beanski

ten months

There are three people in this life that make Cameron's life worth living: Daddy, Renee and Sasha. Simon and I? We're totally second rate. If he so much as catches a glimpse of Ski he dives for the ground and thud, thud, thuds his little booty over there as fast as he can. He follows Renee everywhere she goes to the point where she is constantly saying "Cammon, LEAVE ME ALONE."

Seriously, what kind of kid doesn't like his mother? Mine apparently. It makes me sad so often and then I have to tell myself that maybe it's just a phase. Maybe someday he'll want me to hold him. I love him anyways.
He LOVES to swing. LOVES it. When the swingset showed up in the backyard I KNEW Renee would love it. I knew she'd want to be outside all day every day but I didn't realize how sweet it could work out for me if Cameron liked it too. And he does. The ONLY time he sits still is in that swing and he'll sit there smiling and screeching for a half an hour at a time. And if you know Cameron you know that a half an hour is a LONG time for him to do ANYTHING. Even sleep.  

I guess he'll play Squash the Cat for a half an hour at a time sometimes. Sasha seems to enjoy 22 pounds of baby crawling all over her and ripping out her fur because she follows him around all day. And I refuse to protect her because she lays there just ASKING for it. Then all of a sudden she'll have had enough and she bats at him and then he cries and she looks at me like it's all my fault. OF COURSE IT'S MY FAULT.
My money was on ten months for him to start walking and while he's made big strides in that department and can walk between the ottomans and along the furniture, he still prefers crawling as his primary mode of transportation. He'll look like he's going to try and then he says screw it and heads for the floor instead.  He can walk holding on to one of hands though so I imagine we're headed in that direction soon. As though he doesn't already have enough bruises and scrapes from just the simple fact that he's a BOY. He has no fear.

He learned how to wave bye bye and I absolutely adore how he waves with his whole body. And I especially love how he scrunches up his nose while he's doing it. He'll just bust out The Wave for no reason sometimes and look at me like "When are you guys going to clap and say 'Yeah Cameron' because I'm totally waving over here."

He went through a stretch where he was sleeping fairly well and then all of a sudden out of nowhere mid-month he pretty much quit sleeping all together. Sleeping is for sissies. I love how he grabs my shirt and forcefully pulls me towards him with both hands when I go into his room to console him in the night. I also hate how he does this because seriously the lack of sleep going on at our house is getting OLD.

He is cutting some new teeth (three on the top including his two front teeth) now so I'm crossing my fingers that that's what is bothering him at night. Although I think his troubles fall more into the category of farts. He HATES to fart. Seriously he'll carry on screaming and arching his back for like 15 minutes sometimes and then he'll bust off a fart and immediately go back to normal. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT THIS. I feed him nothing but fruits and vegetables and meat and his belly is still so volatile.
 
He loves the bath and the sprinkler and the water table. He has NO fear at all, crawling right through the sprinkler with it spraying right in his face. He'll sort of shake it off and then look up at me and laugh. Like did you catch that mom? I'm TOUGH.

He's incredibly ticklish. Like I pretty much just have to look at him and say "TICKLE, TICKLE" and he busts out laughing. I love his laugh. His smile is HANDS DOWN his best feature.
 
Although I have to admit that the dimples on his elbows and his knees are a close second. Why can't babies have chubby little rolls on their legs forever?

He wants to eat his snacks in the living room like Renee so my house is pretty much covered in a thin layer of pears and peaches and bananas. He dumps them all over the carpet and then smears them in. NICE.  

He's big enough to start to do things with Renee, they actually sat in the wagon for like 10 minutes together without fighting this weekend and Ski and I spent the entire walk pondering how wonderful life would be if they just got along and liked to play together.

He's busy growing and learning and becoming his own little dude. I looked at him a few times this month and just sighed because he's starting to look like a kid. He's starting to look what he's going to look like when he gets older. And then I find myself torn between welcoming a life where the kids aren't on such different schedules and we can actually have a life again and wanting him to stay little forever. Because I'll miss the sound of a baby crying through the monitor at three in the morning someday. Won't I?  

I'll miss the giggles and dimples, this much is sure. 

nine months

It only took nine months (seriously NINE months, WTF?) for Cameron to figure out that his crib is an alright place to chill at night by himself. I know that I'm going to pay dearly for broadcasting this to the Internet but my son? He's "sleeping through the night." FINALLY. My definition of "sleeping through the night" involves him going to bed around 7:30PM and awakening somewhere beteween 3AM and 5AM to chug a bottle before going back to sleep. But when the old version of "sleeping through the night" involved me getting up every two hours to Pick Up, Put Down or rub his back or feed him, I'm totally willing to jump on this small development as the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel like a HUMAN. I even smile once in a while, IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT.
 
He switched entirely to formula this month and there is a part of me that can't help but STILL wonder if it was something that I was eating that was giving him a sick belly and keeping him awake at night. He's been a much happier baby since. But then I think about how he started eating more solid foods this month too and about how we moved and his new room is darker and cooler and then I drive myself crazy wondering what really helped him to figure it out. The is the WORST part about babies. You NEVER EVER know if it was the formula or the solids or the temperature or the pure simplicity of time passing by that made things better.

