An Open Letter to Cameron

My sweet little Cameron, I can’t believe I brought you home a year ago. Where has the time gone? It has disappeared all too quickly and I can’t believe I am here already. When I arrived at the hospital, I had six names for you in mind, but I think in my heart I knew you’d be Cameron, but I wanted to see you anyway–just to make sure. My eyes danced across your little face, and with each movement I offered the unspoken name and stared. None of them seemed right until I ended with your name. And anyway, it was the only name your Daddy and I could agree on.

OK, fine, I’ll admit it, I fell in love with you the moment I saw you: The perma-scowl was so endearing, the gentle cooing and squeaks, the soft downy hair, the tiny uncoordinated fingers and toes. Despite my insecurities and diffidence, with a soft smile (or was it gas?) and loving sigh you made my heart expand and make room for another child. I felt it change with every soft tear that graced my face.

I love you explicitly. I knew who you were after just a few months; but now, especially, I can see your big personality shine through your pint-sized body. You are lead by your heart, you will be my Mr. Sensitivity and I definitely recognise this trait in myself. Don’t ever change because here’s a little secret–women love it! Always go with your feelings – your gut, if you will – it’ll fair you well in life.

I love watching you interact with your older brother. I marvel at the love you have for him, your eyes light up every morning as he greets you. You have been saying his name for a long time and I know this delights him too. “Ee-ah!” I hear you call. At his tender age of 3, he sees you progress and learn too, and he gets excited when you take on a new skill.

I am amazed at how much you have accomplished in such a short time. I asked you not to take your first steps as quickly as your brother (9.5 months), so you obliged and waited. One. More. Week. I even made sure I didn’t encourage it! You were so determined and here you are now–running! At seven months you had eight teeth. Not content at sprouting one at a time, you push through two and three all at once. What amazes me is that you took it in your stride; you stayed content and happy. You are my happy, smiling little boy.

Thank you. Thank you for having a healthy curiosity. You see something once and you are satisfied with it. The cupboards in the kitchen are locked on the outside, you see this and are content to leave them alone. Thank you for that. It is a small mercy, and a difference from your brother I am so happy to live with.

Maybe I should tell you. I think you’re beautiful. OK, fine. I think you’re handsome. I entered you in a Beautiful Baby competition online. This is my favourite shot of you:

You have reminded me that tiny, generally unseen things in the world are a delight: A tree swaying in the wind, our cockatiel when he takes flight, a warm bath filled with bubbles and toys, the wonders of being outdoors, hiding under blankets and little games of hide and seek.

I’m grateful for the head butt love taps, the soft open-mouth wet kisses, how you stop in your tracks to wrestle me as I lie on the carpet taking a moment. You make me smile with toothy grins and laughs, an amazing love-filled hug when I need it, or when you reach up and gently stroke my hair. I’ve learned that I need you just as much as you need me.

My favourite moments? When you come up to me and pat my legs to get my attention. You almost say, “Lift me up! Hold me, it’s time for my nap.” It’s those quiet times as you fall asleep in my arms, your little body cradled naturally around my waist as we sit together and just dream. The soft sighs as your breathing slows rhythmically and your arm drapes over me. I silently stare at your beautiful face and just marvel that you are mine, mine to take care of and nurture forever. I’m still learning all this Mummy stuff, but I love every minute of it.

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Babies Have a Sense of Humour

My life has been a lethargic haze to this point since having Cameron.  By 6½ weeks he was doing amazing and sleeping five hours all by himself.  At seven months old, we left for Yellowstone and then on to Utah.  While we were in Island Park, Idaho we slept in a trailer.  To save on space and issues, rather than put the Pack N’ Play up, we decided to let Cameron sleep with us.  Since then, it has been an uphill battle to say the least.  We essentially started over again after we returned home.

Going from self-soothing and drifting off to sleep to the other spectrum of needing us near him has been exhausting and taxing on me to say the least.  Bryan works very early shift, so I have tried not to disturb him if possible.  We kept him in our room (not in our bed) until recently, moving him into his own room (a GOOD 100 feet from ours.  Try walking it, bleary-eyed at 4 a.m.) at ten months old.  This has been very successful and I have been getting a lot more sleep than I had to this point.  Previously, he was waking every two hours like a newborn again and I had been a walking zombie on a good day.  After moving him, he was staying asleep for four hours.

