My mom and sister returned from their short trip to Shangahi and Beijing last week and today was Cameron’s first day back at my mom’s since their return and look at this adorable little outfit Lola picked up for her??
Also, we noticed Cameron got her first trim (mom made those bangs shorter)….Thank you, mom! It is beautiful!
Cameron now signs “eat” by pointing at her cute little pie-hole! She’s also signing “dog” with a little leg slap and she’s saying “ball” very, very clearly now. She is clearly so interested in talking! Tonight at Heather’s house for dinner, she saw Olivia on television and got so excited — she was babbling a mile a minute, and I thought I heard something in there that sounded vaguely like “Olivia!” When she saw a ball and Edwin the Cat on the tv, she made sure to let us know!
In the meantime, Dylan and Taliana started another session of Mandarin this afternoon. Heather was kind enough to pick up Dylan from school for a little pre-class play time with Taliana before taking both of them to class.
Cameron and I headed over immediately after work and got the report that class was “good.” Good enough for us to continue!
Tonight’s dinner conversation was about genetics (wherein Dylan and Taliana were exposed to words like allele, heterozygous, and homozygous), a topic on which Heather just did a lecture. Heather had us do a series of simple things to demonstrate genetic determination. We learned that hand clasping (which thumb ends up on top) is genetically determined (left thumb on top is dominant!); widows peaks, dimples, ability to roll your tongue, second toes longer than big toes, unattached earlobes, straight pinkies, and hitch-hiker’s thumbs are all recessive traits.
The only dominant trait I have amongst the ones we “tested” was the toe one; with the exception of the hand clasp (he clasps with his left thumb on top), Dylan has all recessive traits as well. Once we were home, we discovered Tom clasps his hands with left thumb on top as well (so that’s where Dylan got that gene!), has straight pinkies and attached lobes and he also cannot roll his tongue, has no dimples or widow peak, and an ambiguous thumb indicating that, aside from Tom and Dylan’s possession of the dominant gene for hand clasps, we’re all recessive over here.
We couldn’t test with Cameron, but I’m sure this will be a fun little exercise when she gets older!
During the last week of August, we took a short 4-day/3-night staycation up in San Francisco. We were so busy over the summer — we didn’t get our annual camping trip in and we had no plans to go anywhere else (aside from Los Angeles, of course!) — a local get-away was all we could muster!
We rented an absolutely wonderful 2-bedroom house with Heather, Assaf and Taliana near Haight/Ashbury and Golden Gate Park (and Rudolph Valentino’s ‘jewel box’ home!) up in the hills of SF.
We visited the zoo, walked to Golden Gate Park via Buena Vista Park and Haight/Ashbury, visited Chinatown, and ended the weekend with a birthday dinner at Millennium! It was all fantastic, but the playground day at Golden Gate Park was definitely a highlight!
Here are a few more photo highlights:
If there’s a train, of course, Dylan will be on it. This train was built in 1905 and now costs $4 per person (or something like that!) to ride. Once he saw the train, Dylan had more interest in riding it and being around it than he did with any of the zoo animals (forget about seeing the polar bear!). In fact, once their train ride was done, he wanted to ride it again so much that he chucked his flattened souvenir penny to the ground and claimed it was lost just so we could return to the train station to “get another one.”
We explained to him that a) if he tosses his stuff like that to intentionally lose it, it doesn’t mean we’re going to replace it, it just means he’s lost it; and b) we were not going back for another train ride.
Luckily, Taliana found it for him (and, of course, now it’s lost again…somewhere in our house!
Cameron loved the zoo, too. We stopped for lunch at the tables near the playground. Once she was on the ground, we couldn’t keep her near us! She is definitely an explorer…and she definitely loves flowers!
Here’s the group photo with the boys and HAT. Tom is making monkey noises!
Here’s the other group photo with Cameron and me.
She still fits in the Ergo! And, this reminds me: we saw a mama kangaroo with a joey in her pocket!!! There was also a new baby gorilla being raised by its adoptive mother.
Completely unrelated to baby animals, we also learned a few animal facts: giraffes have 18″ tongues that are purple; polar bears have purple tongues, too; anteaters flick their tongues an extraordinary number of times per minute; seals can stay under water for 4 minutes…and so much more I cannot remember.
We rode the carousel in Golden Gate Park (and saw a Yuba Mundo and a box bike!)….
Cameron rode, too. She likes riding more than Dylan does!
The kids made it to a late-ish dinner at Millennium! They had fried potatoes, thyme-roasted carrots, and brown rice and we all sampled some pretty amazing desserts…a fitting end to a great weekend!
And, finally, here is a view from the balcony. To the other side, is Ocean Beach, but I didn’t get a good shot of it (too hazy)!
Little baby Cameron, who used to be just fine with so many things, including riding in the car, now does everything in her power to delay being strapped into her car seat. So, whenever it’s time to “load up,” she clamps down on me, grabs the window and often starts pointing out anything (everything) she sees (“plowee”, “doggy”, etc.) and exclaiming “bye bye” to just about everything else!
Yesterday, her delaying tactic was to point out the apples on our neighbor’s tree–by signing it to us! She signs it by pointing her little index finger into her cheek and giving it a slow, very slow, rotation, and she accompanies it with an attempt to verbally say it as well!
Yesterday, she also signed “hat” for the first time and, today, we heard her say “ba” for ball.
Still waiting for her to sign “eat,” “more,” and “drink!”
Well, we weren’t kidding when we said our little girl found her voice! From the minute she did, she’s been sooo eager to speak and she continues to try … and to succeed! On Sunday at Disneyland, she started saying “plowee” or “flowee” (hard to tell which one) for “flower” — this was outside Minnie Mouse’s house (more on this and the rest of Disney weekend later!). Today, she started saying “upbeee” for “uppy” and she started signing “milk”!
