Cameron's Blog

Sweetie and Lovey

2009-06-27T11:05:00.004-04:00

This was my first time seeing kittens ever! I was afraid they were going to scratch me. They had tiny little claws. They had little flat noses. They were my most favourite kittens I ever saw. They were so, so, so, so cute.

I think one isn't Lovey, but I think the other is Sweetie

It was the first time Lovey and Sweetie saw my house. I just got them. They liked our house, but Hobbes and Spunky didn't like the kittens.

Sweetie came out of the cat carrier first. She was the brave one.

Lovey came out of the cat carrier next. I think Lovey was the explorer.

She was so cute.

I liked having kittens in the house so, so, so so so so much.

Cameron's Playdough Story Book

2009-06-06T15:15:00.004-04:00

By Cameron

One is a cookie, one is two chocolate chips, another one is one chocolate chip, one is a swirlie-whirlie, there is rice (top left), there is tofu (top right). There are foods that I like, one food that I never tried before, and one food that I don't like. It's the tofu, you know. Everything in my picture is food.

It's a Gonk Droid, except it has wheels instead of legs. A Gonk Droid is a robot from Star Wars. And he can't attack.

That's my igloo. And me!

That's my igloo, too. Igloo part 2.

Monster! He has three legs, three claws and three feet.

Cameron's School Year

2009-06-04T12:24:00.005-04:00

by Cameron

My first day of school! I thought school was going to be fun. Very, very fun. But it wasn't. School was pretty fun after that day!

Picture day at school. I liked it. It's my best smile.

I mixed the Link costume with the knight costume. The cape and green pajamas were link and the sheath, sword and shield were the knight costume.

It was my cousin Jake's birthday! It was a fun birthday! party.

I drew and wrote this picture all by myself. The people in the picture are me, Mommy, Daddy and the baby sister I'm going to have. The biggest is Daddy, the smaller one is Mommy, I'm the smaller one and the little sister I'm going to have is the smallest.

Some Silly Stories

2008-07-22T10:07:00.002-04:00

Cameron was helping me to empty the dishwasher (yay!) and was putting the cutlery back in the drawer. He was chattering away to himself and I heard him say "These spoons are much bigger than the younger spoons."

We were sitting down for dinner and Mike and I were chatting about something and the word "maid" came up. Cameron asked what a maid was, and I explained that it was someone who came over to your house and cleaned it for you. "Oh," he said nodding with understanding, "So you're that."

Cameron was complaining that he didn't want to live in this house anymore. He liked the people in the house, and he liked the things in the house. He just wanted to live somewhere else. Somewhere less dry, he explained... Which made much more sense when I remembered that he's just watched "The Little Mermaid" and now wanted to go and live Under The Sea.

Cameron was playing what I can only assumed to be a sewer-dwelling ninja turtle/cowboy game which involved a lot of rope throwing which he called "Lassoering / las-sewering."

We made a trip to the dollar store and Cameron excitedly picked out a little plastic piggy bank to bring home. When we took off the packaging, Cameron shook it and unscrewed the cap, peered inside with great disappointment and asked, "Where's the money?"

I have a box of mixed herbal teas, each in brightly-coloured individual envelopes. I told Cameron that since this tea had no caffeine in it, he could try some, so Cameron decided that this was "Children's tea." He worked his way through the flavours, but one of his favourites was Chammomile tea. He liked it so much, he decided that it was now "Cammie-mile tea."

We recently took a tour of our local fire station with our mom-and-kids group. Cameron got a fantastic goodie bag of things to bring home, including a light-up badge that says "If your clothes catch fire, stop, drop and roll. I'm a fire-safe kid!" Cameron took to this with great gusto. He very seriously explained the Stop, Drop and Roll system to the cats. "There. Now you're a fire-safe cat. Or kid. Or grown-up. A fire-save living being!"

Cameron cares about the cats very much. Except for that time when I thought that he was playing alone in his room, but I heard some angry cat noises. I went upstairs to investigate and found that Cameron had cornered the cat in the shower and was brandishing the salad tongs at him. "I was just checking Hobbes!" he explained with great innocence. We also had a bit of a chat lately about whether or not it would be a good idea to put play-dough in the cat's ear. It wasn't. But when Cameron was sent to his room for a time-out, he shouted over his shoulder "I won't care about you when I'm in time-out. But I'll always care about the cats!"

We also went for a drive up to Uncle David's cottage last week. Towards the end of the hour-and-a-bit drive, Cameron was getting wiggly. We explained that when we got to the woods, we'd be very close to the cottage. "Are we in the woods yet?" we asked. "I can't tell," said Cameron, "All these trees are in the way."

Summer Pictures

2008-07-16T21:27:00.004-04:00

At the July 1st Family Reunion Weekend:

What I've come to think of as the "eyebrow" picture:

This is what Cameron thinks of smoked oysters:

We visited the Firehall!

It snowed a little...

2008-03-14T09:48:00.007-04:00

And then it snowed a lot - the view out our front window.

Brandon, Cameron and Austin on top of the snowbank in front of our house; Grandma stands on the sidewalk.

So what do we do inside on snowy days? We follow the cats around.

Sometimes more than they'd like.

One day, our chatty, little cat jumped up into my lap while I was on the couch.

Cat - "Meow"

Me - "Hello"

Cat - "Mrrrrrow"

Me - "Oh, really?"

Cat - "Meh-meh-mrrrrow"

Me - "Yeah?"

Cat - "Mmmmeow!"

Me - "And then what?"

Cat - "Mrrrrr"

Cameron (wide-eyed) "How are you understanding her?"

We like to help out sometimes.

We also watch some tv. Mike and I were watching a bit of the Charlie's Angels movie on tv, because it's always a good idea to watch a movie you've already seen and don't mind missing pieces of if Cameron is still up. In the big fight scene at the end, Demi Moore says to one of the angels "Bring it on, b--ch." Just at that point, Cameron decided to stop playing with his toys and start listening to the movie. Whoops.

"She didn't really mean to say that, did she Mommy?" he asks me.

"No, sweetie," I said, thinking we'd have to have a talk about bad language on tv.
"She didn't really mean to call her a fish, did she?"

"....No, that was pretty silly." (phew!)

"Yeah. Fish!"

We've been reading. The very first chapter book that Cameron sat through all of was Samurai Jack - Journey To The Impossible Islands. It took several days of reading a couple chapters at bedtime to make it all the way through the book. We've read Charlotte's Web* and Stuart Little since then. We're also working our way through The Hobbit, but it's a little dry for him and we keep putting that book down in favour of others. The very first book that Cameron read all by himself from start to finish was Puppies at Play, a well-loved book that we've read for years. It was partly memorized and partly read, but it was the first book he read every single word of aloud.

We also took a trip to visit Great-Grampa.

I may have been neglecting my child's education. He didn't know that popcorn came from anywhere but the microwave. Seeing it pop in the air-popper was quite an adventure!

*The cat had figured out our bedtime routine, and often comes into Cameron's room at night to sit on the foot of his bed during storytime. But as we approached the ending of Charlotte's Web, I wanted to make sure we read the sad parts during the safety of daytime. As Cameron and I snuggled up on the couch in the afternoon to read a chapter or two, the cat came and joined us. "No Hobbes!" shouted Cameron, "It is NOT bedtime!" We agreed that Cameron was not going to bed just yet, but that Hobbes could join us anyways.

Call The Exterminator!

2008-02-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

We've got stars..

We've Come A Long Way, Baby

2008-01-23T16:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Little Boy!

Here's hoping that being four years old is full of adventure and excitement. I love you to bits. I know I'm a better person for having you in my life, and I hope that you can say the same.

I can't wait to see what the next year brings you!Love, Mommy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T11:08:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here! I've been keeping a list of funny stories that I wanted to put up, but the list vanished during the Christmas Chaos (yeaaah, I'll blame losing stuff on Christmas. That'll work.) When it turns up, I'll post it.

Here's one to tide you over: Mike got a little coffee grinder as one of his Christmas gifts. Cameron looked at the diminutive cylinder and said: "that's a dumb garbage can!" Why, I do belive he was right!

So here's what we've been up to lately.

Santa came to visit the playgroup.

Mike got a new toy.

We put up our tree.

We decorated.

We hung my favourite ornaments.

We celebrated a job well done.

We opened presents on Christmas morning.

We checked out our new video game.

We had company.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. Happy New Year, everybody!

