT like, unless mixed with cereal), carrots (liked a lot, although they did scary things to his poop), squash (LOVED) and sweet potatoes (LOVED). He has been doing really well with eating, and has definitely figured out how to tell us that he wants more food (mouth WIDE open, or grabbing for the spoon) and how to tell us that he is done (lips clamped so tightly together there is no chance of sliding the spoon in there).

He also tried Cheerios for the first time a few days ago, but so far hasn't had too much success. He can't pick them up and get them all the way into his own mouth yet, so we have to feed them to him. He sits there with a funny look on his face, chewing and trying to figure out what the heck is in his mouth. The Cheerio usually falls out half way through, or a soggy half slips out of his mouth and sticks to his chin. Pretty funny and cute, since he has no idea it is stuck there, and can't figure out why Mama and Daddy are laughing at him! He gets better every time though and I am sure he will be chowing them down like a pro soon enough!

Mobility:
The beginning of month five, Cameron was a pretty immobile baby. He could roll over every once in a while, and move a little bit in a circle when on his tummy. That was about it. In the time frame of a week, he went from little motionless baby to the baby that couldn't stop moving. We went quickly from spinning in circles on his stomach to rolling all over creation to now full-fledged creeping that is so close to crawling. He can move pretty quickly when he wants to, which is usually when he spots something on the floor that he shouldn't have. He shows off his new skills all the time and is very proud of how he moves around. It is very cute, but we are in trouble and need to finish baby-proofing the house ASAP!

In addition to creeping, Cameron has also figured out his balance pretty well this past month. He can sit up pretty well on his own, only tipping over when he makes a grab for something far away (or sometimes just randomly tipping over). This has been nice because he can sit and play with the toys on his play gym, which gave him a whole new perspective and made the toys like new again.

And Cam has been using his jumperoo like a crazy man. He loves to jump and jump and jump some more. Sometimes we think his little legs are going to break, for how fast and hard he jumps all over creation. He really loves it.

Sleep:
Nope, Cam still isn't sleeping through the night. If you saw Tim or I in person, you would be able to figure that out from the size of the bags under our eyes!

Sign Language:
We are teaching Cameron some simple sign language, to try and alleviate frustration when he gets old enough to want to tell us things but can't talk yet. So far we try to only use five signs to keep confusion down. We do "more", "eat", "drink", "sleepy" and "all done". He hasn't used any himself, but he certainly watches us intently when we are doing the sign. We will see how it works!

Travel:
Of course, no month would be complete without some travel. In April, Cameron made his second plane trip and got another state. We went to Texas for our friend Emily's wedding. It was lots of fun and we had a great time there... and it will be a separate post. We also spent Easter in Massachusetts, as well as this past weekend.


Six Month Stats:
Cameron had his six month check-up today. He is healthy and strong, growing very well. The doctor said that he thinks Cam will be an athlete because of his build. He probably just said it to make us happy... and it worked! Here are Cam's stats for six months:
Weight: 17 pounds (50% percentile)
Length: 27 inches (75% percentile)
Head: 44 cm (50% percentile)

So we thought that we had a chunky monkey baby, and it turns out that he is tall and thin-ish. Most important though is that he is healthy, and we are thankful for that.

And we promise, it won't be another month between posts!!

Cam's 15 minutes of fame

Well, really it is his first five seconds in his 15 minutes of fame. Check out footage of Cameron at daycare, about halfway through the video in the link below. The video is about the director of the Syracuse-area YMCAs and what great things he has done for the Y. Cameron (and Mama) are about half way through, when the video starts talking about the North Area YMCA. Besides seeing Cameron's cute face, you also get a quick shot of his daycare room, along with one of his favorite teachers.

Here is the link:
Cam in YMCA Video

The Cam cam

Yay, I am so glad that everyone can view the video with no problems. We will definitely try to put up more in the future. We have been trying for several days to get a good video of Cameron playing with his feet, but so far we have had no luck. He will be lying there, performing all kinds of gymnastics to get his toes into his mouth, and as soon as we pull out the camera he will go completely still and just stare at the camera. We put the camera down, and up go the feet right back to the mouth. It is pretty funny. We are trying to figure out how to stealthy record him so that he doesn't know it is going on. Hopefully soon we will have that to post. For now though, here is a really cute picture of Cam from his weekly picture series.

Cameron rolls over

We were over at Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner tonight and Cameron decided to show off a new trick. He rolled over from his back to his stomach for the first time!! And then the second, third, fourth and fifth time... I think once he figured out how to do it, he kept wanting to do it again. Grandpa took a video of it, so we are going to try posting it here. This is the full quality version, so let us know how long it takes to load and if you can see it. We can always load a lower quality version of the same thing. Enjoy!!

Haircut!!

