Top 9 at 9

I feel like I just did the 8 month update, and here it is time to do the 9 month update!  Maybe if I would blog more frequently, time would feel more relative, eh?  Speaking of, at long last we finally got the hard drive situation under control.  So I owe you a BIG update from April... lots of happenings from that month so I'd better get cracking!  But first I bring you a special countdown for Cameron's 9 month birthday!!

9)  The Easter bunny managed to find 9 things for Cameron's Easter basket this year.  I was worried about what he would come up with, since Easter seems to be very candy-focused, and my little monster can't eat candy yet.  (Though let me just say that I will be talking to the Easter bunny about the amounts of candy provided in future Easter baskets too... I don't want him to be cracked out on sugar all the time...)  When we woke up Easter morning, Cameron had 2 things of puffs, a new bib, one of those "leash" things for your sippy cup, an outfit, complete with a polo, overalls, and a hat, a new little toy, and a book.  Bella, on the other hand, only got a bag of treats.  But let me say, there were more than 9 treats in that bag!

8) Cameron has 8 teeth!  8!!  A lot of babies his age don't even have half as many teeth, but my little monster is ready to chow down on a steak, apparently! 

It's hard to get a picture of those teeth, because he usually has something in his mouth... like this.

7)  This is the number of different foods Cameron eats in a day- that's 2 at breakfast, 2 at lunch, 2 at dinner, and a snack!  He's a big fan of veggies and fruits.  Yogurt and cereal are staples too.  Recently he's taken to Cheerios.  At first I was afraid we were giving him too many Cheerios and he was getting a head-start on the processed food addiction.  But when I lift him out of his chair at the end of the meal/snack, there are always at least 75% of the Cheerios sitting in his chair.  So for now, they are good practice, but most of them aren't hitting their target!

6)  Six is the number of cupcakes the C-Monster got me for my birthday!  I didn't really want any presents- I wanted a family day!  So Ryan took the day off, we all got up early to watch the Royal wedding, Ryan brought me breakfast in bed, and we spent the day doing things as a family.  For dinner, I just wanted crab legs (I would have preferred to have gone to the beach to get them, but hey, I'll take what I can get!) and for dessert- CUPCAKES!

Not the most flattering picture of me, but it was 6AM and I was in my princess gear!

5)  The five in this countdown is for High-5!  Cameron has learned to give high-5s!  He's also learning to clap, though he's less consistent with that one, and he loves it when I sing silly songs and play with him. We've been working on waving too, but if you stand too close to him while waving, he turns it into... a high-5!

So this is one of my favorite pictures!  It was our Easter photo shoot (in the outfit I made for him) and he kept trying to wave to the camera... I think he wanted the camera to go bye-bye, but he's got a lot to learn because that isn't going to happen any time soon!

4)  Four describes the number of BIG events that happened in April for Cameron!  His daddy's birthday was April 3, Easter was April 24, the Royal Wedding was April 29, which happened to coincide with Mommy's birthday weekend kick-off!  (Hey, if I have to share my wedding with the Royals, I'm going to make my event just as big as theirs!) 

3)  This is the number of months until Cameron's first birthday!  I can't believe it!  I still feel like he's maybe 4 or 5 months old sometimes... then he'll start crawling around the room and I get a reality check. 

I see my birthday!  It's just right around the corner!

2)  This is the number of good naps Cameron is now taking!  I can't believe I finally got to type that sentence!  Yes, you read that right- I said "good naps"!  For the longest time he would only sleep for 20 minutes at a time, and try as I might, I couldn't get him to sleep longer than that.  Then it stretched to 30 minutes.  Then we stalled out.  Then he stopped sleeping at all!!!  Finally I got him to sleep in his jogging stroller, but they were still short naps.  I've now transitioned him to sleeping in his jogging stroller in his room, and that has helped.  Or maybe it's all the exercise he's getting from crawling that's doing it.  I don't really care what the magic is, as long as it's working!  And it is!