Speaking of solid foods, he eats like a linebacker. He employs the Scoop and Shove method to eating, grabbing as much in his chubby little hands as is humanly possible and then trying to stuff it all in his mouth at once. Such a BOY. I keep trying to tell him that he's making a huge mess and wasting most of his food by plastering it to his bib but he doesn't care. Renee would carefully pick up each piece of food and put it in her mouth so this is quite a change in style. I have to make sure his food is cut up in to small enough pieces that he can swallow without having to chew. I can just see him when he's fifteen, sitting down at the dining room to take down an entire box of cereal in about three minutes flat.

He loves wires, straps or anything that looks like a string. He busts his little booty as fast as he can over to the wires when I leave the room. When I say "HEY Cameron, what are you doing?" he loooks up and giggles, recognizing his name and knowing that he isn't supposed to be doing what he's doing.

He can walk between the ottomans in the living room and pushes his little push toy around all day every day. He's even mastered the stairs. HOLD ME. He's going to be chasing after his sister on foot instead of on knee very soon here before we know it. Which, WHOA, WHAT? Wasn't he JUST BORN?

Speaking of his sister, he WORSHIPS her. He smiles this huge two teeth grin every single time he so much as catches of a glimpse of her. If she's playing with the train set, he wants to play with the train set. If she's eating blueberries, he wants blueberries RIGHT NOW. He follows her around already mimicking her, smiling at her, learning all of her dirty rotten tricks. I'm thinking it's going to be at least twenty years before she sees the benefits of having him around so he'll get lots of practice in the meantime with being bossed around by girls that don't want him around.

He's a busy boy, refusing to sit still for any reason other than to eat a bottle. He's not a cuddler at all, he slams his bottle and then starts groaning and whining for me to put him in his bed already. He hates books but loves to play Patty Cake. He still has the greatest laugh in the history of great laughs, giggling from the bottom of his soul at the smallest of things.
 

I just can't believe how big he's gotten and I can not fathom how quiet and relaxing life was before he came into our lives. I can't believe how much I can love a little chubby baby and I can't believe that I was part of creating such an adorable little creature. Most of all I can't believe how lucky I am that I get to call him my son.

eight months

Cameron has been up to no good this month. UP TO NO GOOD. He's a baby on the move and don't you dare try to tell him that it isn't cool to chew on wires. DON'T YOU DARE try to stop him. It started as the inch worm where he'd sort of throw himself forward to get where he is going and then one day he got up on his knees and figured out how to alternate them and I've been trying to talk myself off the ledge since.
 
Not really, I'm not sure that the actually moving is that much worse than the being pissed off that you can't move. Although now when he sees Ski or I, he crawls over to our feet and demands to be picked up. And when we pick him up, he immediately dives for the floor. I do no understand this madness. WHICH IS IT, baby? Do you want to be held or do you want to play on the floor because it is a physical impossibility to do both at the same time. IT ISN'T MOMMY'S FAULT, get mad at the universe instead, it's just the way things work. It's called GRAVITY.

The other night he was winding down for the night playing his his crib and I was doing what I do every night (putting away the NEVER ENDING laundry) and I went into our bedroom for like seven seconds and when I came back the little boy was STANDING in his crib. He caught my eye and he literally laughed out loud. I swear he was mocking me. The little turkey.

Some nicknames have started to stick: His dad calls him C-Dawg and I call him Bubba, Buster and Big Boy most of the time. Renee calls him Pam or Cammon. He'll never live that down. Our little baby boy Pam, we love him so.

I busted him saying Dadadadadada over and over the other day and my suspicions were confirmed: He's a daddy's boy at heart. He busts his little butt over to Ski's feet at record speed when he comes in from work and I secretly laugh to myself that's it's his turn to hold him because the baby? He's not light and he gets awfully heavy to hold all day. I'm putting my money on 23 pounds.

He still is pretty dramatic about his belly and will literally scream his fool head off all morning until he poops. After that he is instantly transformed from monster to angel. I'm not sure what is causing his belly ache or if it is just the belly that God gave him but I feel bad for him a lot of the time because I know he doesn't WANT to be fussy. He just wants to poop already and his body can't catch up to his brain. Sort of like how I don't want to eat a bag of M&Ms every day but my body just can't talk my brain out of it. I can totally empathize.

He's a snuggle bug, waking in the night to make sure we are still there. Thankfully he's OK with either Ski and I doing the holding, a trick that he could have taught his sister a thing or two about when she was a baby. Most of the time I think he wakes up because he is ramming his head into the crib and it hurts. I do not understand this either. Why the crawling in his sleep? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY BABIES DON'T JUST SLEEP. They would be so much happier if they did. He's getting better though, 60 percent of the time he gets up between 2-3AM, eats or snuggles and then goes back to sleep until 6AM or so. The other 40% of the time, however, he is up and down ALL NIGHT running into the sides of his crib and on those nights you can find me in my glider in the dark tearing my eyeballs out with my fingernails.

