Cameron had her 12 month well appointment this morning. Her stats:
Length: 29 inches (50%)
Weight: 19 lbs 15.4 ozs (35%)
Head: 45 cms (65%) Read the rest of this entry »
Despite only turning 1 yesterday, Cameron has been in full on toddler mode for the past 2 weeks. She has been constantly doing the following things: Read the rest of this entry »
Dear Cameron,
Today you are one year old. Exactly your daddy and I were thrilled to meet you. And in those past twelve months you have grown and learned and filled our hearts more than we ever thought possible. Read the rest of this entry »
DH and I took yesterday off from work because his sister is in town to help us with some landscaping work/garden clean up. I managed to negotiate him dropping Cameron off in the morning so I could sleep in. We have these new curtains in our room and roller shades (instead of those crappy white blinds) and the room is pitch black even in the sunniest of mornings. Boy, is it hard to get up when the entire room is shrouded in darkness!
Because we hung out at a neighbor’s house the evening before normal chores, like putting together and labeling Cameron’s daycare bottles, didn’t get done. DH packed Cameron off and whisked her to daycare, only to find that no bottles were in her bag. I had actually thought about that but didn’t mention it to DH when he got up. Rolling over and snuggling into my pillow was a much better idea. Plus, he’s a pro so he wouldn’t forget, right? Obviously wrong….
I have been toying with the idea of phasing out bottles for Cameron. My plan was to eliminate the 11 AM this week and the 3 PM one next week. Guess what? We went cold turkey instead. I took it as a sign from above and didn’t bother to zip over with the bottles. Instead her teachers would feed her from a sippy cup and my hope is that eventually we can just phase the 50/50 formula/milk split to 100% milk and then just have sippy cups for snacks and meals.
Cameron will be 12 months next week (I know!) so the timing seemed good. I have a feeling I’ll leave the AM/PM bottles for a while longer until she is completely comfortable with all types of finger foods. How about the rest of you? How have you or do you plan to phase out bottles?
Cameron has her first case of pink eye. I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping we could have avoided this milestone for many more years. DH is bringing her to the doctor this morning and he’ll be on baby duty until I get home tonight. I think this is the first time he’s had her alone for an entire day (vs. in the mornings and evenings when I’m traveling) so please wish him luck. I’m more concerned about having to put drops in Cameron’s eyes. This is a baby who refused to take sugary sweet Tylenol or Motrin. I can’t imagine how bad it will be to keep her eye pried open while squeezing drops into it. Fun times, I’m sure.
Probably the worst part? I didn’t know Cameron had pink eye so we went to ’s birthday party and interact with 3 other babies. Sorry, moms! I did the responsible thing and emailed them and I hope that there wasn’t too much cross-contamination of germs. Update: Cameron looked fine this morning except for a scratch underneath her eye. So we dropped her off at daycare per usual with the hope that we don’t get the dreaded pick up call.
We’re slowly introducing milk in Cameron’s bottles. 2 ounces milk, 4 of formula. After a week I’ll go to 50%, and so on. She should be close to 100% whole milk by the time we go for her 12 month well appointment. In other fun eating news, Cameron is now refusing to eat anything that is jarred food related (yogurt is out, for example). It looks like the 8-10 jars we have left are going to get donated. We’ll also probably end up with at least 1/2 of a tub of formula too. I hate throwing out that stuff…it’s so expensive.
Standing…always standing. That is Cameron’s new mantra. Cuddling with mommy? No way. And let’s not forget – she can do it by herself. No help necessary or wanted. It has resulted in quite a few head bumps and bruises but that’s why they make skulls so hard, right? Last night was the first where Cameron decided she wanted to stand in the tub while taking a bath. Aside from some initial nervousness about slipping and whacking her head I actually kind of preferred it. It was so much easier to soap her up in all the right spots. Bath toys have become a must and the little squirters are the best.
Finger nail clipping has become a pain in the ass. Cameron has a couple of scratches on her face because it’s a battle for me to clip even one nail at a time. I miss those days of clipping away while she was breastfeeding. Does anyone have any advice on how to make the nail clipping process a little easier?
