Inspector Gadget

We have taken to calling Cami Inspector Gadget.  This little baby can suddenly have Go Go Gadget arms (or legs, or toes) and grab anything around her.  Things we think we've placed out of reach magically appear in her hands after she has used her Extend-O-Arms.  It's also quite applicable because she is curious about EVERYTHING.  The other day she stood up at the dishwasher and was able to stand on tippy toes to reach the top of the kitchen counter.  Oh no.

This is also combined with her being really close to walking.  Toddling is a quite applicable term for how quickly she can get moving holding on to finger tips.  Quick mover and Go Go Gadget arms.  Bad combination. ;)

Bobby Pin Conundrum

Before Baby That Puts Everything in Her Mouth:  Darn it, two bobby pins fell out of my hair.  Oh well.

After Baby That Puts Everything in Her Mouth:  Two bobby pins are gone!!!  Where did they fall out???  Cami's going to eat them!  (scouring every room in the house after baby is in bed)  I can't find them!!!!  Oh my gosh, they're probably in her crib!  She's going to eat them in the middle of the night and choke and then have to have surgery to remove them after the perforate her intestines!!!!  WHERE ARE THE TWO BOBBY PINS??????????



They are still missing.

Hanging out at our friend, Robert's, birthday. :)  This was before the Bobby Pin Incident.

Freeze Crawl

Cami fully understands the phrase "no no."  She fully understands many phrases (some quite complicated, like "why don't you take your soccer ball through your tunnel?"....what???), but sometimes I wonder if her compliance with what I ask her to do is coincidence.  But, I know she knows what no no means because she is fairly good a stopping what she is doing and turning to look at me.  However, she has a new response, the freeze crawl.  In this response, I say "no no, Cami."  Mid-stride, she completely freezes.  Then s-l-o-w-l-y continues her motion towards whatever she is trying to get.  I say "no no" again and get a freeze....but a shorter one until the molasses crawl begins again.  I think she thinks I'm not going to notice she's moving if she does it really slowly.  I suppose the freeze crawl is better than the times she stops, looks at me, smiles, and does whatever I told her not to do anyway.....

What Was That You Said?

Yesterday, Cami was fussing. She has two new teeth (her top middles) that are breaking through and she's not too happy about it.  She had been a little fussy since she woke up from her nap, so I was, quite frankly, ignoring her (she was standing at my knees banging on them, which made it hard....).  I was consumed in an all-important task of checking Twitter.  Did Ryan Lochte get a million followers?  Will he invite someone to lunch and convince them to say Jeah?  Miley Cyrus cut off all her hair. Spice Girls reunion!  Important matters.  Cami apparently decided she needed to pull out the big guns and the next thing I hear is "Ma MA....mamamamamamamam. MaMA."  WHAT????????  Well, then she had my full attention and while I was clapping and cheering.....she resumed fussing.  And has yet to say mama again.  However, about 30 minutes later we were in the car on the way to dinner and then (perhaps she felt she didn't have our full attention?) we hear "DA DA DA DA.  DADA!"  YAY, CAMI!!!!!  We're so proud of our big girl.  Now, if only those top two teeth would stop hurting, we'd be in good shape. 

Taking Over The Little Gym

Well, maybe not taking over, but definitely exploring.  Last Tuesday, I took Cami to The Little Gym with our friends Amanda and Mauer.  She sat right by me, holding on to my arm and did not seem to have ANY fun.  She was in full-on meltdown by the end and wouldn't even listen to the song that ends the class.  Yesterday, we gave it another go and she did AWESOME!  It definitely helped that GiGi was there and Cami had another familiar face to smile at, but she crawled away from me right when we sat down and wanted to see Mauer and explore the circle.  She jumped and did her exercises (although we vetoed the somersault....she freaked out when I flipped her last week) and played with the balls and the bubbles.  The only time she got fussy was when the teacher tried to demonstrate something with her.  She craned her neck to see who was holding and her realized it was definitely not someone she knew and her little face just crumpled.  HUGE improvement....so proud of my snugglebug!!!

Mommy Fail and Mommy Success

Just when I think I'm becoming more confident in being a Mommy....failure strikes.  This time it was no big deal, I only made my child freak out that she was going to choke.  Ha.  

Cami loves her peas.  So, after watching her mash up the (easily dissolving) Gerber puffs and MumMums and have success with a couple carrot chunks, I thought I'd give her some real peas.  She loves peas, so of course she'd love eating the real thing, right?