I love his little bald head and I will never forget how soft it is on my cheek and on my lips. I hope he never gets hair because honestly, I can't get enough of the baldness.

I love how ticklish he is and how he pulls his feet away when I touch them and how he laughs the greatest belly laughs when I blow raspberries on his chubby little belly.

I love the dimples on his knees and his elbows and that one rough patch of skin on his shin that I have no clue as to what the cause of it is.

I love how he  wraps his arms around me when I pick him up and grabs a fistful of hair for each hand and how he squeezes me in a way that only Cameron can...so strong and so sure of himself.

I love how he flops around like a fish when he's trying to get comfortable, so aggressive and angry and WHY AREN'T YOU LETTING ME GET COMFORTABLE, MOTHER?

And I love most of all how once he finds the magic place how he goes instantly limp, falling asleep literally like the switch of a light just when I am sure that he'll be flopping around there in my arms forever ever.

If only I could make it so that he would be small enough to flop around in my arms forever and ever. I would do it if I could.

seven months

The boy turned seven months old on Saturday and guess what? His mom was too busy watching the Pittsburgh Penguins WIN the Stanley Cup to be bothered with putting together his seven month post. His dad is calling him the Pittsburgh Good Luck Charm. He was born and his teams win. He's seen two championships already in his short little life here on earth, first the Steelers winning the Superbowl and then the Penguins winning the Cup. It's a good thing I married someone with a connection to teams that know how to win because Cameron could be seventy years old before the Vikings or the Wild ever win anything.

I was also busy nursing my sore muscles from painting and hauling and organizing because for some reason his parents decided that now would be a good time to think that tackling something as stressful and difficult as a move would be a good idea. Then he flipped out and spent all weekend moaning and crying and not sleeping and we came to our senses and realized that it probably is a terrible idea. Cam was getting better at sleeping for a week or two, waking up once to chug a bottle at record speed and then going directly back to sleep. I was so happy and then we threw his routine over the weekend and now he's back to flipping the frick out all fricking night long. SHOOT ME. Cameron seriously, are you trying to kill me?

Feeding him is a exercise in patience as he spends pretty much the entire time taking one sip from the bottle and then sitting up to make sure he isn't missing anything that Renee is doing. The constant sitting up and laying back down causes his belly to get upset and then he gets mad at me like I was asking him to be a pain in the ass and refuse to sit still and eat. One bottle out of ten though, he snuggles in and puts his hands over his eyes and eats contently, peeking out at me occasionally like I am the greatest thing to ever happen to him. And during that one bottle of ten I can't imagine ever loving him more. He's still getting pumped breast milk, sometimes with a few ounces of formula mixed in but his belly issues don't seem to be getting any better so I haven't weaned him completely. I expect to be extracting milk for him when he's seven because he just can't seem to eat anything else. Fun times.

Cameron has the greatest laugh on planet earth, when I think of him as a baby I will remember two things: His absolutely infectious laugh and the sheer number of sleepless nights that he put me through. It doesn't matter how crabby we both are, all I have to do his tickle his little belly or kiss his neck and he laughs from the bottom of his soul. Seeing him laugh makes me laugh and we always feel better after that.

His sister is the single greatest thing to ever happen to him and I am constantly leveraging his obsession with her to my advantage. When he's crabby I just ask Renee to come over and give her brother a kiss and I'll be damned if he doesn't laugh right in the middle of moaning and crying. Every. Single. Time. He can have tears streaming down his face and laugh at the same time all because of her.

He desperately wants to move and is not content really anywhere except in his stroller or his car seat. When I hold him, he dives for the floor so I put him on the floor and then he gets pissed off because he's on the floor. Son, please, please, PLEASE figure out how to crawl so I don't have to listen to the frustrated whining for another day. Wait a second, did I just say that? I'm not sure if I should be wishing for that, probably not. :) He scoots around the floor already, from one end of the living room to the other, tormenting his sister by taking her toys. This look pretty much sums up this month for him. He's getting dangerously close, though.



He's obsessed with straps, especially the straps on his car seat and his stroller. He frantically starts looking for his strap the second I put him in his car seat and I often think that strangers probably find it weird that I'm saying things like "Hang on buddy, I'm going to get your strap in just a second." He'll sit and look at those straps for hours on end, putting them in his mouth and taking them out and manipulating them. Fascinating stuff.

He got his first tooth this month and fussed a bit for a couple of days about it and then went back to normal. I love (and hate) how it changed his smile.

He can sit up for the most part and holds himself up there for five or ten minutes before he decides that he's had enough being stationary and rolls to the ground. Then he goes back to being pissed off that he can't crawl.

He takes about 5-6 bites of solid foods before he starts flipping out, demanding to be removed from the confines of his high chair. He gags and pukes if I give him anything with the slightest texture. The only exception to this rule is if I give him one of those little biter biscuits. Those puppies can buy me 15 minutes to eat my dinner every single time. I don't even care about the mess. He apparently likes carbs as opposed to fruits and vegetables and given his history with eating in general, I'm not all that surprised.