I have known all-too-well that by this age, he should have been sleeping through the night.  I kept a pretty rigid nighttime routine with Ian with which I was by the book.  I had to give the book back and didn’t bother buying it (I’m totally serious!).  I figured I knew what I was doing.  It was so nice to have a little one around again that I got sucked into the I’ll-rock-him-to-sleep-til-he’s-unconscious trap and that was my (other) downfall.  Something had to change and I realised I needed help.  A friend gave me a gift certificate to an online store and I bought me some Supernanny books.  I figured I needed them for Ian too.  Last night I sat in bed until 1 a.m. pouring over its pages trying to learn all I could on techniques to remedy the situation and make everyone’s life a little easier.  The technique is:  The baby wakes, you go in after two minutes of them crying and rub his/her back and soothe them with a comforting noise, but don’t talk.  Don’t pick them up and don’t feed them.  When they have calmed down (but are not asleep), walk out the room.  Double the time increments you wait until you re-enter the room until they stay asleep.  It may be a long night, and a very long week to say the least.

The little bugger slept right through until 9 o’clock this morning.

Photo Diary

I decided to take photos of me and the boys tonight. Okay, so I didn’t look my best, but I didn’t care (too much).

I grabbed Cameron and snapped a pic. First try. Looks great. Next!

Now it’s Ian’s turn. Cute, but I think we can do better.

Trying to chase him down for another photo proved harder than first anticipated. You see, it was the first real snowfall of the year and Ian was uber excited.

Rather than risk getting his trousers wet, he ripped them off and took off outside in the snow, wearing only his Transformers underpants. Sicko.

Now bored, I take one of myself.

Undeterred, I try again. Eyes closed. Nice.

Now he takes one of me. We’re off task here PEOPLE.

He starts “gawping”.

Then tries to do some kind of face fart. Charming child.

May as well join him.

He attempts a sly face lick.

Great, a good shot of me. He suuuuuuuuuuucks!

Now I look drunk.

I give up.

Rule #1: If you think you can do better–you can’t.

Aiming for 5 Hours and Other Big Deals

So far, it’s been a big week in the lives of our little family. Last Wednesday (7th Nov), Cameron shared his food with me for the first time. Also that day, Ian learned quite a few opposite words and shocked me when he was able to recite them back to Daddy. The next night, Cameron pointed to our cockatiel and said in a quiet voice, “buuuh”. “Yeah! That’s the birdie!”

Saturday night, was an amazing night for milestones. Cameron was spontaneously playing peek-a-boo from one side of the t.v.with me, squealing and laughing in delight saying, “Sah, sah, sah!” All of a sudden, and without warning, he then attempted to walk to me – just a few steps away from him. He took one unsteady step (because he was so hyped up) and then lunged at me. It was so adorable! Then I realised the implications of this feat.

“Okay, that’ll be enough of that business, pal!” laughing, and perhaps only half-joking.

Last night was also a big night for changes, although implementing the transition afforded me no sleep at all.

Ever since we brought Cameron home from the hospital in January, I’ve had him near our bed in a Pack N’ Play (and napping in his crib during the day). I worried about SIDS and its risks and I knew it was best to have him near me, especially when he was tiny. Despite sleeping for five hours straight during the night at just 6 weeks, for the past two-and-a-half months, he has been waking every two hours again and it has really begun to take its toll on me physically and mentally. I’ve been completely exhausted constantly without reprieval.

Exhaustion being my motivation, I began laying down to feed him, and soon I was falling asleep with him in my arms. Although this isn’t really a point of concern for me, having him become accustomed to it, and show preference for it, was my main catalyst for initiating the move. And, for an extra nod for sympathy, Cameron’s room is a good one hundred feet from mine, on the other side of the house. It doesn’t sound like much, but when faced with the trek at 11, 1, 3 and 5 a.m., having him at the bottom of my bed always won.