Getting good exercise...

And passing out!

1)  Until recently, Cameron had only ridden in one car ever!  We have been driving around in Ryan's car, while we shopped for a new car for me (a car seat wouldn't fit safely in my old car).  Almost 9 months later, we finally got it!  It's a 2011 Honda Pilot, and I must say, I am loving the satellite radio!  I didn't think I would care that much, but that's kind of stupid considering how much I hate talking on the radio!  I'm particularly fond of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville radio.  It's PERFECT for summer! 

I have a lot to catch up on, so I'll try to post another update soon!  

In Crisis

Normally my posts are pretty upbeat, right?  They sound like "Yay, look at what we've been doing", etc.  That's how I type them out, anyway, so I hope they read that way.  But today we are having a crisis of EPIC proportions...  My hard drive on my computer is full.  Yep.  I mean, it's not World Hunger, or Save Darfur or anything, but for me, this is life-changing.  I have a TON of pictures on my camera that have to be loaded onto the computer, then shared with family, friends, and of course, my faithful blog followers. 
I could be showing you pictures of Cameron's new teeth (we're up to 8 now!), or how he's SO close to crawling.  Or I have this super cute video of him giggling I could share.  Or I could be showing you pictures of our NEW CAR!!  Yep, we finally did it!  Or I could share pictures of our Easter weekend, including the Easter outfit that I made for Cameron (which Ryan compared to a "plaid barrel").  But nope.  Looks like technology has other plans. We have ordered another hard drive though, so never fear- help is on the way!  Once we get that up and going, I'll be sure to share some of my pictures.  In the meantime, I'm attempting to clean up my desktop so that it's easy to organize what files I do have. 
Now since I can't put any pics up, I hope none of you have stopped reading mid-update because I do have one more important announcement.  Friday is a big day for some people.  We've been waiting on this day for a year.  There will be a huge celebration, and I feel like the whole world is watching.  That's right people, it's my birthday!  What?  You thought I was going to say the Royal Wedding?  Well speaking of, I put a call in to the Queen, who promptly refused to take my call.  In other words, she's not changing the date.  So we're just going to have to share.  In honor of this shared celebration, I am now calling Friday the Royal Birthday.  I will wear a tiara, and answer only to "Your Majesty" or "Your Highness."  Now if you'll just get my husband to abide by that Royal decree, we'll be in business!   I wish you all a wonderful Royal my Birthday, my loyal subjects! 

Top 8 at 8

Yesterday was Cameron's 8 month birthday, and in celebration of this milestone, I bring to you the list of the Top 8 things going on in his world now:

8)  This is the number of everyday household objects we could have given Cameron for entertainment instead of toys.  His favorite things right now are cups, hangers, the laundry basket, spoons, a washcloth, his own socks, my water bottle, and any sort of tupperware. 

7)  This is what time Cameron goes to bed. 7:00 This isn't exactly breaking news- he's been doing this since he was about 4 months old, but after we've had a time change, a bunch of teething and some out-of-town visitors, it's a miracle that this is STILL the time he goes to bed!  (And 7:05 is about the time I collapse on the couch, for those of you wondering...)

Lately he's been sleeping on his stomach with his butt straight up in the air.  I have a picture of that one somewhere too.

6)  This is the number of teeth Cameron has... WHAT?! I promise. Stick your finger in his mouth and you are pretty sure to get at least a nail trimming. His bottom 2 middle came in first around Christmas, and we've been watching for the top middles for a long time. And I feel like they've been swollen for a long time. But nothing happened. Then all of the sudden, his top side teeth (you know, your vampire teeth?) came in at the same time. And I had been so busy looking for those front center ones on the top, I almost missed the new one on the bottom too! That brings our total up to 5 so far... and just this weekend one of his top front teeth finally started to make it's appearance. It's just barely broken through, and the other top one is not far behind- I can already feel it.  He still looks a little snaggle-toothed, but that's ok with me! (Hey if your kid is going to have something weird about him, it might as well be the order that his teeth came in right?)