He's a good boy and growing so fast that there are many days that I look at him and can't believe how fast the time has gone. I can't believe that seven months ago he came out of my body weighing less than eight pounds and now he's my little Chunky Monkey that weighs almost twenty. I need to get a picture of his belly, the rolls are downright edible and I am physically incapable of not smiling when I change his clothes. He's a mommy's boy, my big boy, the keeper of my heart and I can't imagine another day without him in it.

Sorry these pictures sort of suck, we've been so busy with the thinking of moving and the hockey and the not sleeping that I didn't have many to choose from and then I edited the ones I had and hated how they turned out and then I decided I was too lazy to redo them. Next month I'll be better :(

six months

A day late, that is pretty much the story of our lives. Something tells me he won't mind, something tells me that he's just as cute today as he was yesterday on his actual six month birthday. Did you hear that? He's SIX months old. I remember thinking that time flew by in the blink of an eye last time but this time? HOLY SWEET JESUS, what happened? Where am I? What is my name again?

All of this disillusion probably has something to do with extreme sleep deprivation. I know that everyone is probably sick and tired of listening to me complain about it but I don't care. I don't deal well with no sleep. I know there are some people that can catch two hours of sleep and still function without fits of rage and tears the following day but I'm just not one of them. I cry just thinking about how tired I am. It's not his fault though, I'm sure of that. He's the sweetest little thing on the planet. His body just won't let him sleep. Between the reflux and the gassy belly we've been through the ringer during the last month. We did the elimination diet where I didn't eat anything except meat, fruit and veggies for two weeks, we tried Prevacid which gave him terrible diarrhea, we have tried everything. The only thing that seems to help is 1/2 teaspoon of Maalox before bed and he seems to sleep for six or seven hours with that. But it OF COURSE isn't a long-term solution. I'm not sure what is at this point. I'm just hoping that he feels better soon. And that we start sleeping at some point before he's 13.

He LOVES the Jumperoo and squeals with excitement when we even make a move to put him in it. He gets that thing rocking and he laughs and laughs and laughs. I used to be able to turn him towards me and talk to him while he stood on his feet but now he just starts jumping on my thighs. Up and down, up and down. Don't read to me, don't sing to me, don't talk to me, Mommy, I just want to JUMP.

He's entered the grabbing EVERYTHING phase and I almost forgot how annoying it can be to try to eat dinner with a baby that is trying to grab everything on your plate. His favorite thing in the world right now is paper. We were at the pediatrician the other day and the doctor wrote me a prescription and before I even knew it, he had that thing in his mouth and had eaten at least half of it. I felt pretty stupid giving the half-eaten script the pharmacist but you know, whatever. I don't have the energy to care. Did I mention we're tired?

He hates to be on his back (I think from the reflux) and turns over the INSTANT you lay him on the floor. Then he gets all pissed off because he's on his belly and he wants to move already. He's pulling his knees under him and pivoting around the floor to grab toys, so desparately wanting to put together the motor skills to figure out how to crawl. I don't think it will be long.

He's a bruiser to be sure, all boy in the way he uses his little baby body. He's just starting to wear 12-18 month clothes which I find hilarious because Renee just grew out of that size like three months ago. Ski picked out his clothes the other day and came down with a pair of pants that Renee just wore a few weeks ago and I thought "OH for the love of God I'm going to have to walk all the way upstairs and get new clothes for him because these are sure not to fit." Then I put them on him and they totally fit. The little butterball. His dad was 25 pounds by his first birthday and I think Cam is going for the record. He was 17lbs 7oz the last time I had him in to the doctor. My back aches from carting him around but it aches in a good way.

He's such a little sweetheart, my boy, so easy to laugh. He is infatuated with his sister right now, letting her hug him as tight as she can without fussing a bit. He smiles every single time he catches a glimpse of her and he watches intently as she plays with her toys or eats her dinner. I often tell him not to learn all of her bad tricks but I think he's doing it anyways. All I have to do is look at him and say "Hey Buddy" or "Boo!" and he laughs big belly laughs. She always made me work for the laughs but not my Cam. He gives them out for free.

He just started solid foods a couple of days ago and he is sort of ambivalent about them. He has had pears and sweet potatoes so far but I think they aggravate the reflux because he usually starts out gobbling them up but half way in he gets fussy and refuses to take another bite. He also has gone on a nursing strike of sorts so he is getting almost all of his breast milk out of bottles. It is tough on me with all of the pumping but I do it for him because I'm so terrified of what the formula might do to his already so sensitive belly.