Fall Pictures

2007-11-01T10:54:00.000-04:00

Cameron has been waiting and waiting for the leaves to fall off the trees in our yard. He went to visit some cousins up North weeks ago whose leaves had already fallen and had a great time jumping in a big, pile of leaves. Finally, the trees around here let go of their yellow and red treasures and it was raking time (we'll have to rake again when the rest of the leaves fall, but some things are so much fun, they're worth doing twice).

After jumping for a bit, Cameron got buried.

Cameron has also been waiting and waiting for Hallowe'en this year. I don't know who told him, but he's been asking almost daily for two weeks about how many days were left until Hallowe'en. He had his costume and had tried it on a couple of times. We even managed to keep track of all the pieces until the big day.

"Scary Skeleton Face"

Cameron dressed up as a skeleton. Another boy came to the door dressed as a skeleton, but with a face mask. Cameron was awfully sad for a while that he only had face paint, but we explained how masks are really for bigger kids, and then he was OK.

"Happy Hallowe'en Face"

We did a little bit of trick-or-treating once we finally got dinner into him - he was much, much too excited to want to bother with that sitting and eating business. We visited a few neighbours on our street and went to Amma's house on the next block. We decided to go trick-or-treating at a few more houses on the way home from Amma's house because he wasn't much interested in leaving otherwise.

When we got home, he ate more candy than he has in one sitting ever. I asked him what his favourite part of Hallowe'en was. "Getting candy!" and "wearing a costume" were the parts he liked best. Cameron got to stay up quite a bit past his bedtime that night, as it took quite a while for the excitement (and sugar) to wear off.

When I was tucking him into bed he told me drowsily that Hallowe'en is his favourite holiday ever.

Cameron Gets Ice Cream and Donuts For Breakfast

2007-09-30T09:17:00.000-04:00

This morning, Cameron and I came downstairs, and after getting him settled and taking my usual precautions (which involve tv and warm milk), I dashed upstairs for a shower. As I was getting dressed afterwards, I heard some shouting from downstairs and realized that my timing had been off and his show had ended. Usually this isn't a problem, but his Weemote is currently AWOL, and he couldn't find another show on his own. He quieted down, however, and I gathered up a few things to throw in the laundry and then came downstairs.

The living room was suspiciously quiet, and Cameron was suspiciously absent. I went into the kitchen to find him rooting through the knife-and-fork drawer.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked. He grabbed the ice cream scoop and tucked it under his elbow.

"Don't let Mommy see," he whispered to himself as he scurried into the laundry closet, closing the door hastily behind himself.

My interest being, shall we say, piqued, at this point, I immediately followed him and opened the closet door. There he was, squatting on the floor next to a bowl, spoon, and a two-liter box of ice cream, already opened.

I laughed so hard that he got ice cream for breakfast.

After the ice cream, I suggested that he eat a more traditional breakfast food for his next course. He asked for a donut, which I happily prepared for him. Did you know that some people spell donut "b-a-g-e-l"? Linguistics is fascinating, isn't it?

The Best Part

2007-09-10T12:53:00.000-04:00

The best part about a blue sucker is turning your tongue blue.

The best part about hanging out with your cousin is having a long conversation about the bugs in the hole with someone who's actually interested.

The best part about a walk in the woods is finding a wild apple tree with your cousin and spitting apple peels on the ground together.

The best part about a big cousin is that he'll let you sit on the riding lawn mower with him.

The best part about getting a new microwave is the box!

The best part about cousins who can swim is having someone to play in the water with, even if you're not quite brave enough to go on your own.

One of Cameron's favourite things to do is to play video games with a grown-up ("grown-up" being anyone over the age of four, really). Usually, the "grown-up" gets to play games that Cameron chooses, but sometimes he'll consent to letting someone else pick the game. Especially when it's a really good game, like The Incredible Hulk. That game is a bit on the violent side for a three-year old, but it was a special treat and his Daddy was playing it with him.

Cameron was having a turn with the controller, and the object of the game was to destroy stuff by throwing other stuff at it. Every time Cameron destroyed a target, Daddy would say: "Good throw! You squashed it into a flat pancake!" Cameron would quite seriously reply: "Chef Hulk."

We were in a store one day and Cameron spotted a stuffed sheep wearing a little wool cap. As we were checking it out, I asked if he thought that our cats would like their own hats. He enthusiastically agreed that yes, the cats would like little hats, too. I asked if he really though that our cats would wear hats. He pondered this for a minute, and offered: "Well, I'll hold them down!"

Cameron went out for lunch with Amma at a buffet, and came home to tell me all about how they ate at a buffalo.

A Trip to the Beach

2007-08-10T16:08:00.000-04:00

Two weekends ago, we took a trip to the Sandbanks. It was a warm, sunny day and we had an entire Sunday with nothing planned. We arrived at the Park to find a long line-up of cars ahead of us. We worried about how busy it might be, but pressed on, since we had driven all that way (all of 45 minutes, including two stops) to visit the beach.

It turned out to be quite busy (click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want to see just how many people there were on the sand), and we only stayed a couple hours as the crowd plus the growing heat were getting to be too much for us, but we had a lovely time while we were there. Cameron spent most of his time in the water. The lifejacket may have been overkill, what with the water being barely up to his waist for a long ways out, but we had told him ahead of time that he would wear it, and he was so excited to go swimming with his lifejacket on, he happily wore it the whole time.

We couldn't help but be stunned at the difference in the number of people on the beach from a summer Sunday to a September weekday, which was the last time we went:

...and look at Cameron's chubby little cheeks in this picture! Well, it was taken nearly a year ago now. What a difference!

Best Idea EVER

2007-08-10T10:20:00.000-04:00

Cameron just had the best idea ever.

Lately, he's very interested in jigsaw puzzles and suddenly, he can put together a 24-piece puzzle all by himself.

Yesterday, he was trying to finish a jigsaw puzzle with very large pieces. Three of the pieces, each of which are larger than my hand, were missing. Losing the little bite-sized puzzle pieces, I can understand, but these suckers? A bit of a mystery.

Today, he was looking through his book box and found one of the pieces. We then did a thorough search of the box and found the other missing pieces. After triumphantly finishing the puzzle, he pulled a long-lost paper puppet game out the book box.

The puppet set came with some Popsicle sticks for holding up the little, paper Blue's Clues characters, but some people didn't have sticks anymore. Cameron asked if we had any Popsicle sticks around, and I said that I didn't think we did.

Then he had the Best Idea Ever.

"What if...what if we got a Popsicle from the freezer and ate it all up and then we'd have a Popsicle stick!?!"

My son, the genius.

Can't Stop Taking Pictures...

2007-07-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

I got a lovely, new camera a week and a half ago. According to it's software, which is cataloging and collecting all the pictures for me (without my permission, even) I have taken nearly 500 pictures since getting this new camera. In my defence, I did take the camera to a wedding the first weekend we had it and I took a large number of pictures there.

But I've also taken a whole bunch of pictures of Cameron, too. Consider yourselves lucky that I don't have ultra turbo break-neck speed internet, or I'd be posting almost all of those 500 pictures.

I had a post...

2007-07-06T08:37:00.000-04:00

I had a post all ready and written with photos and everything, but Blogger insisted on publishing it in teeny-tiny type despite my pleadings to behave.

So. Until I work up the mettle to try it again, here's some other people's pictures that I've been enjoying.

TLLT: Things Look Like Things. Charming, fairy-tale-like photos people have arranged to tell stories they weren't originally intended to tell. I especially like this one (scroll down slowly) and this one.

Partial Sight: by a professional photographer (I think) who puts really entertaining captions on his pictures, like this or this or this or this. And this one makes me want a red scarf real bad.

And if you haven't yet wasted enough time looking at funny pictures, there's more here and here.

Enjoy!

Our Camping Trip

2007-06-27T13:23:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, we loaded up the truck and went camping. Serious, hard-core, dig-your-own-toilet kind of camping. It requires packing a lot of gear to do this. Fortunately, a couple of years ago, I got a clever idea and wrote down everything I packed to go camping and wrote it all down, and then (here's the really clever part) saved it on the computer so I could find the list next time. The list saves very little actual packing time, but saves all kinds of "what did I forget?" time on the drive up.

Mike's friend told us of a beautiful, remote campsite on Whitefish Lake that was a bit of an adventure to get to, and even though the last 100 yards were really rough, you could drive right up to it in a van, and it was totally worth the trouble.

I hope Mike has given his friend a good talking-to about fibbing since then.

We drove up to the middle of nowhere, then started following the directions we had for how to get to the campsite. It was about a 20 minute drive off the main road, we were told. Twenty minutes along the bumpy, dusty, hilly trail (no way this thing lives up to the term "road") we had yet to encounter any of the landmarks on our little map. We wondered if we had missed the turn as the trail got progressively bumpier and hillier. We kept going, and put the truck into 4-wheel drive.

