A day at the park

I can’t believe it has been so long since I updated the blog! I guess the summer days are keeping us busy as Cameron loves to be outside. We get out every day for a walk around the neighborhood at a minimum, but most days we like to go to the park. Wash Park is a favorite because Andy and I can get some exercise pushing the stroller around the large park, and then Cameron can let off some steam at the playground. Often Chloe comes along as well, but she is exhausted by the end! After playing at the playground, Cameron gets to push the stroller to the car and I think this may actually be his favorite part! Other favorites are swinging, “steering the ship”, and just generally exploring the big wooden castle-ish play structure. He also enjoys picking things up off the ground like sticks and trash that people have left behind. He picks it up and presents it to me as if it’s some wonderful treasure. So cute!

This particular day was also Cameron’s 21 month birthday which means he is 1 3/4 years old! It’s starting to hit home that soon there will be a two year old running around our house. Hopefully they won’t be “terrible twos” but I can’t imagine they will because in general Cameron is a sweet angel, especially when he’s well-fed with animal crackers. Often he will go over to the kitchen pantry, start tugging at the doors, and signing want cracker please! Or he’ll take the box of Cheerios out, open it up, and grab a gigantic handful and stuff it in his mouth. It’s so cute that usually I can’t resist his pleas, even if dinnertime is coming up soon. Chloe also really enjoys it, because he usually drops some crackers or Cheerios on the floor and then she gets to clean them up. Love my sweet little boy!

Happy Fourth of July!

Breckenridge is one of the best places in the country for a family to celebrate the Fourth of July. It’s a cool place to escape the heat of the city, and there are tons of family friendly things to do. So far Cameron has spent every Fourth of July in Breck and we plan to continue the tradition for many years to come. Maybe in a few years he’ll be able to stay up late enough to enjoy the fireworks show! In the meantime, he really enjoyed going on hikes up the mountain–we brought a backpack to carry him in, but he mostly walked on his own! He got to go on his first gondoloa ride, up to the ski area where we hope he will eventually fall in love with skiing too. He also was completely entranced by the parade, especially the fire trucks!

Animal Lover

Cameron is definitely very into animals. His favorite animal is our dog Chloe, of course. He loves her to the point of obsession, despite the fact that she generally wants nothing to do with him unless he has food in his hands. He follows her around trying to pet her and give her kisses, and gets upset when she tries to avoid him.

Cameron also seems to have a great love for all other animals. He loves trips to the museum to get a good look at the stuffed animal displays, and loves trips to the zoo even more because the animals move. His favorite books are about animals and he will identify most animals in the books that he is asked about by enthusiastically pointing to them. Usually when we read the books together I will attempt to make the appropriate animal sound for him, so even though he doesn’t say many words yet, he has a pretty good repertoire of animal sounds. I think his favorite is the rooster but my personal favorite is the gorilla because there is nothing cuter than a little boy beating his chest and hollering like a gorilla. Other animal sounds he does are lion, peacock, elephant, cow, snake, sheep.

Last weekend Cameron finally got to experience some real, live animals up close and personal (other than dogs–he has petted and kissed many a dog out at the park). We were in Breckenridge, of all places to find a petting zoo. At first Cameron was a bit shy to pet the goats, bunnies, chickens, and other baby farm animals. But it didn’t take him long to warm up, and as a result a baby goose nearly lost her beak!

Making Music

We just finished our second series of Music Together classes and I have to say it’s definitely my favorite organized activity that we have participated in. I think it’s Cameron’s favorite too! It’s not really an instructional music class, but more of an immersion in different types of music, rhythms, sounds, and instruments. There’s a lot of parental participation required, so if you aren’t the type to enjoy singing, dancing, and being silly you probably wouldn’t enjoy it like we do. It’s a mixed age class for kids up to 4 years old, so it’s also a good opportunity for Cameron to practice imitating the older kids and learning to play nicely with the younger ones.