My heart aches when I think about how fast it's gone, this time in our lives. How I'll never be able to go back and re-live these last six months when I'm not so tired and trying so hard to be a good mom to both of my kids. I wish that I could come back in a few years and just sit and watch them and marvel at what little miracles they are. I tell myself over and over again to suck it up and enjoy this time because it surely won't last forever. I take him to bed to snuggle with me more than I probably should because I think he probably needs it. I tell myself he probably needs the one-on-one time with his mommy but the truth? The truth is that I need it. I need the one-on-one time with my boy. He's growing too fast.

five months

This month wasn't our easiest month but this month Cameron and I became an item. I don't mean that I didn't love him before this month because I totally did but this month he was all about acknowledging who loves him more than anyone else in the world and he made me feel so special. He told me all about how much he loved me all night long for many, many nights in a row and while I would be angry and TIRED (oh the TIRED) there was a part of me that secretly sort of loved that he wanted me and only me. The little mama's boy. I know that someday he'll grow up and glare at me like she does and say "No Mama, DADDY!" so I'm reveling in him wanting only mommy while it lasts.

I have sort of come to the conclusion that the boy has split personalities. There is this sweet little (OK, he's big) boy who laughs and smiles and coos and carries on happily all day long but when the sun goes down and the moon comes out, the crying starts. The crying and the eating and the refusing to sleep. At dinner time when he's happily bouncing up and down in his Jumperoo laughing hysterically I almost can't believe that it's the same baby that cried for six straight hours the night before. So one minute I'm saying that he is the sweetest little baby on the planet and the next I'm talking about how the devil himself manifested himself in my only son. Sort of depends on the day. Or the hour of the day.

He weighed in at just over sixteen pounds at five months (yes I was a MONTH late for his well-baby visit), in the 95th percentile for height and 50th for weight but you'd guess the other way around by looking at him because he looks like a little butterball. He charmed every nurse in the place with his chubby little legs and his big, full face grins.

The baby chunk is in full force and OHMYGOD I just can't get enough of it. I find myself endlessly running my fingers along the dimples in his chunky baby hands and along the creases by his elbows and that second roll in his thighs because I'm not sure that I'll ever get to spend hours obsessing about the cuteness of a baby of mine ever again. Every single surface of his body is the cutest thing on planet earth.
 
He's a little lady's man, my Cameron, easily to laugh and constantly seeking the attention of those around him. He doesn't care if he's never seen you before if you smile and talk to him he is guaranteed to laugh out loud from the depths of his belly. And that laugh? It could cure the sick, I swear it could.

I love how he rolls instantly to his stomach the minute you set him on the floor and how he then proceeds to get all pissed off because he's on his stomach. It's like a nervous twitch, he almost starts rolling before he even hits the floor.

I love how he found his feet this month and how he could spend literally hours and hours and hours starting at them. I love how he studies everything with his wide-eyed look, the look that every single person comments on the first time they meet him. His eyes are always wide open taking everything in.

I love how he burrows his head into my shoulder almost bites when he's hungry, aggressively letting me know that it's time for food. Not in a few minutes, not in a few seconds, RIGHT NOW LADY.

And then an hour after he eats I love how the burrow has turned into a snuggle, him grabbing a fist full of my hair and inhaling my scent, letting me know that it's time for sleep as though I wasn't the one that set the schedule in the first place.

I love how just before he drifts off to sleep he turns his head to the side and looks up into my eyes and not quite smiles but without words somehow acknowledges that he's really glad I'm there. I will never ever EVER forget that look on his face, so content and so pure and so incredibly chalk full of love. It is when they look at me that way that I feel like a mother. And the sleepless nights and the temper tantrums and the never ever getting a spare minute to myself? It's TOTALLY worth it.

four months

To celebrate his four month birthday Cameron rolled over. Both ways. Over and over and OVER again. Everytime I bent down and smiled at him to congratulate him on his brand new trick, he laughed. Like he was saying, 'You just wait lady. You think you're tired now...you JUST WAIT.' And then he gave me this amused little sheepish grin that he does and my head exploded from the cuteness.
 
His primary nickname other than Cam is Buster Boo. I'm fairly sure that is the one that is going to stick because I even have Ski calling him that. When I got the dad started on calling Renee Mu Shu Chicken, it was all downhill.

I feel like when I sit down to write about Cameron all that comes to mind is how incredibly sweet he is. He’s a snuggler, a mommy’s boy, my quiet little content baby that is comfortable in his own skin. He’s finally down to eating every three hours instead of every two (THANK YOU JESUS) and naps for about an hour three to four times a day. Except for sometimes, mostly on the weekends when we are trying to get things done around the house, and then he refuses to sleep at all. Come to think of it he really sort of sucks at sleeping in general. Who me?

Like, for instance, he is STILL NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. It is the bane of my existence, the thorn in my side. He goes down easily at around 8PM but he wakes easily, fidgeting and grunting and lately crying until I pick him up and hold him. At 10PM, 2AM and then again at 4AM, at which point I usually feed him and bring him back to bed with me because by then I’m to the point where I’m panicked knowing that I have precisely one hour before the stupid alarm clock tries to will me back out of bed. I miss sleeping.   

He takes the biggest poops of any baby I have ever seen and not a day goes by that we don’t end up with at least one wardrobe change. I’m talking full wardrobe here, the kid ends up with poop on his socks and in his hair at least once every SINGLE day. My girl never pooped out of her clothes once but this boy, OH MY GOD, every single outfit he has is stained. I blame the, ahem, boy parts for this.   