Ten minutes later, we were coinsidering turning around when another truck came up behind us. The driver of this other truck told us that he was going to the lake one past Whitefish and would point us on our way. We followed him for another half-hour or so, driving much faster than we had before in order to keep up, despite the trail getting even rougher. I was seriously unimpressed with the whole idea of camping by now, and suggested that maybe we just turn around and go home.

Fortunately, we reached our turn not very long after that. The road widened enough that we could stop and talk to the driver of the other truck for a minute.

"Are you Chad?" he asked. Nailed to a tree directly across from us was a large, hand-written sign reading :"Chad - Turn Left Here." If I'd had my wits about me, I would have taken a picture of the sign, which I later realized was pretty funny, but didn't think of it at the time, and really, my hands were too tightly clenched to the hand-hold on the truck door to be able to operate a camera anyways.

All we had left to drive was the 100 yards that were, according to Mike's "friend," the roughest. I was more than a little anxious about what, exactly, that might mean, since we had already driven through washouts and over boulders and had to roll up the windows to keep the tree-branches from smacking us in the forehead (which is what I felt like doing anyways, but didn't need a tree to point out the obvious for me).

About 500 yards into the 100 yard dash, I said that I would like to get out and walk. Cameron, who had been in such good spirits for the whole thing and had been such a little trooper, seconded the motion and we got out to walk the last distance.

We made it 50 yards.

Around the very next bend in the path (for it could no longer live up to the term "trail"), the ground dipped sharply right beside a leaky beaver dam, and a 15-foot long pond blocked the road. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep, but we weren't walking through it, either. Back into the truck we went.

Mike took a little run at it, crossed his fingers, and with our windows rolled up all the way, we charged through the 18"-deep pond, which doesn't sound very deep unless you have horrifying visions of being stuck in the mud with no help for days and no campsite for miles. I hereby swear that will never again roll my eyes when Mike shops for a vehicle and insists that he "needs" 4-wheel drive.

A few minutes after passing the beaver dam (which is, by the way, one of Cameron's favourite cuss words these days), we made it to the campsite.

It was beautiful.

There was not a single cottage on the clear, blue lake. There was a small, sandy beach which would have been lovely for swimming, and a cool breeze off the lake would have been wonderful on a hot day. Unfortunately, it went down to 5C that night, and the next day couldn't have been more than 10C.

The only thing I didn't like (other than the insane drive) was... well, see those boats in the background of this picture? They're not ours.

An hour after we got set up, another family showed up and settled into the campsite next to us. But they were quiet enough, and we were quiet enough, so everyone was happy.

The next morning, we decided to break camp and find a more accessible site before the rest of our company showed up. On the way back, Mike drove much more slowly, and with the knowledge that we had survived it once already, and cone we passed the big beaver dam, the ride home was much easier. I even took some pictures.

This is what the "smooth" part of the road looked like. I forgot to take pictures of the "rough" section, what with being almost paralyzed with fear, even the second time around.

There's another, smaller beaver dam here. In the shadows of the trees, there's another soggy, muddy puddle.

Half-way out, we stopped at a little bridge for a stretch and to take some pictures.

We saw several ponds covered with white and yellow lily-blossoms just days from opening.

We also saw...this. No idea what it is, but apparently, "Free Tekno" was there.

Cameron was quite happy on the drive out, especially once he got some chocolate-covered raisins for entertainment.

A couple of times, we had the odd experience of driving past beaver dams that were so built up, that the water level was above the road. Pardon the blurry picture, taken out the window. It was very strange to be sitting up high and looking down only a little to see the water.

When we were almost back at the paved road (and I've never been so happy to see pavement in my entire life) we ran into the rest of our company - Mike's sister, Jen, and her family, and her brother-in-law, Paul, and his family. We made our way to V-Lake over some impressive, but thankfully, much shorter trails.

Cameron and Amber, Paul's six-year old daughter, played really well the whole time we were there. They spent much of the time like this, hand-in-hand, collecting firewood.

Cameron got dirtier than he's been in months, and stayed dirty for longer than he ever has before.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that to get to our campsite on V-Lake, we had to take everything out of the three trucks and the car that we arrived in, pile it all into a boat, and take a short boat-ride to the island we camped on. Cameron really liked the boat-rides.

Here we are on the way out. Mike drove at the head of the pack, with a truck, car and truck following us.

We got home Sunday night tired, bug-chewed, and very happy we had made the trip. Will be go back to V-Lake? Proabably. Will we go back to Whitefish Lake? Not until we get a bush-plane with pontoons.

We even brought back a souvenir for the cat. He had a long visit with the inchworm, and politely decided not to eat it.

I didn't get any sunset pictures while we were camping, but I got this one in our back yard not long ago.

Pancake Recipe

2007-06-15T22:25:00.001-04:00

Here is my favourite recipe for banana pancakes. Yummmmm!

Ingredients:
1 mashed banana
1 cup flour
1 tsp sugar (or maple syrop)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt
1 1/4 cup milk

1. Mash the banana in mixing bowl
2. Remember to pre-heat the frying pan
3. Stir in remaining ingredients
4. Put a little margerine in the pan. Realize pan is too hot, burn the margerine, dump it down the drain, then add fresh margerine.
5. Cook a pancake until it is golden brown on both sides.
6. Cut the first pancake into strips and eat it with your fingers while cooking 2nd and 3rd pancakes.
7. Cut second pancake into strips and eat it while feeding 3rd pancake to a small child and cooking 4th and 5th pancakes.
8. Put small child's plate away, wipe up syrop and margerine from child, table and floor. Eat 4th pancake with fingers.
9. Cook 6th pancake.
10. Forget about 6th pancake on the stove as no-one is hungry anymore, and burn it.
11. Repeat with remaining pancakes
12. Scowl at husband for making remarks about how banana pancakes on the plate resemble banana peels.
13. Store burned pancakes in the fridge, thinking they're still OK to eat.
14. Four days later, feed remaining pancakes to the squirrels.

They're also good with blueberries. Enjoy!

A few Cameronisms

2007-05-28T09:55:00.000-04:00

Daddy was playing a fishing simulation game and Cameron was happily watching.
“Did you catch a walnut fish, Daddy?” asked Cameron.
“No, but I caught a walleye fish, kiddo,” he replied.

Coming home from a walk with Amma, Cameron proudly presented me with a bunch of lilacs that he had picked.
“Here, Mommy, I brought you some violacs!” he announced.

My father came over to visit recently and commented on Cameron’s new haircut.
“Where did you get your hair cut?” asked my father. Cameron rubbed the top of his head.
“All over,” he replied.

Two Weekends In Pictures

2007-05-22T12:32:00.000-04:00

On Mother's Day Weekend, we went out to Mike's parents' place and guess who got to go for a ride on the three-wheeler?
Last weekend, we went fishing and Daddy caught a little fish!

"Take your thumb out, Daddy!"

Then, we went to visit Aunt Jen and Uncle Phil, who have a new trampoline!

Boing!

Yahoo!

Daddy came in to jump, but Cameron got tired.

Dog tired.

Happy Mother's Day To Ach-You!

2007-05-14T14:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning, I got up (after getting to sleep in past 7 am - yay!) to find that Cameron, with the assistance of Daddy, had drawn me a lovely Mother's Day Card.

When he came out from under the kitchen table (apparently the card was a surprise, and surprises mean hiding) I asked him if he could tell me about the card.

"I sneezed on it!" he says.

Meet Cameron's Daemon!

2007-05-10T10:49:00.001-04:00

The "Golden Compass" series of books is being turned into a movie. The website has a really entertaining section called "Meet Your Daemon." For those who haven't read the books (and they are entertaining even for adults - Cory gave me the third book in the series for my birthday last year), a daemon is not an evil thing, but an animal totem that the characters in the book actually see and talk to. The website explains it better.

I asked Cameron if he'd like to play a game to get a "pretend pet" from the internet, and the two of us completed the quiz for him and this is the result!

I have to say, I think it's a pretty good match. Cute as all get-out, too smart by half, curious and not too predictable. Sound like any little boys you know?

Mine was...well, I think I'll keep it to myself, but I'm happy with the daemon I met, too.

To meet your own daemon, and there are almost 90,000 of them, click on "Meet Your Daemon" in the "Daemons" section of the website.

It's a boy and a girl and a boy and a girl and...