Cameron’s favorite part of the class is when the instruments come out. Sometimes there are egg-shaped maraca-style shakers, sometimes xylophones, drums, sticks, scarves, and every class includes the play along section where a huge assortment of instruments are dumped on the floor and you can choose whatever you like to play with. Cameron’s favorite instruments to play are things you can bang like claves and tone blocks with mallets. He’s also recently gotten more into the tambourines and maracas.

However, he is fully obsessed with the teacher’s guitar. At the end of class, after singing the goodbye song, the kids are all allowed to come try to strum the guitar if they want. He is always at the front of the line to try this. Lately, his stranger anxiety has made him more hesitant to come close to the guitar. Our regular teacher couldn’t finish the most recent class series because she had a baby, and Cameron never really warmed up to the new teacher. She always offered the guitar at the end of class, but he usually kept his distance because he didn’t want to get too close to her.

It’s also been really interesting to watch Cameron’s progression both in and out of class. The class also includes a CD with a recorded version of all of the songs that are done in class, so we often will listen to the songs at home. We even have a cabinet with some musical instruments although not nearly as many as in class. At home Cameron really lets loose and claps, dances, uses the hand motions demonstrated in class, and laughs like crazy. In class he is much more reserved. As his stranger and separation anxiety is peaking, he’s become much more clingy in class. When we first started I could barely get him to stop wandering all around the room and he hardly ever sat in my lap. Now he spends the first ten minutes of class sitting in my lap and holding onto me before he feels comfortable to get up and relax a little. Recently, since he is so excited about being a good helper and doing everything for himself, he almost gets more pleasure from putting the instruments away than he does from playing with them.

We have already completed the Drum and Tambourine song collections. I can’t wait for the next series and I’m sure Cameron can’t either.

Backyard Explorer and Bicycle Trekker

At nineteen months old, Cameron loves to be outside. Fortunately, over Memorial Day weekend we had beautiful weather that we took advantage of as often as possible, and we also have a wonderful, huge backyard that is the perfect place for Cameron to roam and explore. He’s beginning to do a lot of running and is managing to go farther distances before losing his balance or having to slow down.

We also got a new bike trailer for Cameron to ride in and went on our first family bike ride together. Having never traveled by trailer before, Cameron was not at all happy to have a helmet strapped to his head and be put into an unfamiliar vehicle. However, as soon as we started pedaling our bikes, the tears ended and Cameron was having a great time. We headed to the Highline Canal trail, easily accessible from home and mostly flat and paved. For the first few miles, Cameron was uncharacteristically silent, just taking in the views as they sped by. But by the end of the ride, he was making his happy chirping noises. We stopped at a park along the way to take a break and let Cameron play at the playground. He rode on the swings (his favorite) for awhile, but wanted to quickly end the playground break to get back in the trailer and ride. Now the only tears were because he was so sad to see the ride come to an end. I’m sure we will be taking many bike rides this summer!

Cameron is nineteen months old and continues to bring joy and laughter into our lives.

It’s fun to be a year and a half

Today Cameron is officially eighteen months old! I can’t believe how fast the past year and a half has flown by. Cameron celebrated by having his friends over to play with his new sand and water table. Happy half-birthday!

Little Bruiser

Today Cameron experienced his first major injury. I know it probably won’t be his last, either. He was laughing and running down the hallway away from the dog, and he’s still not able to run very far without toppling over. Usually he’s running to me or his dad and we catch him, but unfortunately, this time he toppled and crashed right into the sharp edge of the wall corner. I was behind him and could see right away that it was a really bad crash, but I was shocked to see that his forehead, right above the eyebrow, had actually split open and was bleeding profusely.

I don’t think I have ever heard Cameron cry and scream that intensely for that long. It took a long time to calm him down and I cried right along with him. Finally I was able to hold him in my lap and try to stop the bleeding. Of course, he wasn’t too happy about pressure being applied to his head and the bleeding was not stopping. I was really upset and didn’t know what to do, so I called Andrew at work and he came home to help out. Once he was here, everyone was calm again and we decided that the gash was going to need to be stitched up, so we headed to the urgent care center.