I boiled my fancy peas (HEB Central Market Organic, only the best, of course....we'll ignore the fact that hardly anything else she's eaten has been organic), and made sure they were nice and soft and had cooled off.  Cami had eaten the rest of her dinner, so I decided to just try a couple.  I gave her one.  She took it and began to chew.  Success!  I got her to smile to see that it was mostly gone and gave her another.  She began to chew.  I'm amazing, I thought.  Cami continues to chew...and chew...and chew.  The outside of the pea is still in her mouth.  She starts to look a little upset.  I can see it written on her face:  Mommy, why is this not dissolving into nothingness?????  She starts to fuss and I start to panic that she's going to breathe in and get the external pea portion lodged in her throat.  I try and get her to stick out her tongue.  I show her how to say "Ahhhhhh".  No luck.  I try to open her mouth.  She jerks away and fusses more.  Pea still in mouth.  I don't want to just force my finger in her mouth and push it down further (I'm a trained First Responder after all...that's a no no for choking....they just never taught us how to handle pea shells).  So, I do the only other thing I can think of.  I call my mom.

I doubt my mom was expecting "Cami has part of a pea stuck in her mouth and she's getting upset and I can't get it out and I don't know what to do!" when she answered the phone.  However, despite probably rolling her eyes (don't deny it, Mom), she patiently told me to give Cami some water.  "They're still there!!!!!  And she's not drinking it because they're still there!!!!!"  So she patiently instructs me to sweep it out with a hook motion (oh yeah, I think they taught us that in First Responder class....) and alternate giving some water.  I successfully removed the pea casings.  Crisis averted (although Cami was shooting me dirty looks).  Mommy fail of the day.

Now, Mommy Success is a little bit of a misnomer.  Every part of this Cami would do instinctively whether or not I was ever around.  However, she has become quite the active little crawler.  I would put a video up, but my phone is in the midst of dying a slow death and not cooperating.  She giggles while she crawls when she picks up speed and is pretty much loving every aspect of being mobile.  Especially the fact that she can examine dirt, stairs, electrical outlets...all the good stuff (I've also had a little success with "No-no" but that I'm sure will end up being a fail when Cami gets better at throwing a fit).  I love all the giggles and smiles and romping around the living room and front hall and it makes me feel like I'm doing an okay job.  And then, my active little overachiever, did TWO new things in one day!  She has been eying things above her the past couple days and this morning started pulling a LOT on her crib rails.  I thought her figuring it out would take a few days.  Nope.  30 minutes into her 2nd nap she woke up (Sigh, I thought) and began pulling on the rails and in about five minutes was standing up and looking around her room.  Lucky for me, she fell over and went back to sleep, but geez, quick learner.  She also waved bye-bye today.  She's swung her arm around a couple times in a manner which may or may not have been a coincidence, but today she pretty clearly waved.  Ah-mazing.  

 And, tomorrow, she'll be asking for a cell phone.  Or something like that.

Who's Baby is This??

It's been awhile since I updated anything on the blog, because it's summer, and grad school is over and I don't typically have to be near a computer unless I'm on Facebook.  Cami is now seven months and one week old (crazy!) and she is most definitely becoming her own little person.  It seems like in the past month more than any other, she has begun making her likes and dislikes known and is like an entirely different, more social, baby.  So, of course, since she can't politely say "Mommy, I'd rather not do that right now, please," (because, of course, she'll speak that way) she yells at me.  Full volume.  It's an interesting cross between a fussing cry and a mad yell.  Cami prefers for me to never move her arms for her (I can totally hear her saying, "I can do this myself!!!!"), so you can imagine getting dressed and putting her in her car seat is occasionally a battle.  And, as she's getting stronger, she'll try and move her arm away.  She also is going through a streak where she prefers for me not to leave the room (too bad, I'm leaving the room if I need some water....that's why the living room is safe).  So she'll yell at me until I return.  This has included naps for the past three weeks.  I always kiss her forehead twice before I leave the room and on kiss #2, like clockwork, these pathetic, noisy sobs would start.  So, that was fun.  However, I don't want to jinx myself, but that didn't happen yesterday (and one nap was at our friend's house where we were celebrating the 4th), and it didn't happen this morning.  I can only hope that little phase is coming to an end. :)
Like I said, Cami is also expressing likes (this isn't all negative) and has started a full on giggle that is HILARIOUS!  She loves to be tickled and loves to be held up high in the air, and still loves the pool.  It's so much fun to do something to make her laugh.  She also loves Minnie, Elmo, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (the songs anyway, we're not quite at watching the story unfold yet).  She loves holding her books and turning the pages like a big girl, and has just learned how to turn out the light.  She also has a face we refer to as her Bulldog Face where she scrunches her nose up and blows out like she's blowing boogers.  She thinks it's hilarious and does it ALL THE TIME since we think it's pretty funny and do it back to her.  Although, she's started doing it while we're walking around in the stroller....people might wonder if there is something amiss....
That's all for now....we may have more adventures as the summer progresses.  I'm about to call KinderMusik and see if their summer session still has openings.  Heehee, that could be pretty cute.