2007-05-09T14:01:00.000-04:00

I would like to announce the arrival of an even dozen of tiny, baby fish, eleven of which are still alive and kicking, er, swimming.

These small fry are courtesy of our no-longer-fat black molly, who seems much kinder and gentler after giving birth to what surely must have been much of her body weight in babies.

The babies were laboriously scooped out of the tank and into a Molson Canadian pitcher until a "crib" could be purchased for them to live in to keep them safe from being eaten or sucked into the water filter.

They will grow up to be black, but so far are yellow and transparent and so, so tiny. Even tinier still, though...in this picture, see that dust stuff around them?

That's the baby brine shrimp that they eat. Twenty-four hours old and already their place on the food chain is established.

Tired Little Puppy

2007-05-05T17:09:00.000-04:00

Cameron is going through a bit of a growth spurt lately. He's been eating everything in sight and is falling asleep with little, if any, assistance.

One day this week, he fell asleep on the couch just a half-hour before bedtime. Meaning I can graciously bow out of having to brush his teeth, change him into his jammies, read "The Bearenstein Bears and The Big Road Race" for the zillionth time, etc., and just haul him into bed.

Yesterday, he actually fell asleep at 5:30 in the afternoon. He drank his milk, plunked himself down across my lap, sighed deeply, and closed his little eyes. A surprisingly short time later, he started dreaming, twitching away like a big puppy. Then, one pudgy hand formed itself unmistakably into a web-slinging Spiderman hand.

I always wondered what he dreamed about. And now, nunc cognosco ex parte - now I know in part.

Fishy Questions

2007-05-03T09:06:00.000-04:00

Cameron has been asking a lot of questions about the fish tank lately. 'Cause he asks a lot of questions about everything. In particular, he's quite interested in where the fish go to the bathroom, since he's a bit of an expert on such things now, you know. I explained about the gravel and the filter and how fish are really very tiny. He seemed to accept that, and found it fascinating.

He's also been asking about where the "Girl Fish" is. He knew we had one male swordtail, with a long, decorative sword on his tail, and one female, who had no sword. When he first noticed that she was missing, we told him that she got lost, hoping that that would satisfy him. Unfortunately, he keeps asking and asking about whether we've found her yet, and where she could be.

Today, while giving the fish their breakfast, Cameron asked again and I finally gave in and told him that I think Spunky caught the Girl Fish and ate her. Spunky, with perfect timing, then came strolling past us. Cameron jumped down from his stool, squared up to Spunky and shouted "You spit it out!"

9...Or Maybe 8...New Pets

2007-04-30T08:15:00.000-04:00

Yestderday afternoon, we suggested to Cameron that we take a trip to the pet store. We made the suggestion while he was outside, which, of course meant that he wanted nothing more than to stay and play on the swings.

Eventually, after swinging and swinging and swinging, we talked him into leaving the back yard and made our way to Superpet. Cameron had been there before with his big cousins, Brandon and Austin, and was very excited to be going back again. He especially wanted to see the "Big Black Fish," which is a koi on display that had to be two feet long. When we told him we had come to Superpet to pick out some fish to bring home, guess which one he picked?

After much discussion about how big fish need big tanks and some fish are looking for homes and some fish live right there at Superpet, we eventually talked him into looking at the little fish instead.

Well, Daddy and I looked at fish on shifts while Cameron stayed and watched the koi with all the other little boys in the store. But at least he didn't cry about leaving his favourite fish at the store.

We eventually left with two bright orange swordtail fish (Cameron liked the fish with the swords), two velvety black platys, and five bright, tiny neons.

The fish are a big hit. Mike and I have been waiting for years to set up another aquarium, and have decided that it's safe to try now.

Safe from Cameron, at least.

This morning, I woke up to find one of the swordails was gone. Not floating in the tank, but gone. Vanished into thin air. I took off the lid, took apart the filter, and looked everywere. I checked the floor, behind the dresser, even the painting behind the fishtank. I imagined the fish having somehow managed to jump out of the tank and sticking to the glass, disgusing itself as a tiger-lily petal. But, nope.

Meaning that somewhere in my house is a fish out of water. Ick. And I was searching for the fish before breakfast, too, which meant that I really lost my appetite for the peaches-and-cream oatmeal I made without thinking it through. All those chewy, orange bits.... Fortunately, Cameron didn't mind them and ate it for me as I made some nice, plain oatmeal.
I still don't know exactly where the fish ended up. But I have a suspect.

Does Whatever a Spider Can...

2007-04-20T18:28:00.000-04:00

Spiderman underpants have finally convinced Cameron that potty training is worth-while (just don't call him SpiderBum; that irritates him). He has now been out of diapers for almost two weeks. I am now declaring that my son is officially out of diapers, and in honour of the occasion, I am renaming this blog from "Baby Cameron's Blog" to "Cameron's Blog." He's not a baby anymore!

Since he's been in superhero mode, I've been browsing the net for games we can download and play. I found this picture while I was searching:

Yes, it's a Commodore 64 emulator on a cell phone. Gee, and I remember playing the original C64 only...gulp...twenty years ago. I remember being pretty impressed with the technology that the state-of-the-art C64 had to offer. I didn't know much about previous computer technology, but I recall snickering at an episode of Batman where they were having trouble with the BatComputer (which took up most of the office) and Robin helpfully suggested that perhaps it needed oiling.

It makes me wonder at what Cameron will be snickering about when he gets a little older. Or not much older at all, maybe. I pulled out my old camera yesterday and had to explain to him about how some cameras use something called "film."

"The Bulls" are a local hockey team...

2007-04-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

Link and Easter

2007-04-17T12:07:00.000-04:00

Yes, this is Cameron playing "Zelda - A Link to the Past" while wearing his Link costume.

Hangers make excellent bows and shoot newpaper-scrap arrows.

Glasses are just for attitude.

This Easter, Cameron had his first Easter-Egg hunt. He was delighted with the first egg he found and would happily have stopped there. We encouraged him to find the rest, then had to discourage him from eating the entire spoils in one sitting. Might have been an error in judgement on our part.

He does ask regularly if the Easter Bunny is coming back again. Maybe today?

See the look of amazement on that little face? He's watching the Spiderman movie and it has just gotten to the part where Peter Parker gets his Spiderman powers and climbs a wall for the first time. He keeps hoping that when he grows up, he will get superpowers, too.

There's a part in the movie where Spiderman rushes into a burning building to save an old woman trapped inside. Cameron asked: "Why does that lady live in a building that's on fire?"

Rumbling and Twirling

2007-04-04T15:47:00.000-04:00

We woke up to great commotion the other morning with many big trucks rumbling up and down our street. They sounded awfully close to our house. Then I opened the curtains and we discovered...

...the big crane right beside our house!

There used to be a house next door, but it was torn down before we moved in and now the lot is for sale (for more than we spent on our lot, which included a house). Needless to say, the lot has been for sale for a while. The owner decided to cut down a big tree and brought in this crane, plus a little bobcat and a red pick-up truck. We were sad to see the tree go, but, boy Cameron enjoyed watching the trucks come and go.

In the picture of him standing at the window, you can see him twirling his hair as he drinks his morning bottle of milk. Yes, he still drinks milk from a bottle, but it's such a tranquilizer that it's a fight I'm not sure I want to win, at least for now. The regular hair-twirling means that most of the time, the back of his head looks like this:

Awwwww....

A Link to the Past

2007-03-28T15:16:00.000-04:00

-Cameron is now almost officially a video game junkie. Several times I have resorted to packing the Gameboy in my purse to keep him entertained in the grocery cart. Though I'm not sure what's more work, keeping him from running off and pulling things off the shelf at the grocery store or pushing the big lug through the store. Yesterday, I pushed him through the store the day that bottled water, pop, milk and kitty litter were on the list. Thank goodness I got a parking spot somewhat close to the door!

-Cameron got some new Spiderman underpants. These are uber-cool and very exciting to put on, but he doesn't much mind what happens to Spiderman after that. Actually, he's not too bad about accidents unless he's playing the computer or Gameboy, in which case, the rest of the world fades into blackness.

-He now likes to "play" video games in real life. He has Uncle Owen's green hooded cape from a Hallowe'en costume long ago. Cameron runs around shooting "arrows" (strips of newspaper from a hanger) at bad guys and calls me "Zelda." He changes weapons after pressing the start button in midair and collects hearts to get more energy. As though he needs any more energy. One day he was choosing what to wear from his drawer and said of all the choices, "It looks like a Main Menu!"