Can you see them?

5)   This is the number of new toys Cameron has at the moment.  He has a swing outside, which he LOVES;  a walker that he uses in the kitchen;  2 noise-making things that I hate (but he loves, so I tolerate them as best I can);  and his jumper.  When I was little they called it a "Johnny Jumpseat" but these days I think it's just a jumper.  I believe this one and the swing are his favorites!
 

This is a rare picture of him in his jumper.

 

Most of his pictures are action shots, so at the critical moment he jumps out of the shot like this:

 
4)  This one serves as a little reality check for me:  there are only 4 more months until Cameron's first birthday!  I absolutely cannot believe that!  I was looking back at his pictures from the first week of his life, and I cannot believe how small and wrinkly he was!  Now he's such a big boy!

3)  This is the number of meals Cameron eats every day!  Sounds normal, but we started him late on solids because of some food allergies that run in Ryan's family.  To me it feels like just yesterday I was giving him his first spoonful of rice cereal.  But now he's having oatmeal, prunes, pears, peaches, green beans, peas, squash, sweet potatoes, and we've finally tried out the Mum-mums.  I ate one of the Mum-mums, and thought it tasted like cardboard, but Cameron seems to love them, so we'll just go with it!

2)  This is the number of baby gates we have purchased so far.  I can't decide how much of the downstairs we are going to block off access too, and our floor plan is pretty open, so that would be tricky anyway, but we definitely need two for the top and bottom of the stairs.  Ryan and I studied our floor plan for an hour the other day and still couldn't decide what to do downstairs, so we're going to wing it with the downstairs and see how you do with the crawling business.  Or as Ryan says, we're "planning to be spontaneous" with that one. 

 

I know I have a better picture of him moving around, but usually when he starts moving, I put down the camera to chase after him.  So this is what I've got for you today.

1)  This is the number of cousins Cameron has so far.  We met baby Katherine last weekend, when my brother came with his family to Cameron's baptism.  It was so nice to see them and spend time with baby Katherine, and my grandmother Mimi.  I'm still not so confident taking road trips with the C-Monster at his age, but somehow Andrew and Carrie did it with a 10 week old, and an 85 year old, which was most impressive!  (I did have a cold beer waiting for him when he got to my house- I figured he'd need it after that car ride!) 

Meeting his cousin for the first time...

Awwww... he's giving her a hug!

What?  I'm a sensitive guy?

Don't worry kid, I'll show you the ropes

As a side note, K is wearing the bib I made for her!  For a future blog post I promise I will put up pictures of all of my recent craftiness.  I've been BUSY with all that!

And just for kicks...

0)  This is the number of shoes you like to keep on your little feet.  And for some strange reason, you rather enjoy eating your toes.  They smell kind of funny if you ask me, but you seem to enjoy it, so what the heck.

 I don't think I have a picture of that, but really, this picture is a good one to end on anyway. 

Big Mistake. Big. HUGE.

You remember that line right?  It's the  scene from "Pretty Woman" where  Vivian (Julia Roberts) goes back to the shop where the women refused to help her... carrying about 20 bags of expensive clothes?  And you know that stupefied look that the saleslady had on her face?  I think I've seen that one recently.

When Cameron was first born, we had those moments of awe where we were just overwhelmed by the fact that something so sweet and perfect was now a part of our family.  I distinctly remember Ryan looking at me saying "He's so perfect" with a little tear in his eye (I'm sure he'd deny that part, but it's true.)  And he was so perfect.  So perfect that it sent a shock wave of panic through my whole body.  At that moment, I should have said "he's so sweet" or "he's so innocent" or "yes, dear he IS perfect."  But instead, I grabbed Ryan's arm, looked up at him with huge panic-stricken eyes, and said "we can NOT screw this up!"  That's a lot of pressure.

