The mobile mute

It's official, Cameron can crawl. I'm sure the wifey will be supplying video confirmation shortly, but I thought I would beat her to the punch and narrate the milestone. It went something like this: right leg a little forward, left leg a little forward, right arm a little forward, left arm a little forward, right leg a little forward, left leg a little forward, right arm a little forward, left arm a little forward, (repeat about 4 more times) and... dive for remote control. In all seriousness, it's really quite remarkable to see him crawling. We've been watching him break it down into isolated components for a week or two now and then all of a sudden it just all comes together somehow and he's moving. And it's also somewhat ironic that he is always motivated to crawl to either the remote control or the phone. If that isn't evidence of social learning then I don't know what is. If he stands up tomorrow walks over to the computer and logs onto yahoo fantasy sports, I'd just think, well... that makes sense.

Speaking of standing, that brings us to his next feat. We have amped up the training where he stands holding my hand and practices maintaining his balance. Then I try to position him perfectly to sustain unassisted standing for as long as possible. It's really quite fun and intense. It feels like I'm building a house of cards - you have to stay focused and keep the hands steady and then gradually remove. But despite many tumbles and one instance where I actually believed for about 30 horrifying seconds that I had just torn my babies' ACL, he is starting to get it down. I think our best time is somewhere between 6 and 7 seconds in which he has remained a homosapien erectus all by himself. He did it once today at a car wash (please note - it's somewhat humbling when you are the only people sitting in a car wash lobby waiting for your car in the middle of a torrential downpour) and once in our living room. He's versatile like that; he can conquer multiple surfaces. However, on another practice session today, he lost his balance and as he was falling literally grabbed onto the flesh of my cheek with one hand and wouldn't let go until he had righted himself. That didn't feel so good. But to quote the great Ron Burgundy after Baxter ate the entire wheel of cheese from the refrigerator, "Heck, I'm not even mad. I'm just impressed."

Alright, I'm done with the bragging. Let's get to the negative stuff. I'm starting to get somewhat more sure that Cameron is going to have some articulation speech delays. Exhibit A: at least three generations in a row of men in my family who have had some articulation delays. Exhibit B: Cameron has a father who, according to his mother, "had two sounds" (not words, SOUNDS) at the age of 2-and-a-half. I also didn't really master some of those pesky consonants until well into grade school. I was a vowel machine though. Some might say I was an "Uper An" of vowels. And that brings us to the troubling exhibit C: Cameron's girly-scream consonant-devoid babbling. Every day, wracked with guilt, I listen furtively for the sound of a consonant in that Mariah Carey-octave squealing. But there's nothing. I try to over compensate by talking to him throughout the day with only consonants (not an easy feat I might add) - but it's to no avail. So, I want to say I'm sorry my son. I feel badly if I have passed these speech difficulties down to you. It pains me so. But then I think, hey, at least my genes aren't responsible for keeping you from being a real sized boy. And that makes me feel much better :)

Photo Update

Just thought our readers might enjoy some recent pictures.

Cam has recently learned he can make funny faces. He looks like he's angry in this picture, but he's really just messing around!



Our little ham scrunching up his face yet again!


Hanging out at the pool - trying to look cool and impress Haley McElroy!

Enjoying the view from the backseat of the car!

In the middle of a mini-meltdown at dinner time. He was smiling only seconds before!

This is what doing laundry looks like at Daddy Daycare. And is it just me, or does Cam look like Dobby, the house elf from Harry Potter? Mike says he gave him clothes to set him free - only true Harry Potter fans will get this nerdy joke!

Mike and Cam ventured out on a Daddy Daycare field trip to a Gymboree music class. Love the flower maraca!

Foodie Update

Cameron tried mangos for the first time yesterday. The report was that he was startled by them at first, but then he warmed up to them. Success!

So far, Cam has pretty much liked everything we've given him, and he's up to two meals a day. We're working on cup training with a sippy cup, and our pediatrician also gave us marching orders to work on his pincer grasp by giving him puffed wagon wheels. I realized it's been awhile since our last food update, so I thought I'd share all that's on his palate nowadays.

GRAINS: rice cereal, oatmeal, barley cereal
Next grain to introduce: brown rice cereal

FRUITS: avocados, bananas, apples, pears, peaches, mangos
(I made apples once, but then after coring, slicing, peeling, cooking, and straining, I realized it was just MUCH easier to buy organic, unsweetened applesauce!)
Next fruit to introduce: papaya

VEGETABLES: sweet potatoes, butternut squash, peas, green beans, zucchini
(I made everything but the peas and green beans - again, the straining is too time-intensive for such little final product.)
Next vegetable to introduce: carrots

I am a little concerned that Cameron's milk in-take is a little low, and maybe this explains why he's in the 30th percentile for height. I have keep to reminding myself that Cam is half-Asian, so it's really his genetics that are dooming him to a smaller stature. Also, our pediatrician says that these percentiles don't really correlate/project to adult height until kids are two-years-old, so we have a little time to catch up. In the meantime, Mike keeps asking me why we can't have a full-sized boy...

Cameron Dufresne

The baby book says that pronouns are confusing to babies, so parents should replace pronouns with proper nouns instead. It seems to Michael that language doesn't make a whole lot of sense to babies in general, not just pronouns. But, Michael defers to the wisdom of the book. Plus, Michael is not going to pass up this rare opportunity for shameless third person speech. Michael likes.

Michael thinks Cameron is trying to escape. Michael watches Cameron on the video monitor and sees Cameron training. Cameron exhibits secret feats of strength in the quiet shadows of his room that Cameron would never show in the light of day. Cameron sits up on Cameron's own from a prone position. Cameron spins around the crib, contorting Cameron's body into various yoga-like poses. Cameron's hidden skills are impressive, yet frightening, to Michael. Cameron has taken to repetitively banging Cameron's pacifier against the side of the crib. Michael fears that he might be slowly forging an escape route a la Shawshank Redemption. Michael checks to see if Cameron is hiding wood fragments in his onesies and slowly transferring them to the yard. Michael fears the day is coming when Cameron will sign asking for a poster to put up in his crib. Cameron's motto is "you better get busy crawling, or get busy staying here." Cameron thinks it's time to go.

Dead Air

Ya know... you go a few weeks without blogging and then so much time has gone by that it's difficult to just come back and pick up where you left off. So you keep waiting for something big to happen to give you a reason to blog, but then, of course, nothing but ordinary everyday things are happening. You start looking at your child with thoughts like, I wish you would just hurry up and crawl, then I would have something to blog about. But no, he just sits there stationary and staring at you with that cute, slightly disturbing, gummy grin. You know the people are pining for a blog, but you've got nada. What do you do? Well, first you consider composing an angry diatribe about the ridiculousness of pre-season college football polls and how the entire BCS system is ultimately plagued by the principle of confirmation bias. Then you think about creating an only slightly fictional tale about the great breast milk shortage of '10, where all remnants from feedings are collected into a community storage bottle used for emergency purposes. You ponder the idea of describing your first experience in that land of dandy and good vibrations known as Gymboree. And you toy with the notion of actually writing a serious blog about fatherhood. But in the end, these possibilities are found wanting. Nothing is written. The silence goes on.