-We have also been watching The Lion King lately. Cameron especially likes the bit when the monkey performs Simba's naming ceremony by smearing some red goop across the baby lion's forehead. "Name me Simba," he will plead, until I run my (dry) thumb over his forehead and announce with great solemnity that he is named Simba.

-I get mixed up by the end of the day about who he is at the moment, and he will get irritated if I call him Link, when he is, obviously, a puppy, or a lion or a cat. Some days he won't put on his coat unless I call it "fur."

-One day, out of the blue, we had the following conversation:
C - "Mommy, what do you fink about us having another cat in our house?"
Me - "Another cat? How come?"
C - "There's three people in our house and only two cats."
Me - "Ummm....that's ok, Cameron. Two is enough."
C - "We need one more. Meow! I'm a cat!"
Me - *phew*!

-Another day, also completely out of the blue, Cameron came up to me and said, "Mommy, I'm an amazing guy!" Why, yes you are.

-One night last week, I had to tuck him into bed and say "Goodnight, Link."

-Due to truly spectacular weather yesterday afternoon (18 degrees and sunny), we were playing in the backyard. Cameron sat on his swing and immediately asked to play the whistling game that we played last time we were on the swings...last fall.

-Only once since the ice rink melted had Cameron asked to go skating and gotten quite upset when I heartlessly forbade him from doing so for no reason at all.

-Amma dropped Cameron off after playing one day recently and said that she was going to hit the grocery store next. "No, Amma, don't hit the grocery store!" Cameron scolded.

The Great Thaw

2007-03-15T11:53:00.000-04:00

Goodbye icerink...

Hello, snowdrops!

Not The Kind of "Healthy" I Meant...

2007-03-14T14:54:00.000-04:00

Cameron has gotten into the habit of only wanting milk for breakfast and for lunch. It’s a big deal to get him to eat in the morning, and once he’s hungry enough to eat, he’s too hungry to be cooperative and doesn’t want to eat. So he often ends up getting a little bit of less-than-healthy food to get him going.

So for lunch today I offered him this appetizing stuff.

It’s French toast. That I cooked today, not three months ago.

We added some food colouring to the scrambled egg in an attempt to make lunch more fun. Cameron asked for purple French toast. I asked Cameron what colours we needed to add to make purple and he immediately told me that red and blue make purple. So I (*not* we, much to Cameron’s disappointment, but I like the colour my kitchen countertop is already) added two drops of highly-concentrated blue food colouring and, despite coming from the same box, apparently, less concentrated red food colouring. Dark blue and watery red and yellow egg yolk make…penicillin-coloured French toast.

Put sliced strawberries on top and the same kind of three-year old that wears one boot with two feet will eat every bite.

Skating in the Yard and Birthday Pictures

2007-03-08T13:46:00.001-05:00

Mike flooded the back yard this winter to make an ice rink. It was days and days of water running steadily from the hose in the yard and never having as much water pressure as I thought there should be in every tap in the house. But it has been great fun. We haven't gotten out on it as much as we would've liked this winter, but Mike still says it was worth the effort.

In case anyone is wondering, it adds only $30 to your water bill to cover an uneven lawn with several inches of ice. And it was so much fun (on warm-ish days). Cameron wasn't too excited about being on skates, but tried hard and was a good sport about it. He really liked the hockey sticks, and liked getting goals. So much so that when it was his turn as goalie, he'd help get the ball into the net so there could be more goals.

There's also some overdue pictures of Cameron turning three. We had a fairly impromptu party on his actual birthday, which was a Tuesday. Cameron got his first remote control truck for his birthday and got chocolate cake and lots of company. He was a happy boy!

Two hours in the dark age

2007-03-08T13:46:00.000-05:00

With that freezing rain storm last week, our power went out here for a couple of hours, much to Cameron’s irritation.

Sorry for the storm, by the way. It was my fault. I emptied the pockets on my long winter coat and hung it in the closet and put away my winter hat. My deepest apologies to everyone.

Cameron was watching tv when the power went out and was most annoyed that it was broken and that I refused to fix it for him. He was certain it would work again if I just did the right thing to it. Eventually, I convinced him that he’d have to do something else for a while. He asked if he could use the computer. There then came an exact repeat of the conversation we’d just had, substituting the words “computer” for “tv.” He then suggested we try the tv upstairs, and here we go round the mulberry bush once more.

Finally, after many explanations, he kind of got that the electricity, which powered all these wonderful things, wasn’t coming into the house for a while. In frustration, he pouted and asked, “Does the couch still work?”

The power came back on after only two hours or so, which is the longest it’s been out in a while, but I still worry it’s another major blackout like the one four (or five?) summers ago. But boy, does it feel longer than two hours when trying to entertain a three-year old. Thank goodness for the Gameboy.

The Secret Life of Stuffies

2007-02-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

Look out Patrick, I think Spongebob's got a thing for Ernie. I wonder if Bert is the jealous type?

A Good Day

2007-02-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

Today, I dropped Cameron off at my mother's house for the afternoon and she gave me some chocolate cake to take home. I traded my child for chocolate and I have the house to myself for another hour. Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

The Purpose of God

2007-02-05T16:05:00.000-05:00

I have never considered myself to be an overly religious person. I wasn’t given any particular religious training growing up, and the idea of a classic, male Christian God never particularly appealed to me.

Until now.

Suddenly, I am tempted to give Cameron a little lesson in theology. His favourite question for many, many, many weeks now has been “Why?” He asks why about everything. Things he doesn’t know, things he should know, things he already knows. He even will answer his own question *in* the question. “Why is ice cream cold because it was in the freezer?” And every question leads to another question.

Cameron – “Why are we at the gas station?”
Me – “Because we need gas in the car.”
Cameron – “Why do we need gas?”
Me – “Because the car’s almost out of gas.”
Cameron – “Why is the car almost out of gas?”
Me – “Because the car uses up gas when it goes.”
Cameron – “Why does it use gas when it goes?”
Me – “Because it’s powered by an internal combustion engine fuelled by the ignition of petroleum vapours.”
Cameron – “Why haven’t we, as a society, converted to alternative fuel sources such as hydrogen, or hydro-electric? And there have been promising advances in solar cells.”
Me – “*Sigh.* Here’s some raisins.”

For hundreds and thousands of years, past generations of parents have had a solution to this never-ending parade of questions. A simple, neat answer for every question: God (or your deity of choice) did it. Why is it night-time? God did it. Why do I have to have a bath? God said so. Why do petroleum vapours ignite? God made them that way. A one-size fits all, easily memorized explanation that will work for any question.

It would sure come in handy. For instance, I just don’t have the mental capacity at sunrise to explain where soymilk comes from, or why cats have whiskers, or why Cameron is his name but Cammie is his "knick-nack name."

The only catch would be if he grows up and decides to ask ‘why’ questions about God and religion and all that, like some people I know.

Flannel

2007-01-27T15:20:00.000-05:00

Sept 1989 (Adopted Jan 1990) - Jan 2007

My good friend for many years.

More Pictures!

2007-01-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Cameron's first skating trip, and Christmas pictures

Pictures!

2007-01-25T09:32:00.000-05:00

Here, in no particular order (because Blogger decided that's how it would be) are some recent pictures, beginning just before Christmas and finishing up with Cameron's birthday - he turned three this week!

Old News

2007-01-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

While cleaning out a basket of papers this week, I found a list of notes for a blog entry I was going to make a few months back. So in the spirit of “better late than never,” here is the list, and as best as I can remember from my notes, here are the storied I meant to tell you about Cameron from this fall.

-apple turnover
I gave Cameron a cookie and told him it was an apple turnover. So he turned it over.

-hide and seek
Over the summer, Cameron figured out how to play hide and seek…kind of. He would tell me to count to ten, then would run off, shouting “I’m going to hide in the bushes now!”

-Dr, No naps
At Cameron’s last check-up, he weighed 39 lbs and measured 38 inches tall, both of which put him in the 90th percentile. I also asked about Cameron getting more and more difficult to put down for an afternoon nap, and the doctor told me that it isn’t unusual for kids his age to give up their nap. Phooie! And he has since given up all afternoon naps.

-Bars on doors – I don’t want that!
We installed what Mike calls a “panic bar” on the patio door. It’s a bar that folds down so that you can’t open the door from the inside, or the outside. Cameron watched the installation with great interest…until he figured out that it’s main purpose was to keep him from opening the door. He then announced over and over that he “didn’t want that!”

-telling knick-knack jokes
Cameron tried to learn how to tell knock-knock jokes but called them knick-knack jokes instead

-The noggin came off the doorknob
This is what Cameron said to me when the doorknob came off the closet door.

