Talk Talk Talk

Quick Post.....Cami can now:
Open presents.  Fairly proficiently thanks to her birthday and Christmas being so close together.
Throw her diaper in the garbage.
Help get herself dressed.
Help feed herself with a spoon (sometimes).
Say Diaper.
Say Uh-oh.
Say Turtle (well, kind of).
Say Cracker (and point to a bag of crackers).
Say Papa
Say Daddy (instead of just Da-da)
Amuse herself by playing Peek-a-boo with a napkin.
Sit quietly with her books and page through them (one of my favs).
Play chase.
Give REALLY good hugs and pats.
Walk super well, borderline RUN half the time.
Play her piano.
Shake her head no (we're working on yes).
Sit correctly when I ask her to.
Lay her head back in the tub and kick her legs.
Pick her nose because she thinks it's funny (that's a great one).
Eat more than any child ever in existence.**
Count to 100 (just kidding).


This list is more for me when I'm going back to fill in her baby book.  The blog is way faster!

**We're cutting back on milk.  In the past 24 hours Cami ate:
4 chicken nuggets, a waffle, and a bunch of peas 
2 whole eggs with cheese on them, 1/2 an English muffin, and about 3/4 of a medium sized banana
1 entire container of Easy Mac (I maybe had four or five bites), and a container of Gerber fruit.
Snack of Cheerios.
 That's IN ADDITION to all of her whole milk.  Which she drinks more of then you're "supposed" to.  I think there's a hole in her foot, I just haven't found it yet......

Oh Dear

Let me preface this entire post by saying Cami is an absolutely easy, wonderful, loving, funny, gleeful little baby.  I am sometimes amazed by how much I love her simply because I enjoy being around her.  She constantly cracks me up, and is working so hard at walking (we have a record of four steps...FOUR!) and trying so many new things to be a "big girl".  She rarely acts scared (except for those darn elevators, weird), and never makes a peep when I hand her off to Grandma in the morning.  However, this lovely, strong-willed personality is making me quake in my Sperry's as I see her become more certain of what she wants to do.

I've written before that she sometimes smiles at me when I say no and then does the action anyway.  The other night was on a whole new level.  After Cami's bath, she crawled into the bonus room.  We have a TV in there that she has been told repeatedly not to touch (as is the case with all TVs).  She crawled up, touched the TV, and immediately looked at me (she so knows what she's doing).  I said "No, no, Cami," rather loudly.  She smiled, and while looking at me with a serious "and what are you going to do about it?" look, smacked her hand on it again.  I gave her my teacher face, which easily stares down crazy, pubescent 8th graders, and said no again, louder.  SMACK.  Turn.  Smile.  At this point I decided it was time for a hand pop.  She knows what she's doing, she knows what "no" means, let's do this.  I walked over, said no, and popped her on the back of the hand.  SHE LAUGHED.  While looking me in the eye, she laughed.  AND THEN DID IT AGAIN.  So I popped her a little harder, and she laughed again.  Sigh.  This clearly has no effect at this point.  I proceeded with the tried and true "get as far from the TV as possible" strategy and we went downstairs.  Where she started messing with the blinds in the living room.......

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!!!