He is such a tough little guy and is already big enough for the exersaucer. He sure likes it when the big, bossy sister allows him to play in it. It's only once or twice a week but hey, it's something. He doesn't complain.

He's pretty coordinated about getting his thumb into his mouth and I wouldn't be surprised if he's a thumb sucker once he doesn't need to be swaddled anymore. I won't even go in to detail about how incredibly TERRIFIED I am of the day when I need to quit swaddling him (like probably soon here) because I am certain that he'll sleep even worse than he already does. IF THAT'S EVEN POSSIBLE. I tried it for exactly one night and it was about midnight when I finally got annoyed and swaddled him up and put him to bed. Google is not my friend on this one telling me that I am going to stunt the development of his motor skills by swaddling him. Riddle me this: Is him having a crazy, even-more-sleep-deprived-than-she-already-is mother better or worse than his motor skills being a bit behind? The jury is still out on this one.

He loves it when I lay him down in his crib and then lean over him and talk to him when he’s winding down for the night. He coos and carries on, telling me all about his day and about how his sister threw a toy at him and hit him in the face. He’s not lying when he tells me these things; his sister is pretty keen on trying to injure him. My sweet baby, he doesn’t hold grudges, his whole face still lights up every time he sees her. Something tells me some lucky lady is going to win the jackpot when she finds him as he’s already going to know all about being bossed around by women. Come to think of it, I should probably go call Aunt Jill and tell her thanks for breaking Ski in...those older sisters, they aren't all bad.
 
   

three months

It took me until now to start panicking. SERIOUSLY, WHERE DID THE LAST THREE MONTHS GO? I can't really explain or make sense of the fact that it seemed to crawl and fly by all at the same time. These babies, they play tricks on me...they are messing with my mind. One day I woke up and instead of wishing he was like 3 and she was like 4 so that we could have some peace and quiet once in a while, I started willing time to just please slow down. My baby, the one that was JUST born, is three months old. He smiles and coos and spends time playing on the floor by himself. Knowing that he is mostly likely my last shot at this whole infant thing makes it so incredibly bitter sweet. I'm already wondering why I haven't spent less time doing laundry and washing the dishes and more time snuggling and holding and kissing his soft little bald head.

This week has been hard knowing that these last days are probably some of the only days that I'll spend alone with Cameron. When she's sleeping and I'm rocking him to sleep, the tears stream down my face knowing that the time I spend with him is only a couple of days away from completely changing. The weekends will be spent as a family of four and my two days a week where I spend with just my little baby are over. I miss him already.

His whole face lights up and he laughs at just about everything. All I have to do is look at him or touch his ticklish little neck and he giggles and coos and carries on. He cries when someone besides me is holding him and he calms instantly the minute I touch him. He does a good job of making sure that I am constantly reminded that all of the hard work I do to make sure he has everything he needs to thrive is worth it. So incredibly worth it.

He had a double ear infection this month and you'd never really know it because Cameron really isn't a screamer. He really doesn't cry much at all. He was having a hard time sleeping and had a stuffed up nose and was running a very low grade fever when I had Renee in for her 18 month appointment so I had them take a look at him, you know, JUST IN CASE. He never bitched about the ear infection but the diarrhea that came with the antibiotic was NOT pretty. The kid really gets worked up about farting and pooping.

He has gotten better and better at nursing or maybe I have gotten better and better at not letting him chomp and I am happy to say that the nipples haven't bled since a week ago. With the bleeding stopping his belly has gotten at least a bit less volatile. And with the fixes to his belly issues have come sweet, sweet sleep for me. If the poop is normal and he's been farting regularily, he sleeps. For eight or nine hour stretches fairly consistently. When he wakes usually around 4AM he eats contently and goes back to sleep for four more hours. He's lucky he figured it out because now he is allowed to live. His mommy sort of sucks at being a mommy when she isn't sleeping. I hope he remembers that when he's seventeen and he thinks he can come home one minute past curfew. I will make him pay for taking away my sleep. He still doesn't really understand the concept of napping for more than 30 minutes at a time unless I'm holding him but whatever. He can't be perfect ALL the time.

He spends a lot of time inspecting his hands and his feet and when he's lost in thought staring at them I always tell him 'Yes, they're perfect, Cameron, I already checked. Everything about you is perfect.'

He can hold his head up for the most part and he doesn't really love tummy time any more than she did. Although he is much less dramatic about not liking it. While she screamed her bloody head off, he grunts and whines and moans until I flip him over. He has managed to roll from his belly to his back a few times but I think it was more luck than anything.
He weighed in at 12 pounds 11 ounces the last time we were at the doctor and is 23 inches long. 50th percentile across the board. I told you he was perfect.