-trying to buy a slide
I have no idea. I can’t remember what this story is. Sorry. Use your imaginations.

-pretend pee, pretend jellybeans
We’d been using the “incentives” method of potty training, giving Cameron a jelly bean each time he used the potty. This worked well, until he figured out that he could “go” more often and get more jelly beans. Eventually, he was sitting on the potty, but not going at all. So we decided that if he does a pretend pee, he gets a pretend jellybean – which he would then happily pretend to eat!

-Diego underpants
Um….we bought him some Diego underpants. He refused to wear them. Still does.

-Fishing pole
I think this was a cute story about buying Cameron his first fishing pole. Can’t remember it anymore.

-Milk and Little Bear
Cameron went through a phase where, for months, he would only rarely drink milk unless his Little Bear video was on. Now, considering the other kid’s shows out there, Little Bear is a mild and quiet show, and if there was a video I was going to have to watch 1,263,968 times, this is the one I would have picked. Never the less, it started to grate on me somewhere around the 750,000th viewing. Fortunately, after the 1.2 million mark, Cameron started to get bored of it, too, and has now moved back to Thomas the Tank Engine as his video of choice.

-1 inch of water in the potty
This was, quite possibly, the worst advice I ever read. This potty training book suggested keeping an inch of water in the potty at all times to make cleanup easier. Like having an inch of potentially germy water in the potty within reach of the toddler will mean *less* messes to clean up!

And in the same basket, I found the list I had started for a more current blog posting. This stuff is only a couple of weeks old.

We put up the Christmas tree and Cameron’s favourite decoration was the garland – that stuff that looks like shredded tinfoil. He would not leave it alone. I was telling him, yet again, not to pull the garland off the tree (I eventually just moved it up to the top half of the tree out of his reach). He looked at me with those big, green puppy dog eyes and said “But Mommy, it’s so soft! Just like your hair!”

I was making breakfast one morning and both Cameron and the cat were underfoot. The cat was meowing her little head off, hoping for her breakfast. I told Cameron to tell the cat to stop meowing, figuring this would distract them both for a moment. Cameron jumped up and said “Oh, I’m and excellent stop-meowerer!”

This morning, Cameron was running around bare-bottomed, since this makes using the potty simpler, and therefore more attractive, for him, and decided to make a little house out of a piece of cardboard. I gave him some markers to decorate his little house, turned around for a second while he was happily colouring away, and returned to find him completely covered from the waist down with blue and red stripes. At least they’re washable markers.

Cameron got skates for Christmas and has been out skating twice now. He really has fun, but doesn’t actually skate yet – he prefers to be towed or pushed by someone else. I asked him what his favourite part of skating was, and he told me that it was when Grandpa was holding him.

Cameron has learned to use the computer since Christmas. He can now use the mouse with enough skill to play games by himself. We’re finding out just how many kid’s sites there are on the internet. He has even learned how to turn on the internet all by himself. This means that he now has the power to entertain himself for…well, as long as I’ll let him, really. He does, however, have meltdowns when leaving the computer that range from minor to really impressive. But he has been getting better at leaving the computer calmly, and I’ve been learning how to woo him away from it more smoothly.

Cameron has also figured out how to use the controller for the Playstation, and how to use the Gameboy. He’s gotten to level 6 on Gauntlet (the Gameboy version of the original arcade game that Mike played when he was a kid) all by himself. I have a picture of Cameron playing the Gameboy on the change-table while having his diaper changed. This seems a little...strange. So we’re working harder on the potty-training stuff these days. The original idea was that we wouldn’t push the potty-training too hard, hoping not to turn it into a power struggle, and to keep it all a positive experience. Eventually, one way or the other, he will be potty trained. But all of a sudden, he’s doing more and more, and he is almost three years old. So I’m trying to gently, but firmly, insist that it’s time to start using the potty more. It’s time; I’m starting to worry that he’ll be reading before he’s out of diapers.

2006-10-31T19:29:00.000-05:00

Back in the first week of September, we took Cameron on his first ever camping trip, to Sandbanks...he could *not* keep his shoes on!

2006-10-31T19:27:00.002-05:00

banana boy at sunset

2006-10-31T19:27:00.001-05:00

We try the automatic picture function on the camera.

2006-10-31T19:27:00.000-05:00

Barefoot banana boys

2006-10-31T19:26:00.002-05:00

Sunset on the beach

2006-10-31T19:26:00.001-05:00

Cameron likes the beach!

2006-10-31T19:26:00.000-05:00

All three.

2006-10-31T19:25:00.002-05:00

Here we are! (If you watch Treehouse TV, you know what show *that* is from!)

2006-10-31T19:25:00.001-05:00

Rolling down the sand dunes (it's not nearly as steep as it looks)

2006-10-31T19:25:00.000-05:00

Cameron got sand in his eyes and got a big hug

2006-10-31T19:24:00.002-05:00

Cameron and "James" the big red engine...James is loud!

2006-10-31T19:24:00.000-05:00

Rabbit 4 - Guess who each of the rabbits are!

2006-10-31T19:23:00.002-05:00

Rabbit 1

2006-10-31T19:23:00.001-05:00

Rabbit 2

2006-10-31T19:23:00.000-05:00

Rabbit 3

Pictures

2006-10-26T21:08:00.000-04:00

Seems I haven't posted any pictures of what we've been up to lately. So, in the order they appear in my camera, here they are...

There's a, uh, crack in the chair.

Cameron opens his very first fishing rod. He likes it!

The standard "toddler makes a mess while eating ice cream" picture.

Cameron's first fishing trip. I'd like to say the boots and hat were just for the occasion, but he'd been wearing them - rain or shine - all summer. Here's the first fish that Cameron ever caught. I think Daddy is as proud as Cameron!

Cameron's second fish!

My two fishermen.

How many flowers?

2006-10-12T21:29:00.000-04:00

I’ve been asked three times this week about whether I plan on having any more children. So, I thought I’d write up a little blog entry about it to settle the question once and for all. Ready for the final, definitive answer? In the words of The Good Reverend (that would be the Reverend Lovejoy*) “Short answer ‘no, with an if’, long answer ‘yes, with a but’”. Everyone happy?

OK, what I actually tell people is this: I’m not excited about another baby right now, but I’m not writing off the idea completely. So no siblings for Cameron in the immediate future.

I have been thinking about why so many people these days seem to have exactly two children, and why they seem to have them exactly two years apart. Even if we ended up having a half-dozen kids, I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with a newborn and a toddler at the same time.

Since Cameron was big enough to walk, his standard approach to smaller babies was to take their toys and knock them down, and that’s one game I sure don’t want to have to break up in my own house 24/7. The toy thing is just because he doesn’t understand that other people can own things, too. He just assumes that all toys are his. And as for knocking them down, I hope it is not an aggressive thing, but just a little-boy thing, like knocking down a tower of blocks just to see it fall and feel the power!

I’ve also been thinking about this show I saw on TLC about a woman who had 16 (yes s-i-x-t-e-e-n) biological, birthed-‘em-herself children. She was asked about whether she thought that was too many. Her response was that it’s like asking whether there are too many flowers in the garden. If only one kid was as easy to raise as one daffodil.

My first thought was that, obviously, she isn’t a gardener. Any gardener knows that if you try to cram too many flowers into one patch of earth, they will get their roots tangled, compete for nutrients, and eventually starve and suffocate each-other. There is absolutely such thing as too many flowers in the garden.

But then I thought, of course she doesn’t garden. She doesn’t have time. She has s-i-x-t-e-e-n children.

I was about to write that with one child, we've got enough on our plates without adding to the chaos by having another baby right now, but I hardly feel I have the right to complain when there are people out there with s-i-x-t-e-e-n children to look after.

Anyways, for those of you who only come here to hear about the cute things Cameron's done lately, I'll write a post like that soon. For the meantime, I'll tide you over by telling you that Cameron really enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner last weekend, or as he called it, "The Please-and-Thank-You dinner."

* Did you know that Wikipedia has a Fictional Protestants category? Douglas Adams would've loved Wikipedia.