Sure, we're human, and we make mistakes.  Big ones sometimes.  But it's very overwhelming to think that you've been given this precious gift, and it's your job to not screw it up.  And that's how I felt in that moment.  Since that day, I've settled into parenthood a lot.  A LOT.  And I've relaxed.  A LOT.  I'm sure I've made 1,000 mistakes already along the way.  Like this morning, when I was feeding Cameron his yummy mixture of peaches and cereal.  As soon as I put the full spoon into his mouth, he decided to practice blowing raspberries.  It was so unbelievably cute, and let's be real here, caffeine had just kicked in, so I laughed.  I laughed hard.  And every spoonful of cereal after that was accompanied by the raspberry sound, with the appropriate spray of cereal/peach blend.  (Yep, I'm looking for a maid to come clean the cereal crusties off of my kitchen walls now.)  That was today's mistake.  Well, I hope- it's still early.

And we've had MANY mistakes in the diaper department.  We have a rule in the Orrick household that "no butt goes undiapered" which developed from a few of these mistakes.  At first Ryan didn't understand why I had a stash of washcloths in the diaper caddy.  Until he got sprayed in the eye.  Now he gets it.  In fact he "gets it" so well that I have gone to change Cameron's diaper before, and found the washcloth still in the diaper.  True story.  (Once I found it, it went straight in the trash, by the way.)

I think one of the biggest mistakes we have made just happened recently.  And I think this one was Ryan's big mistake.  Two weekends ago, Ryan was talking about his week, when it hit him that he hadn't changed a dirty diaper in a while.  He thought and he thought and finally he came to the conclusion that he hadn't changed a dirty diaper in 3 weeks!  3 whole weeks!  That is insane!  (As a side note, my husband is not lazy or neglectful of his daddy duties, but I'm pretty sure he's promised Cameron a new car if he will only have blow-outs when Daddy isn't home.  That's the only logical explanation.  I also find it interesting that try as I might, I can NOT get C to say "dada".  I work with him on it every single day, and he won't do it, yet he comes dangerously close to saying "mama".  This is a problem because at 3am when he wakes up, I want him to say "dada" so Ryan has to be the one that goes to get him.  But that's another blog post entirely...)

Where was I?  Oh yes... 3 weeks.  This was a Friday night when Ryan came to this conclusion, so we made a deal- Ryan would change all of the diapers over the weekend.  That's only fair, right?  Big mistake.  Mama had a little trick up her sleeve.  You see we had been feeding the C-monster bananas, but after this revelation, I decided it was time to try some peaches.  (Moms, you know where this is headed.) 

Sure enough, Ryan didn't get much done that weekend.  He had his hands full!  That Saturday afternoon he took off running with Cameron, holding his arms stretched out and as far away from his body as possible.  I was laughing SO hard at this.  A few minutes later he screamed out "I NEED HEEEELLLLLPPPP!!"  So I ran to his side, where he begged me to "DO something."  So I did.  I got the camera and I started snapping pictures of his priceless face. 

 I feel like this caption should read "That is DISGUSTING"  but I believe, in reality, he was uttering obscenities in my direction for not offering the kind of "help" he'd had in mind.

Pretty sure he won't be making that mistake again.

 

Here's to hoping all of our parenting mistakes are as harmless and comical.

 

The strike continues...