Last night, I placed him in his crib intent on keeping him there for the duration of the night, and I kept the monitor on the nightstand next to me. Of course, it wasn’t as pain-free as I would have liked it to be. I know I was sunconsciously stressing about it, I was waking every two hours and pressing my face close to the speaker. Conveniently – or maybe inconveniently – he awoke too. Despite the long night, he did really well.

We’re on Night 2 and already doing better.

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Well, go ahead and scratch that. He woke at 1:15 a.m. to be fed (incidentally, ten minutes after I went to bed. I stayed up late for some Me time. Why do we do that?!) and I played musical chairs trying to get him back to sleep again. He faked me out and fell asleep for five minutes (just as I was drifting off) and awoke again. I gave up at 2 a.m., totally exhausted and took him in our bedroom.I am thinking part of the issue may be that his room is the coolest in the house. He’s the furthest from the furnace (it’s directly below our bedroom) and it’s not easy to keep his room at a median temperature. My next course of action is to buy lots of soft fleece jammies. For him.

Oh, and btw, he slept for five hours. About as much as I got too.

Cocoa Loco

I realised the other day how long it’s been since I last reported on an Ian exploit, and believe me, it’s not because they suddenly stopped.

Intertwined with the everyday mundane are sequences of events that generally go un-noticed. Or perhaps they’re so frequent that it’s become so common place. Either way, there are special days where the exploit is so ginormous, it’s impossible to overlook or even justify. It makes life interesting. Or maybe it just makes grey hair.

[As a foreword, this home is a “new build”. Everything is new. We signed on it just as the inside was being completed. We didn’t have a choice in anything, the paint, carpet and laminate flooring, all the fixtures and doors were already planned. But despite that, I really like the house, even though we have lost some living space moving here.]

I think I can safely say, Ian has “christened” our new home. We won’t mention how he managed to remove the glass door from the front of my entertainment centre and break off the tiny attachment pieces, or how he spilled a huge blob of purple acrylic paint on my 6-month old carpet. We’ll keep quiet about how when he was playing with his Matchbox areoplane he let it “fly” and it careened into my double-glazed (paned) 8-day old window and spread a hairline crack across the length of it (goodbye $106).

We’ll ignore how he managed to snap a wheel off one of the fruit and veg drawers in my (4 month old, french door, $1300) fridge because he was leaning in to get some grapes. Or then there’s the time he played with the tubing on my $200 breast pump and snapped a valve on it. Or how he stood in the pullout drawer under Cameron’s $300 Pali cot (crib) and bent the runners. He has expensive taste, like his mother. Then there was the day last week where he decided to clean out his potty with Cameron’s bath sponge.

Somehow I can deal with all that (well, I can NOW). What’s much more difficult to understand and accept is Cameron’s abuse.  I’ve decided to call it abuse.

A few days after Ian and Bryan and I got really sick, Cameron had really bad diarrhea, and it never stopped. There was no temperature, no weight loss, no crankiness – nothing. Finally after almost 2½ months of it, I spoke to a nurse at his new doctor’s office. She casually said, “it may be something you’re eating. Some babies are sensitive to spicy food, broccoli, onions and chocolate.”

I’d thought about that, but the only symptom he’d had with me eating onions – and beans for that matter – was bad gas.
So I watched what I ate and continued to down a glass of Nesquik every day. (You can see where this is going already, can’t you?)

The mess up the back continued and the daily changing was getting old. Some days I’d have to change his outfit twice when we were out.

Then one day I noticed he didn’t have a blow out. Finally! They’re gone. No, not really, just a false sense of security.

I hadn’t had my chocolate milk that day, and when I realised that, I refused to admit my little one could have a sensitivity to chocolate. Why would he do that to me, his mother?

Well, he did. And he does.

So as it stands, I am currently banned from all things chocolate and suddenly wishing he should have just picked broccoli instead. Suddenly, a faint washed-out lilac stain on the beige carpet the size of a small cat doesn’t seem so bad now.

Here He Is!

 

The hospital has a website set up where you can leave us a message too.  Find it here. 

41w +1

Tomorrow morning it is then.  Unless he makes a move later on tonight, that is.  Stay tuned.