To Market, To Market...But No Nuts

2006-08-16T13:22:00.000-04:00

I took Cameron to the farmer's market twice this week. The first time we went, it was because it was a gorgeous Saturday morning, and Cameron was up so early that I wasn't sure the grocery store was open yet, so we went to the market to start our shopping. I bought a dozen corn-on-the-cob, which is one of Mike's favourite things about summer. On Monday, I was only just getting around to washing the giant, heavy pot I used to boil the corn on Saturday, and Mike thought this meant there was more corn coming for dinner. So, Tuesday, Cameron and I went back to the market again for more corn.
Cameron really enjoys it - the colours of the vegetables, all the little old ladies who tell him how cute he is, seeing the other kids. A man at one stand dropped a dime, and Cameron picked it up for him, with no prodding on my part, and gave it back to him. What a nice kid!
The second time we went, the city works guys had just gone by and watered all the hanging baskets downtown, which were now all dripping from their bottoms. Cameron was unable to resist the "rain," and was quite indignant when I told him not to play in it, since I'd seen the guys putting suspiciously blue water into the plants, and I didn't want Cameron showering all those chemicals. But the lure of the dripping baskets was too much to resist completely, so we compromised, and Cameron stuck his feet into the dripping water. This was fine, since he was wearing his favourite yellow rain-boots. He just about won't wear anything else on his feet these days, which makes for sweaty little feet during summer weather, but he doesn't cry about hot feet, and does cry about having to leave his boots at home, so...boots it is. A woman pushing a stroller saw Cameron sticking his feet in the water, and said he looked just like Christopher Robin. I'd forgotten that he wore his yellow boots everywhere, too!
After a few minutes of patiently holding my hand, and keeping his own, little hands to himself, Cameron started to get grabby, so I resorted to shameless bribery, and bought him a piece of maple sugar candy. After the first lick, he was the quietest I've seen him out of doors in months. He brainlessly followed me wherever I led him until the candy was gone and his fingers were licked clean, and by then, we were opening the door to get into the car.
This morning, Cameron was...less quiet. I tried to keep him entertained by making muffins with him, using up the blueberries we bought at the market which he refused to eat, even though last time we bought blueberries, he ate the entire pint in one day. They are a little tart, though, so we cooked them up, put them in the oven, and had a long, long talk about how hot the oven is and how he isn't to play with it. After having him weave through my legs while I tried to tidy up the things he could reach on the kitchen counter as he told me for the 58th time that the oven was *not* hot, I said, "Cameron, you are driving me nuts!" He looked at my hands, then at the floor and said, "There's no nuts," then waggled his little pointer finger at me and sternly said, "No nuts for you!" So I guess I've been forbidden from going nuts, at least for this morning.

2006-08-09T17:12:00.000-04:00

Ok, I've been blogging for, oh, a year and a half now, and finally, finally, today, I have learned how to put pictures into the post itself. And these may be the most beautiful pictures I've seen all summer. See the first two? That is our new fence. We now have a fully. Fenced. Yard. This means that Cameron can run to his little heart's content, and I don't have to follow him. Well, I do, but I no longer have to worry about him bolting from the yard because of something interesting in the yard next door, or next to that, or in the street, or on the sidewalk, etc. etc.
When the fence first went up, I imagined being able to open the kitchen door and let him run, wild, free, and with minimal supervision. Turns out that there are still a lot of hazards in our back yard, and hazards are always much more fun than toys designed for ages 3-and-under. But I do considerably less chasing than I used to. There are chairs in the yard that I actually get to use from time to time, now.
Nevertheless, we decided to build something fun in the yard. A treehouse. It was going to be cool. Then we tweaked the plans and it got to be grand. A few more revisions and now it's going to be the best treehouse in town, I think. My brother Cory says it's the treehouse Mike wanted when he was a kid. It will have a cabin, 8'x8', on the platform on the left, and a railing around a 4'-wide deck. The lower platform will have stairs up and a slide down (the ladder/stairs/slide in the picture is temporary, and was only put up so that Cameron wouldn't have to stand on the grass staring up at his treehouse for another two weeks). Look under the platform to the left. Chairs. In the shade. And they're comfy. I finally managed to try them out for myself.

NOREMAC

2006-08-07T17:44:00.000-04:00

Cameron has been told about letters, and knows that there is something about saying a bunch of letters in a row that is important, and that then you say a word afterwards. He crouched beside his turtle stool* in the bathroom just before brushing his teeth, and looked at his name spelled out on it. “N-O-R-E-M-A-C smells Cammie!” He exclaimed. Now, I have tried to explain the difference between “smell” and “spell,” but apparently it’s a little subtle for him yet

*The turtle stool has been made by my grandfather for all grand-children and great-grandchildren that arrived in the last twenty years or so. Cameron’s turtle stool is especially sentimental for us, since it was made of wood from a tree cut down by Grandpa Luc, milled by Daddy, cut into rough shape by Amma, sanded, assembled, finished and personalized by Great-Grampa.

-Aunt Marg (that would be Cameron’s Great-Great Aunt Marg, sister of Great-Grampa) came to town to visit this week. We went to see her at Amma’s house, and after dinner, Cameron decided to do some painting, and pulled his little watercolors out from the bench where they are stored. Aunt Marg, knowing a thing or two about painting with watercolors, painted a little picture for him, and then got a marker to draw in some detail. “Now watch this,” she said, getting ready to draw on the painting, “This will amaze you; this will take your breath away!”
Cameron stood up very straight, and said “But I want to breathe!” and took a great, big breath.

-I finally got Cameron cornered in the car-seat one day and managed to trim his fingernails, a job which he doesn’t much enjoy. I was telling him that his nails really needed trimmed because they were so ragged. “Somebody’s been biting your nails,” I said. He thought about this for a second.
“It was me!” he squealed.

-Cameron has begun potty training. He was really uninterested in potty training the last few times we tried, since using the potty was *my* idea, and anything that was *my* idea was a *bad* idea. We’ve gotten him more interested in the process now, though, that we instituted the Jelly Bean System. Every time he uses the potty, he gets a jelly bean. Or even two! I just very gently ask if he needs to use the potty, and if he does, I assist, and he jumps up from the potty and shouts, “I get a jelly-bean now, Mommy!”
He’s been doing really well this week with going in the potty and not anywhere else. We have been having some trouble getting him dressed again once he’s finished on the potty, but we did wait for warm weather to begin potty training for just this reason, and since there haven’t been any accidents (yet), I don’t worry too much about it, as long as we’re staying home. Yesterday, though, he decided to take *everything* off, and I was worried about him getting cold, since the air-conditioner blows pretty strongly in the living room (now that I think about it, spring might have been better in terms of running around with no clothes on). I tried to get him dressed, but he resisted, and spent a couple of hours running around wearing nothing but one sock and one strategically placed sticker (the sticker was his idea).

-I got a new cell phone a while back, and gave Cameron the old one to play with. He’s not sure if it’s a telephone or a cell phone, so he calls it a “cellephone”

-Cameron is fascinated with pirates these days. There was an episode of the Backyardigans where they sang a song about scurvy pirates, but Cameron, not familiar with the word ‘scurvy’ decided that it had something to do with ‘scary’ and started calling himself a ‘scurry’ pirate

-Cameron was sitting down to a barbecued supper, and took a bite of his potato and announced, “Mommy, you’re a good cook!” I told him that his father had done the actual cooking, and that I had only washed the potatoes. He immediately replied, “Mommy, you’re a good wash!”

-He has a little, ukulele-sized guitar that has, through various uses and abuses, lost its strings. Cameron knows that his Uncle Luke makes and fixes stringed instruments and told me that “Uncle Luke will put new strings on my Lukelele”

-I forgot to put away the pen I was using before Cameron saw it, and, while I wasn’t looking, he drew on his bare knees. “Oh, Cameron, what did you do?” I asked. “I have stripes!” he proudly announced. A day or two later, he saw me putting a pen away so that he couldn’t get a hold of it, and whined “But I want stripes!”

-After coming back from a walk with Amma down to the bayshore, Cameron was telling his Daddy about the turtle and the fish that he saw.
Daddy: “Were they big fish or little fish?”
Cammie: “Little!”
Daddy: “Were there a few fish or a whole bunch?”
Cammie: “A whole bunch!”
Daddy: “Were they swimming in a school?”
Cammie: “No, in the water!”

2006-07-10T17:41:00.000-04:00

It's a groundhog family! There's the mom off to the right, and three babies on the porch of the shed...and a squirrel on the shed roof. There's always animals for Cameron to watch in our yard! (click on this, or any picture to see it full-sized)

2006-07-10T17:39:00.000-04:00

There's a bunny in *my* vegetable garden!

2006-07-10T17:38:00.000-04:00

Cameron holds the carrot we might try to feed to the bunny

2006-07-10T17:37:00.000-04:00

Turns out it's a magic wand, too..."Abra-cadabra!"

2006-07-10T17:36:00.001-04:00

Dangling from the kitchen counter

2006-07-10T17:36:00.000-04:00

Eating spaghetti

2006-07-10T17:35:00.001-04:00

Pictures of Cameron all tend to look like this these days - a blur of motion!