No, I'm not on blog-strike, though I'm sure all 7 of my loyal readers have come to that conclusion.  The C-Monster is STILL on his napping strike!  We have yet to come to an agreement and we're currently in a stand-off on this whole nap thing.  I'm not really sure what to do at this point, as I have tried every strategy outlined by every "expert" out there (I'm convinced that none of them know what they are talking about).  So.  We've developed our own strategy.  As predicted, it is going just as well as all of the "expert" strategies, so I'm going to just label myself a "sleep expert" as well.  But. That aside, I have totally neglected my blog.  Again.  Most of my loyal followers (again, all 7 of you, and I think that includes myself) are moms too.  So I think you get it.  If not at this stage, at some point, you have probably had to prioritize your lives yourself, and something likely got dropped.  My blog is my thing that gets dropped.
The good news is that I'm going to catch you up now!  I'm not going to give you any grand sweeping promises that I'll do better, because we see how that's worked out in the past.  Just know that I INTEND to do better.  I always do.  Enough about that, you didn't come here to hear me blog about not blogging.  You didn't come here to see what I have NOT been doing, but rather what I HAVE been doing.  So here you go.  Just remember it's been a while, so we've got some catching up to do...Let's start with Christmas.

    I have no idea why he looks like he's showing off his cleavage, but aside from that, he's just darn cute.

 One of the many faces of the C-Monster.  He really looks like an old man here. 

He has my "snooping" gene, I'm afraid.  And YES, it IS a gene!

One of my favorite little shirts. 

Mimi came to town for Christmas!  She stayed with my aunt and cousins, so we had her over for lunch one day.  I really want Cameron to spend as much time as possible with his great grandmothers.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care... (Note:  these are not the stockings I wand Cameron to grow up knowing as "our" stockings.  But as you well know, I haven't had much time to make the stockings that I want.  So see.. it's not just the blog that gets neglected.)

Happy Baby!

This is Santa's loot.  I'm glad we took this picture, because Christmas morning, it was CHAOS, and we totally wouldn't have gotten a picture of everything all laid out.  We took this right after Santa came on Christmas Eve.

Grammy came over on Christmas day!  We started this year having Christmas at home- that's how we want to do it ongoing, so why not start now?  Grammy (Ryan's mom) came over, and so did Uncle Russ and Aunt Mikka (Ryan's brother and his wife). 

I didn't even realize this until later, but there's not a single picture of Grammy looking at the camera.  She's always got her eye on her super sweet grandbaby.

IT SNOWED!!!!  I've always dreamt of a White Christmas, and the only one I got that I know of was the Christmas I spent in Colorado a few years ago.  This was a HUGE deal to us!  But little did we know, this would turn out to be nothing.  (See?  Another advantage to being way behind on my blog... I can make foreshadowing comments like that.)

The day after Christmas, we went to my Aunt's house to see my extended family.  Here are two of my cousins, Christy, and Carly. 

Which one of these things is not like the others, which one of these things does not belong?  (Remember that song?)

December 26th, we actually took C out to "play" in the snow. 

You know, I wasn't sure about asking Santa for this chair.  I mean really, how much use can you really get out of it?  But this giant smile made me realize what a good idea it really is.

On New Year's Day we met up with my side of the family to do family Christmas. What?  You don't celebrate holidays on the wrong day?  Well we do.  We stretch them out as long as possible.  Here Uncle Alex (my brother) is showing Cameron how to be Superman.  No, not the Soulja Boy Superman. But as a side note, my father knows that entire dance. 

As usual, I was in charge of desserts.  And as usual, I don't just do normal desserts.  I mean come on- it's New Year's Day!  We had to set something on fire!  So these are my champagne cupcakes.  I saw the idea on Oprah, and knew I HAD to do it.  One thing they failed to mention on Oprah though- the dust from the sparklers gets all over the top layer of dessert.  That "dust" is actually tiny bits of metal, and is toxic when ingested in large quantities.  So be prepared to scrape it off, or just don't go back for 2nds.  Or, now that I've told you this, you can use those sparkling candles instead of actual sparklers.  Too bad Oprah didn't mention that... thanks a lot Oprah.

One of my favorite pictures... this was just a plain old boring non-holiday kind of day, and both my boys were looking at the camera.  Now THAT'S worth remembering.