Another challenge for us is hair. Cameron has the mullet going but because her back hair is curly you can’t tell. But I’m more concerned about the hair falling down into her eyes. Daycare sent her home with a Pebbles ponytail (with a rubber band!) and I took it as a message. The only problem is that I can’t find good hair fasteners that will stay put and not interfere with napping or be a choking hazard for the other kids when it eventually falls out. I’m adamant about not cutting her hair. Not because I want to be like Celine Dion or Kate Hudson but more because once you start cutting bangs you either need to keep doing it or deal with the pain of growing it out later. Goddess In Progress and I’m hoping once Cameron’s hair gets longer things will be easier. Anyone else have advice?
Dear Cameron,
Your Daddy and I can’t believe how awesome you are. This month has been a big turning point for you and you’ve handled it with grace and pizazz…keep that in mind when you enter the dreaded puberty years!
In your tenth month you moved from the Infant room to the Waddler room in school. And you have had a ball. It has also forced Mommy and Daddy to finally tackle baby proofing the house. Now you can pull yourself into a sitting position. And onto your knees. And finally up to your feet. You like to hold on to the furniture rather than Mommy or Daddy to walk around the room.
Your vocabulary has expanded although it is much more your listening vocabulary than your talking one. Although I distinctly heard a «Daddy!» while you were looking at him out the window. Lucky guy.
On the not so plus side you have also taken into ignoring us. True, the word «no» is becoming one of the more frequently used ones but so is «love». So I think it balances out. The head shake is back stronger than ever, particularly as it relates to food. You seem to have this aversion to eating for Mommy and Daddy but gobble everything up in school. I would be less insulted if you didn’t consistently refuse pasta. Pasta! It’s the lynch pin of the dining world so you will learn to love it.
Now that you have made great strides in mobility you would prefer to ignore your dozens of toys in favor of snatching at anything that is not yours. Sigh. I have a feeling that phase is going to last a very long time. You still screech with delight as you commando crawl across the floor. But now you also reward yourself with a scream when you have successfully pulled yourself up. All by yourself.
It has been just over two weeks since Cameron was moved out of the little infant room into the . I love that name because it is so apt. Ironic that pregnant women waddle too, isn’t it? The plan is for Cameron to stay there until sometime after she hits the two mark. So I had better really like the teachers and the curriculum.
And guess what? I do! I know, I will pause here where you all gasp in shock that I am comfortable and happy with our daycare situation.
I really like the main teacher, Miss Melba. She is extremely engaged with the kids and always on the floor playing or singing to them. There is also a more defined curriculum than the eating, sleeping and pooping that we experienced in the Infant room. They teach them how to eat on their own, sitting in little chairs at a long table with their own bowls and plates and utensils. How freaking cute is that? Cameron is in the high chair but she’ll be down there as soon as she starts walking. So basically .
Another adorable thing they have the the waddlers do is wash their hands after having their diapers changed. I actually got to witness this and I almost cried it was so cute. Miss Melba flipped Cameron over to her belly and had her move up to the attached sink. A dab of soap, splashes of water and a quick dry with a paper towel. I must try to take a video so I can post it here.
Cameron plays really, really hard all day long. Sometimes that means she only takes one nap. And guess what? I don’t stress about it! I know, another shocking revelation from the . We still leverage the third nap as a tool to keep Cameron from being overly tired. DH loves that he can just pick her up, she almost conks out in the car and he puts her down for a 45 minute or hour nap.
I’m also convinced that the physical development Cameron has shown over the past week is due in no small part to watching and learning from the other waddlers. She absolutely loves to watch the «older» kids and emulate them. My little munchkin is growing up far too quickly!
Cameron has made huge strides in her physical development over the past week. I can’t believe it’s only been a week, that’s how far she has come. While Cameron insists on continuing her commando crawling she has now figured out how to bring herself into a sitting position. And pull herself up on just about everything. And perhaps the scariest development of all? Well, check out the video and you’ll see!
Tomorrow will be Cameron’s last day in the infant room. Sniff. My little baby at ten months old is moving up to the older infant room. Fortunately she already knows the teachers because she’s spent some time there. Plus, we will still drop her off in the same room as the older and younger infants are together until critical mass is reached and they separate off into different rooms.