Luckily, there is a brand new urgent care center less than a mile from our house. We walked right in and since there were no other patients waiting, we were seen immediately. The PA seemed pretty doubtful about stitches–I think he knew it was going to be a traumatic experience for everyone if Cameron had to be held down and stitched up! Fortunately, the wound came together really nicely and all that was needed was some dermabond glue and a few steri-strips. The bruises were really starting to blossom as well, and the edge of the wall is clearly reflected in Cameron’s face. There wasn’t any reason to suspect a concussion, so we were on our way back home, with our little bruiser in tow. He’s back to normal and is running all over the place again, making my heart jump a few beats every time he slips or stumbles.

Happy Easter 2010!

This year, Cameron was old enough to get a little better idea of what Easter is all about. We attended church on Easter morning, and Cameron really enjoyed the music. He got pretty bored during the sermon though, and had to take a break to walk around. Following the church service, Cameron got to participate in his first Easter egg hunt! The youngest children got a head start to go outside to the church courtyard to find some eggs before the big kids swooped in and took them all. After a lot of encouragement and pointing, Cameron collected a few eggs. He got some additional help from some older girls who thought he was adorable. Unfortunately, he didn’t really understand why everyone was so excited for him to pick up the plastic eggs. He had some fun banging the eggs together, and really enjoyed doing several laps around the courtyard, walking up ramps and down steps. He gave a high five to the Easter bunny, but wasn’t too thrilled about meeting the overgrown rabbit.

Upon returning home, he discovered that the Easter bunny had brought him a toy lawnmower to push around the backyard. This was definitely the highlight of Cameron’s Easter! I guess there will be plenty of future Easters for him to learn the story of Jesus’ resurrection and how to find candy inside of colored plastic eggs.

Easter Egg Extravaganza

Growing up, I remember lots of artistic decorating of Easter eggs. Not only would we dye them, we then drew designs or pictures on them with crayons, markers, paint. We never stopped at just a dozen eggs, either. Every family member had their own carton of a dozen eggs to decorate. We must have been so sick of hard-boiled eggs by the end of April! My mom still creates artistic eggs every year even though all her children are grown. I knew Cameron wasn’t ready to create an artistic masterpiece on a hard-boiled egg, but I thought he would have fun seeing the water change color and how the colored water could then beautify the eggs. I left the markers and paint in the drawer but I did draw on a few eggs with the magic crayon while I waited for the color tablets to dissolve.

Cameron’s attention span is still quite short and while he did like watching the color tablets fizz in the vinegar, he quickly grew tired of that and wanted to pull all of the newspaper off of the table. Andy helped keep Cameron out of trouble, but he doesn’t really have an artistic bone in his body, so it was pretty much up to me to get the eggs dyed. I knew I didn’t have much time, so the eggs are very basic, although I did try some two-tone. I’m definitely glad for the experience and I know that we have many years of egg-dyeing in our future. Maybe next year Cameron will even convince his dad to give it a try!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We have been lucky enough to have beautiful weather this week, so my little leprechaun and I spent the morning of St. Patrick’s Day at Washington Park. Cameron really gets his exercise at the playground since he loves just walking around and around. He has really become an expert walker (and runner!) but so far he isn’t too interested in most of the playground equipment. He did find another boy’s shovel toy and used that as a drumstick for awhile, and he became quite entranced with a rock. He kept pointing at the swing area, and I thought he wanted to swing, but really what he wanted to do was go down the slight incline that led to the swings. He wasn’t confident enough to walk down the slope, but finally he realized that he could crawl backwards down it, just like he does on the stairs.

In the past Cameron has not really enjoyed the swings, fussing almost immediately after getting into the swing. I always keep trying though, since swinging is so fun! This time, he was in a great mood after walking around all over, so he was happy to get into the swing and really got excited when I started pushing him! I was able to get a few pictures of him enjoying swinging before he wanted to get out and walk around some more.

Unfortunately there is a late winter storm expected tonight so we won’t be able to go to the park again for a few days!