This month has reminded me why there were days when Renee was little when I thought having ten babies sounded like a good idea. When the kids are healthy and things are running smoothly around here, the high is higher than any high I have ever had in my life. I'm just thankful that the lows are much easier to forget. I know I'll look back on these days as perfect and incredible and just like the story tale said having children would be. And I'll thank my lucky stars every day for the rest of my life that he picked us as his parents and that he has forgiven me for floundering around for those first couple of months trying to remember how to take care of an infant. Because now that I remember...I never want these days to end.

two months

Our second month together did not go as smoothly as our first. It had to happen, right? It wasn't anything to do with Cameron himself, it had more to do with his mom trying to do too much during the holidays and completely misreading his cues. I fed him when he cried, completely ignoring the fact that he had just eaten an hour ago and that my nipples were bleeding. When his poop transformed back into the green seaweed variety indicating a stomachache of some sort, I pretty much quit eating, totally convinced that it was eggs or chocolate or dairy. He cried and arched his back and I got frustrated. He quit sleeping at night, waking up every hour or two, grunting and whining and in pain so you know what I did? I fed him again. And I cried because I couldn't make it stop and because I wasn't getting any sleep. By 4AM I'd be hysterical, weeping, yelling at my husband to DO SOMETHING because I just couldn't take care of two children all day long on one hour of sleep.

Then, I woke up last Wednesday morning, got out The Baby Whisperer (Kim's copy, which I totally thought I had given back to her but had apparently not) and got serious. I had apparently forgotten everything I learned last time in a few short months. The first thing I read was that feeding a baby too often for not long enough would give him an upset belly because he's getting too much foremilk. I started feeding him every three hours, forcing the feedings to last at least twenty minutes each and within two days his poop was back to normal. The trouble was he still wasn't sleeping and I feared that I had ruined his chance for good sleeping habits for good.

On Monday morning I reopened the book looking for sleeping issues and somewhere in there it said that a baby that is overstimulated during the day and not getting good naps won't sleep a night either. And you know what? He hadn't slept during the day for more than 20 minute stretches and I was blaming the stomachache. Yesterday I went back to swaddling him for naps, putting him upstairs in his crib instead of in the swing or the Pack N Play with his loud mouth sister throwing toys on the hardwood floors next to him and he napped, for an hour and a half each time just like the book said he should. And you know what he did last night? He slept for eight hours without waking once. Sure it could be a coincidence, he could be going through a growth spurt but right now, rolling through the day on eight consecutive hours of sleep with both of my children sleeping soundly in the middle of the afternoon, I would like to find the Baby Whisperer and kiss her on the lips. With tongue.

I'm writing all of this down for anyone out there struggling, wondering what to try next. And because I've reread Renee's first and second month posts a million times trying to figure out how I got her to sleep so well and I'm sorry but the fact that she hated her first bath really didn't seem as relevant to me now as HOW IN THE HELL DID I TEACH HER TO SLEEP ON HER OWN? A lot of the tricks that are working this time, however, never worked on my Spirited Baby because she's well, spirited, and HEAVED FORBID someone try to tell her what to do.

He doesn't barf hardly ever but he makes a big hot fuss about pooping and farting. He gets this from his dad. He'll grunt and moan and arch until he poops or farts and then he'll promptly fall asleep. I'm not sure which is more annoying...Renee's barfing or Cameron's farting...I think they're tied. Why can't babies just come out with mature digestive systems? And a full mouth of teeth. That would make my life a whole lot easier.
 
He has started burrowing into my neck and inhaling my scent when I pick him up, instantly going from frantic to calm. His eyes roll back in his head when I rub his head or when I touch my lips to his soft baby head. I feel like Superwoman every time he stops crying the instant I touch him or when he's gulping so contently on the milk I work so hard to make for him.

He smiles at me every time I talk to him, a sweet little shy smile, not at all agressive and not nearly as big or dramatic as his sister's at this age. Just more of a 'Oh, you're talking to me? Thanks.' And once in a while he'll coo back and I imagine he's saying something along the lines of 'You rock my word, Mom.'
 
He likes to the watch TV these days and loves the same Tiffany lamp in the dining room that Renee had a mad love affair with. He'll sit in his Bouncy seat for long periods of time, checking out the lamps and the rivets on the couch. FASCINATING STUFF. His eyes light up and his fists start to shake with glee every time he so much as catches a glimpse of his sister or when she bends down to give him a kiss goodnight.
 
His dad wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't mention his male pattern baldness. He has lost all of his hair on the top of the head but still has his dark hair in the back. Honestly he looks like one of those men that are balding and rather than doing the sensible thing and shaving the whole head they leave the patch long in the back as though they want to prove to society that they do have SOME hair.
 
He's a big boy, growing like a madman, getting ready to bust out of 3-6 months clothes any day now. This is such a weird development for me considering she was wearing 0-3 month on her first day of daycare at three months old.

I won't lie and say he's an angel all of time, he will scream himself silly if he doesn't get what he wants. He'll get so hysterical he'll almost forget to breathe. I had to wake him from his nap yesterday to go and pick Renee up from daycare and holy hell the kid screamed so loud and was so desparate that I had to pull into a gas station and pick him up to calm him down. On our way home from Christmas in the Falls he did the same thing and the mom in me had to pull the car over and soothe him.I guess it's because Cameron doesn't really cry for the sake of crying.