This past weekend DH and I chatted about the timing for moving her to the next room and when I dropped Cameron off on Monday I spoke with her main teacher about it. Coincidentally, Miss Tanya told me she had been thinking the same thing…I guess great minds really do think alike! I wasn’t quite prepared for how quickly it would happen but Cameron is by far the oldest in the young infant room, by a few months.
I’m hopeful that it will help Cameron developmentally. She has plateaued a bit with her crawling and pulling up skills. All of the older infants are walking so I have a feeling it will serve as an inspiration to her. Not that we’ve even baby proofed yet! In speaking with one of her «new» teachers I learned that all of the kids go down for naps right after breakfast and a little bit after lunch. That meshes nicely with Cameron’s nap schedule so an added benefit could be longer naps. Of course the correlated effect would be dropping her third nap but I don’t know of many other 10 month olds who still regularly take a third nap, do you?
I know that every daycare is set up differently but for those of you who experienced the younger/older infant split, how did your kid(s) handle the transition? Anything I should be aware of or ask about before Monday rolls around?
Bit by bit Cameron is becoming more mobile. She still does commando crawling so she hasn’t figured out how to sit up from a horizontal position. But I’m sure she’s close.
DH and I have been trapped inside with Cameron all weekend because of the 2 or so inches of wintery mix that hit Charlotte on Friday night. All of my appointments for the weekend were cancelled and most stores are still closed as of writing this on Sunday afternoon. It’s very annoying and makes me feel like I might have to play catch up this week.
But why should my pain be your pain? Instead, enjoy these photos from the last week.
When DH and I took Cameron in for her her doctor told us that we should start pushing the sippy cup more because starting at around 11 months we should begin phasing out bottles.
I mentioned at the time that the thought of removing bottles made me very nervous. I’ve already blogged about my stress and when it comes to Cameron eating and I’m not sure if being unable to monitor the exact consumption of ounces is a good thing or a bad thing for my peace of mind. Regardless, the idea of dropping bottles has been percolating in my head since that appointment and I have spent time thinking about which bottles and how I will drop them. Unfortunately I have made no progress in coming up with any decisions or plans.
Last week Cameron was sick and since she felled me with the same illness I completely understood (retroactively of course) why she didn’t want to drink any more than 10 ounces a day. Our new challenge this week is that Cameron has refused to drink more than 1-2 ounces for her first bottle of the day. It’s possible that it could be due to teething…soon our little munchkin will have 6 (!) teeth or she could be voicing her preference to drop the first bottle of the day from her feeding schedule.
As a first time mom I have no idea. 10 months is a little early to start dropping bottles (right?) but I need to start my planning process if this refusal of bottles continues. How have you handled dropping bottles from your baby’s eating routine? Cameron still isn’t eating enough to cover her nutritional needs via the finger foods so I assume I need to be significantly supplementing through baby food. Or is that a bad assumption? Somehow this struggle with changing eating patterns is doing nothing for my resolution to stress less about what/how much Cameron eats. Help!
Edited: Mommy, Esq. wanted me to tell everyone that Cameron gets breakfast at daycare around 8 AM and is usually awake around 6:30 or 6:45 AM. In case that influences your responses!
Dear Cameron,
Today you are ten months old. You love nothing better than to have Mommy or Daddy sitting on the floor with you while you play.
We can’t wait to see what you will do next!
I swear that Cameron waited until I left to make some major milestone achievements. Prime example? Her two eye teeth are cutting in. Interestingly she didn’t whine and complain about it, waking up every hour while with Daddy. No, she likes to save that for me!
Another big milestone is that Cameron has started pulling herself up. Looks like it’s time to lower the crib mattress. Yes, we are spoiled and have been able to leave it up until she was almost 10 months old.
The last milestone is her advancement in language. When I left she was still just doing the babbling of nonsense syllables. Primarily «dada» of course. Last night when I was feeding her some Greek yogurt I asked Cameron where Charlie was. She looked over to him standing in the doorway and said, «burg-hie» or something like that. Clearly not the word Charlie (yet) but two syllables and with the «ie» sound at the end. Then we were playing on the floor and DH came in. She said, «Daddy» in his general direction. We’re not clear if she knows that DH is daddy but she’s obviously getting closer.
Look at how much Cameron changed in just 4 days!