Her signs for “milk” and “light” are nearly exactly the same, except, with “milk,” she uses both hands! She also loves the “open-shut them” song where you open and shut your hands (and give a little clap, clap, clap!), and she often opens and shuts her hands while la-la-la-ing, so context with all of this communication is key; when she’s tired and desperate for sleep, the open-shut with both hands is obviously a request to nurse…when she’s la-la-la-ing it’s song-related, and when she’s staring upwards (and not crying), it’s probably light.
With sounds, she’s starting to try to say “duck” and “quack quack” and, since our visit to the zoo last weekend (more on our SF staycation later!), she started making monkey sounds when she sees monkeys.
Still, “eh eh eh”, accompanied by energetic pointing is her primary mode for communicating what she wants. It’s all good. We expect she’ll be just as chatty as her big bro …!
We had a free-ish day this past Sunday, so we decided to take the kids to Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos so Dylan could ride the train. This train, the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad, is the same railroad we took the kids to for Dylan’s blazing hot 3rd birthday celebration. But, at that time, the steam train was being serviced so it wasn’t out on the tracks.
Ever since he found out about this little local train, Dylan has been wanting to ride the steam train…so, we finally did.
Cameron fell asleep on the way there, so Tom stayed in the car with her while Dylan and I rode the train and the carousel.
While we were in line for our second train ride, Tom and Cameron appeared! So, Tom took a turn riding with Dylan while Cameron and I watched them go by (poor camera control with Cameron in one arm!).
Afterwards, we got a sno-cone for Dylan (it was dreadfully hot there today) and Cameron and I went on the carousel. She was very sweet. At first, she seemed uncertain about the whole experience, but she soon got in a comfy carousel groove and she started waving bye bye to the circus animals painted in the center of the carousel.
After we finished with the carousel, we let the kids wander around a bit and then decided to grab dinner in Los Gatos (where Cameron proceeded to squirm and wriggle like a madwoman and where she insisted on walking independently! She is a handful!). Cameron is now trying all sorts of new things: tomatoes, Teddy Puffs, artichokes, olives. She really likes eating what we’re eating so we’re eager to ramp her up on some of our more common foods.
Oh! And she’s beginning to say “airplane” (only understandable in context, but she really only tries to say it when she’s looking up at the sky at an airplane anyway!) and “cookie,” and she signed “light” for the first time just a couple of nights ago. Did I already mention that she has been calling Dylan “dih dih?”
Backlog: It’s hard to believe that this little guy was our big boy Dylan at only ~3 months old!
To round out Cameron’s bday celebrations, we had a small joint celebration with Kaden (who is exactly one week younger than Cameron) with just a few of our closest pals over at Kaden’s house.
I took the day off on Friday to make the cupcakes — s’mores, mint chocolate, and banana split (Tom made a gluten-free chocolate cupcake later in the evening). Actually, Dylan helped a lot! For each of the cupcakes we made, he dutifully (and skillfully!) sifted all of the dry ingredients into their respective bowls! Of course, once the cupcakes were cooled and frosted, he also helped decorate them with his “special mix” of sprinkles.
There are a whole host of pictures of kids diving head first into their little cupcakes but, of course, among my favorites are the ones of Cameron! She got a banana split cupcake because I figured it was the least “junky” of the three. I think she ate the whole thing. I’m not really sure!
As always, we had a great time celebrating with good friends…! More pictures in the usual place!
She looks good even in this crazy purple, leopard-spotted shirt! Anyway, she seems to like it!
Tom stayed home from work the other day and went shopping for some socks, shoes, and new clothes for the Doodle. Here’s one of her new outfits!
Why new shoes? Cameron started in the toddler room and she needs “hard” shoes (not just her booties) so she can play outside with the bigger kids. I thought Dylan’s old size 5 Vans would be just fine, but Tom wanted to get her something different (by the way, her feet are giant! Dylan wore these Vans when he was 19 months old!)!
So far, I’m not quite sure how she’s transitioning. She is now back to crying when we drop her off at daycare, but since the toddler room teacher is gone before we pick her up, we haven’t gotten a “report” on how she’s been doing.
There are a couple of reasons we know of for why she started downstairs so soon after her first birthday–1) a new baby (I think) is starting upstairs and 2) Cameron climbs on everything and walks everywhere! They felt she was ready for the more stimulating environment.
While I agree she’s probably up for more interesting toys (including dolls, which she loves!), I wish I knew more about how she was really doing during the day! More on this as we find out, I guess…!
Cindy was out of town for the week leading up to Tyler and Cameron’s joint bday celebration, so the original luau party plan was uncertain. At the last minute, though, with Lola’s help, we managed to pull it off.
Mom provided tablecloth, festive plates, and decorations, and she even got this adorable little hula outfit for Cameron (and a grass skirt for me, too)!
So, we made Aloha Sweet Potatoes, adobo tofu, vegan “Maui” burgers (Bocas marinated in Soy Vay Terikyaki sauce), coconut pudding triangles, toasted coconut cupcakes and rambutan cupcakes.
Cameron got to eat a toasted coconut cupcake with coconut glaze (instead of coffee buttercream frosting!) for her special bday treat! She devoured it….
And, check out Tyler’s cake! Teddy Grahams on fruit roll-up towels and some in Lifesaver Gummy swim rings in the blue jello pool! I’m going to do this one vegan some day…!
We had such a great day just hanging out with the family. It wasn’t quite warm enough for swimming, but it wasn’t too cold to be outside either!
Dylan took time out from playing with his cousins to give Cameron a birthday kiss (yes, he really is such a sweet and loving brother!)!
Then it was back to playing with stomp rockets with Jason and Tyler!
So many more pictures are on flickr. They’re worth a look!