The best part about these last two months of getting to know my son is to understand who he is and that my dad is right when he says the best part about having more than one kid is to understand how truly different they are. From the instant they are born, they are their own person. And my Cameron? He's a keeper.
 

one month

He came into our lives by storm one month ago today awakening me out of a dead sleep with a contraction that said 'Hi Mom, GET READY...HERE I COME.' He followed that one up with another of equal or greater magnitude about ten minutes later. The third one made me get out of bed to head downstairs to time them, wondering if this was really it. I was halfway down the stairs when my water broke. I turned around, walked to Ski's side of the bed and said 'Honey, wake up, we're going to have a baby today.' We made our calls, Lindsey showed up around 4:30AM to take care of Renee until my parents could get to town and we collected our things and headed to the hospital. I remember thinking, 'Wow, I feel totally calm...this is totally different than last time.'
 
When I told the nurse that we were going for the VBAC I had to swallow a huge lump in my throat. A lump that said 'Seriously woman, you don't have anything to prove. Why are you doing this?' I spent most of the day waiting for something to go wrong. I asked each and every person that came into my room if things were going OK and then accused each and every one of them of lying when they said things were going perfectly. When I made it to 10cm and got the urge to push I remember wondering how long I had before I would get whisked away for the inevitable c-section. And I remember being sad because I was tired. Everyone kept telling me I was doing everything right and when he came rushing out and I heard his dad say 'OHMYGOD, IT'S A BOY,' I knew that this journey that we started 10 months ago had finally come to a close. When I kissed his forehead and looked at his face for the first time, I wept because I was so relieved for the happy ending I spent my entire pregnancy praying for. It was a bumpy road but there we were. Everything had gone according to plan.

We named him Cameron some time during the evening. We reflected on one of our first conversations about names for our unborn children, a conversation that happened some three years before Renee even became a speck on our radar. Five years ago, we were watching the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup finals and the goalie was named Cam Ward. I remember saying, 'I like the name Cam. Cameron. I think it's solid' and Ski responded with something along the lines of 'Yeah, it's not too basic and not too new age. I like it to.' And now we have our very own Cameron. I can honestly hardly remember at this point what life was like before he was here.

He kept us awake for basically 23 straight nights with his grunting and moaning and insisting that laying in bed next to mom was the only place for him. He refused to stay awake long enough to eat during the day and we made at least ten trips to the clinic for weight checks. And I cried a lot. And my hoots bled and I wondered how I could have been so successful at nursing Renee only to fail so miserably this time. At two weeks, he was still 3 ounces shy of his birth weight. I gave him a bottle that night, weeping, wondering how I could really give up on him and live with the guilt. I decided to give it three more days...until his next weight check and that was it. I couldn't starve him anymore. I couldn't live with starving my baby. At the appointment he had gained NINE OUNCES in three days and we haven't looked back. It's like one day he just woke up and figured out how to do it and that was it.

He is the sweetest little baby on the planet, hardly ever crying or demanding anything. He usually starts grunting when he's hungry and I change his diaper to get him ready and then I feed him. He doesn't really even ask for it but seems so grateful that I suggested the idea when he's eating. Like he's glad his mom is there to hang out with him and he's happy about the cuddle. Honestly, so far he is the polar opposite of his high maintenance sister and at least 100 times in the last month I've wondered what I thought was so hard about having a newborn last time. And I'm sure I just cursed myself and tomorrow he'll wake up screaming his bloody head off and won't quit until he moves away to college or something.
 
He HATES to have his clothes taken off and his diaper changed but I think that has something to do with the fact that our old house is COLD and he is freezing to death. He throws a holy hell fit every time we do it and then calms right down as soon as he is warm.
 
Renee is already trying to teach him tricks, always showing him her toys and talking in her own little language. I'm certain she is already telling him all about The Jonas Brothers. He likes to watch her play with her toys...well, at least until she starts trying to shove the pacifier down his throat. 
  
  
This is what happens when his mother has one blue hat that happened to be in the wash and needed to go to the grocery store. If you're reading and know my husband: SHHHHHHH. I don't think he'd approve of his son wearing a pink hat out in public.  
He's perfect and getting better and better at sleeping on his own without us holding him, going almost perfectly through the three hour eat, play, nap rotation without hardly any prodding from me. Then, almost a week ago he went for SIX HOURS without eating in the middle of the night. I was sure it was a fluke and then he did the same thing for the following five or six nights and SWEET JESUS I almost feel human again. A five hour sleep stretch is all I needed to feel like I could do this. That I could be successful at parenting these two babies at the same time. I have no idea how long it will last but I will continue to awaken at 3AM gushing and kissing and promising him that he is the best thing to ever happen to me.

And now when we're having our alone time in the night or when his sister is napping, I look at him I can't believe I ever wondered if having him was a good idea. Because it was the best idea I never had. Thanks Cameron, for having other plans. For deciding that you didn't care whether we were ready for you or had planned for you...you were coming anyways. I'm so glad you did, my sweet baby boy.