Do you see them?  Oh I failed to mention this... we made HUGE progress in Cameron's sleep from Thanksgiving to December.  HUGE.  He was sleeping through the night (from 7pm-7am, not that stupid 5-hour stretch definition of "sleeping through the night") right up until Christmas.  On Christmas night, he completely stopped.  On December 29th, I found out why.  His gums were HUGE- swollen and inflamed.  The very next day, two tiny teeth broke through on the bottom.  You can barely see them here, but they sure made a grand entrance.

Since it was C's first Christmas and he was so young, we decided to do something fun for us for his gifts.  He would have no idea what he got anyway, so Ryan and I each picked out something for Cameron, from us, that the other person didn't know about.  I picked out this floor gym, affectionately known as "Monkey Island."  Ryan got him a Charlie Brown t-shirt.  I'll have to find a picture of that, because it is SO cute with his big bald head!

No fun story here.  I just like the big goofy grin.

So you saw our Christmas snow, right?  It was a BIG deal in Georgia.  BIG.  HUGE.  It made the news for 10 days.  But this is what followed.  It hit mid-January, and shut the whole city down for an entire week!  We measured it with our very unofficial tape measure, and it was 8 inches in our backyard!  Even if that measurement is slightly off, that's a ridiculous amount of snow for Georgia.  Ryan worked from home all week, which was fun, actually.  It was like a mini-vacation.

And we dragged him out in it again...

And again. 

More smiles on Monkey Island!  I'm not sure who loves this gift more- C or me.  (You can totally tell it's a mom gift... I just needed more places to put him where he could occupy himself.)

This is one of my absolute favorite pictures.  Could that smile be any bigger?  Seriously.  If the whole world made a New Year's resolution to smile this big just once a day, there would be no war.  Well, there would at least be no road rage. 

And he found his feet.  Perhaps it was because they had monkey heads on them, or maybe it's just time for that particular milestone.. but either way, it's been the cheapest entertainment we've had in a long long time.

Many of my friends have asked about our coping strategy during our sleep "challenges".  I believe the old adage that "A picture's worth 1,000 words," so consider this picture my 1,000 word photographic essay.

I know he's not supposed to sleep on us, but when he's that stinking cute, how am I supposed to resist? 

"Well hello ladies..."  Sweet Jesus, is this how Hugh Heffner started out?  Oh I hope not. 

This picture was taken right before we left C with Uncle Russ and Aunt Mikka so we could go look at cars for the afternoon.  They are expecting their first child in July, so they were dying to practice with Cameron.  I would have loved to have taken a picture of their faces when we got home, but they ran out the door the second we got there, absolutely terrified of what was in store for them.  (In their defense he WAS in the middle of his napping strike, and can be so terrifying even a Navy SEAL couldn't handle the insanity.  Oh and I rarely exaggerate.)

That's right folks, I'm an aunt! Cameron's first cousin was born in January.  My brother Andrew, and his wife Carrie were due in early February, but miss Katherine made her grand entrance a tad early.  Everyone is happy and healthy, and that girl has got some HAIR, which is pretty funny in contrast to my little Charlie Brown baby here.

I actually liked this picture better, but you couldn't read all of the words on the sign, which was the whole point of the stinking picture.

So there you go... you're caught up through the end of January.  We had several holidays, lots of smiles, and a new cousin/niece keeping us busy, so again, no excuses, but this is one of those things that has been neglected, sadly.  Another thing is my photo uploads.  These are the last ones I have updated, so I'm about 3 weeks behind in uploading them!  I got Photoshop for Christmas, and am DYING to sit down and just play with it (add that to the list of neglected tasks).  Hopefully this nap business will settle in soon enough and I can do all of my catching up during naps.  So far, it's not sounding good though. 

I also plan on changing my blog background to be a little less Christmassy, so if you're reading this before I get around to it, I know, I know.  It's on the never-ending list.  So hey, I'm on a roll.  I can at least do updates every 2 months!  Which means that if I keep this up, my next update will be when spring is here!  Haha, just kidding.  As usual, I have every intention of updating sooner.  But you know,  we'll see how that goes.