Cameron got his hair cut last week - it was his second haircut, but this time he got a lot cut off and we took pictures. Take a look!

The Before ShotThe first few snips
My cape tastes good!
Snip, snip, snip
The After shot (although it isn't quite this puffy anymore)
Here is a shot from Easter where you can see his haircut really well.
We think he looks so grown up and cute!!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!

To all my family and friends,
Happy St. Paddy's Day!!



Love, Cameron

Cam's Business Trip

The third week I was back to work, there was a meeting in Washington, DC that it was important for me to attend. I wanted to go but didn't want to leave Cameron for that long. Luckily, Tim was able to go with me, working from the hotel room, so all three of us went on my business trip.

On the drive down, we stopped at our friends Chris and Leanne's house and got to meet their wee little one, Ewan. What a sweet little cutie he is!!! We can't believe that Cameron was ever that small.

Ewan cuddling up to his mama.The two boys get together
Starring Ewan as... Dr. Evil!
Cameron practices sticking out his tongue
Ewan and his mama, Leanne

We stayed at an Embassy Suites hotel in Alexandria, VA, which was great because there was a bedroom area and a living room area. During the day, Cam could nap in the bedroom while Tim was working out in the living room. The hotel also had a pool, so we went swimming one day.

After a long day of work, Cam and Mama take a snooze.
Smiley baby!!
Hello Big Blue Eyes!
"No Mama, you should have initialized the variable over there."
Daddy and Cam take a swim.

Another great part of being in the DC area was getting to see Elizabeth, Mariss and Dan. We had dinner with them one night. Even though it was just a short visit, it was great to see them. The pictures below are Marissa's... hers came out much better than any of ours!

Mariss and Cameron
Elizabeth and Cameron
Mariss and Dan
What a big boy!
Three of the girls - Kristin, Elizabeth and Mariss

Four months old!

Cameron turns four months a week ago. In the last month, he has really grown up a ton! Here is a list of Cam's accomplishments in the past month, with a picture if we have one:

• Rolled over for the first time, from tummy to back
• Can hold his head way up high

• Ate rice cereal for the first time, and now can't get enough of it!

• Started really liking his jumperoo and figuring out how to use the toys on it

• Can stand up with help

• Can sit up with help much better
• Moved into size 2 diapers

• Loves grabbing things with his hands and feet

• Is really playing with toys, showing preference for his favorites
• Laughing when Mama or Daddy are silly enough

• Started going to daycare
• Discovered his tongue and the joy of sticking it out

• Rolling to his sides when on his back, especially to sleep

• Went underwater for the first time (and didn't mind it)

Cam also had his four month check-up on Monday. He got another round of shots, poor little guy, but did really well. Here are his stats:
Weight: 15 pounds (50-75th percentile)
Length: 26 inches (75-90th percentile)
Head: 43 cm around (75th percentile)

So he is still very proportional, but seems to be a bit tall for his age. He certainly didn't get that from Tim or I!! The doctor said that Cameron looks really healthy and that he will probably be an early crawler/walker because of how wiggly and mobile he is already. Yikes - our house isn't anywhere close to baby proof yet!!

This past month has been such a fun one and I think it is just going to get more and more fun as Cameron gets more interactive.

First trip to Canada!

Two weekends ago, Cameron had his first out-of-the-USA trip. We went to Ottawa for the weekend - our annual trip up for Winterlude. The three of us went, along with Mom and Dad and Matt and Gina. We got a two bedroom suite at Les Suites in the Byward Market, which was really nice. It had tons of room - besides the two bedrooms there were two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living/dining room combo and a laundry room.

We went skating on the Rideau canal, with Cameron all bundled up in his stroller. He seemed to enjoy it, although he slept most of the time. We went about 2.5 km down the canal and back. Usually we go all the way to the end (7 km) but it was bitterly cold so we didn't want Cam to stay out that long, even all bundled up. We also went over to the Museum of Civilization in Hull.

The first night we ate dinner in our favorite restaurant, the Highlander Pub. Cam was very good, he took turns sitting in everyone's laps and just looking around. He even accidentally tried a few spices because I had some on my plate and he got his hand into it and then into his mouth. I'm not sure what they were, one was red and the other was green, but they didn't seem to bother him at all. We also had a nice dinner at a Japanese restaurant, although Cam didn't like that so much. He was overtired and squeaked and squawked the whole time until he finally fell asleep.

It was a great trip and we were so happy that we could continue our tradition of going up for Winterlude every year. Below are some pictures and there are more in our photo gallery (link here).

Gina, Matt, Kristin and Cam on the canal
Everyone but Tim on the canal
Tim takes a turn pushing Cameron
Mama gets style points for this pushing!
All bundled up in his stroller
Family picture
A cool ice sculpture
The cutest little bear ever!!
Playing with Uncle Matt