2006-07-10T17:35:00.000-04:00

Sitting on the floor watching tv - there are a lot of pictures of him watching tv, because he holds still long enough for me to take the darned picture.

2006-07-10T17:34:00.002-04:00

Playing with cars

2006-07-10T17:34:00.001-04:00

Someone got a hold of Daddy's safety glasses!

2006-07-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

Nananananana...Batman!

2006-07-10T17:33:00.001-04:00

Cameron wears a pirate hat. The two pieces of tape are his mustache and beard

2006-07-10T17:33:00.000-04:00

Cameron wears a *real* pirate hat! There have been requests for adult-sized versions of this hat to be made by winter!

We're still here!

2006-06-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

There are three giant maple trees in our yard, all of which are spewing maple keys everywhere, which means that a steady stream of maple keys gets tracked into our kitchen. Cameron, like last year, loves playing with his “helicopters.” He crumbled one of them, and pulled out the seed inside. “Look!”, he said, “It’s in its underpants!”

Every night, I lay in bed with Cameron while he falls asleep (because if someone doesn’t lie down with him, he doesn’t go to sleep…ever). For the last week or so, he’s put my arm right across himself and said. “Mommy, keep your arm there. Now the Noo-Noos can’t get me.” I don’t know where this came from. Before the protective arm, he would crawl into bed and say, “There are no Noo-Noos here!” I don’t know where that came from either. He still has an odd fear-slash-fascination with the vacuum (Noo-Noo). Our vacuum cleaner is upstairs at the moment, and Cameron opened the vacuum closet and sadly said “There’s no Noo-Noo here”

I’ve learned a little magic trick. Cameron would much rather do things on his own than have them done for him. So when I want him to go somewhere, like up the stairs or into the backyard, I will tell him where I want him to go, and he will generally shout “No!” Then, I tell him that I’m going to blast him off up the stairs, and then I count down from five. If I get to one, then I scoop him up and say “Blast off!” and carry him where he needs to go. But nine times out of ten, he will stop what he’s doing and not walk, but run where I’ve asked him to go. We’ve gotten so good at this magic trick, that I’m starting to be able to use it to tell him to stop doing things, like opening the patio door, or throwing stuff around. And we’re both happy that he’s stopping, or going, or whatever, all by himself!

Twice now, Cameron has opened up the patio door and left the house without me. The first time, he got to the bottom of the stairs and was heading for his sandbox when I caught him. The second time, I told him that we were going to get ready to go outside, and that I was going to the bathroom first. When I came back out, he was gone (but the patio door was closed; he had shut the door after himself!). I checked the backyard. No Cameron. I ran outside and looked up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. No Cameron. Then I remembered the Secret Route that Amma takes Cameron on when the go to her house. They walk through the thin hedge in the neighbor’s back yard (with their permission) to the parking lot behind the doctor’s office building, and then they’re on Amma’s street. I found Cameron just on the other side of the hedge, sock-footed and laughing hysterically that I had found him. We have since had many talks about going outside alone, and for good measure, we talk about not going outside without shoes and about not opening the door by himself. Cameron was officially missing for all of about thirty seconds, but I sure wouldn’t want to repeat it!

We’ve also had a lot of talks lately about big boys and little boys and babies. We’re trying to get Cameron to take milk in a cup instead of in a bottle. He thinks this is a terrible idea. He will take water or juice in a cup, especially if he gets a “big boy” cup, which is a cup with no lid, to drink from in his high-chair. But he cries and wails if I try to get him to drink milk from a cup, with or without a sipping lid. When presented with milk in a cup, he will cry, “I’m a baby right now!”

Cameron is starting to figure out that there are some perks to being big, though. Like going to work with Daddy, or sitting in the front seat of the car, or getting to play with the new Gameboy. I told him that when he was six he could have his own Gameboy. He immediately said “I’m six!” I asked him how old he really was. He said “I’m not two. I’m six!” One day Cameron was saying how he wanted to be bigger right now. Daddy explained to him that every time he eats and sleeps he gets a little bit bigger. Cameron, of course, immediately said that he wanted to eat and go to sleep. A wonderful idea, we thought!

One of Cameron’s favourite games right now is pretending to be someone else. We often get him to brush his teeth at bedtime by talking about his kitty-cat teeth, and how we need to brush them so they can be clean and strong for eating kitty kibble. After visiting a friend this week who has a small dog named Katie, Cameron has had doggie teeth instead, and has often responded to requests by saying “I’m Katie!”. I then have to ask if “Katie” will come and eat, etc. I did manage to get Cameron to eat two big, green celery “bones” while he was playing puppy. Cameron also does story-book characters. He likes being Thomas, from "Thomas' Snowsuit," (and runs around shouting NONONONONONO to his snowsuit), Jack from "Jack and the beanstalk, and Shelley from "The Boy in the Drawer." He will come up to me and announce, "I'm Thomas/Jack/Shelley. You're Thomas/Jack/Shelley's Mommy." Well. Glad to see that my identity is firm in his little mind.

Oh, and happy 6-6-6 everyone! Bwaaa-haa-haa-ha!

2006-05-11T10:43:00.001-04:00

I'm still bigger than Cameron...see?

2006-05-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

We got Cameron some fingerpaints. Yes, he's using a brush with fingerpaint. It didn't last long. He quickly switched to using his little fingers.

2006-05-11T10:42:00.001-04:00

Examining the paintbrush

2006-05-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

Adding some blue

2006-05-11T10:41:00.001-04:00

Cameron plays hide and seek with Daddy, with emphasis on the "hide"

2006-05-11T10:41:00.000-04:00

Cameron flinging himself around on the couch

2006-05-11T10:40:00.000-04:00

The groundhog is back in our yard again this year. It's already eaten all my spinach and my snowpeas. It's time for a fence around the garden!

2006-05-10T16:29:00.000-04:00

EAting breakfast with a toy since bananas on their own don't hold Cameron's attention enough that he will otherwide sit still long enough to eat

Cameronisms

2006-04-21T11:45:00.000-04:00

There is a groundhog that lived under our shed for a while last summer, and it seems to have reappeared this spring. I pointed it out to Cameron one day, asking him what that animal in our yard was called. He looked at it, and very importantly told me that it was a Wombat. He said the word a little funny, and I realized that he had pronounced the word “Woom-bat” rather than “Wahm-bat”; he had said it in an Australian accent! This is either from watching the “Baby Noah” DVD at Amma’s house, or from some wildlife show on tv.

Cameron was in the tub one day, and pointed to his ankle and told me that it was his hip. I showed him where his hip was, and asked him what that thing was that stuck his foot onto his leg. He said “a…sticker!”

I found a second-hand shop in town that sells children’s books at five for a dollar, so I’ve been stocking up for moments when Cameron is in need of a distraction. One of the books I got was Peter Pan. He loved the book, and got up first thing the next morning asking for Mommy to read him “…the Pots and Pans book.”

We went to Blockbuster last weekend and rented King Kong, and bought The Lion King from the used movie bin. We told Cameron that after we watched the monkey movie, that we would watch the lion movie. We were just at the end credits of King Kong when someone handed Cameron the box for The Lion King. I was reading the credits and exclaimed, “Oh, Andy Serkis as King Kong.” Cameron heard this and said “Serkis! Watch circus movie!” For a full week he referred to The Lion King as “The circus movie.”

I put some milk in the microwave to for Cameron, and he is fairly impatient for the 40 seconds it takes to warm up, so I told him that I’d put the milk in the microwave, in the beep-beep, in the nuker. I don’t think he’d heard “nuker” before, because he replied that his milk was in the “milker.” “Nuker,” I corrected. “Milker,” he insisted.

Cameron was playing with his Daddy one morning (while I got to sleep in – what a treat!) and Cameron started saying something that Daddy couldn’t quite understand. Cameron was pointing to one train track and saying something, then another train track and saying something else. “What does that mean?,” Daddy asked. Cameron held up the longer piece of track. “Grande means tall,” and then held up the smaller piece of track and said “pequeno means short.” I guess he’d seen the big-and-little episode of Dora the Explorer recently!

We went to my father’s house for Uncle Owen’s birthday over the Easter weekend. There was a lovely fire going outside, and Mike had Cameron out by the water, helping to gather wood for the fire pile. Mike was explaining about how different kinds of wood come from different kinds of tree. He pointed out one log and asked Cameron what kind of wood it was. Cameron replied “Firewood!”

2006-04-08T16:24:00.001-04:00

Cameron got his first hair-cut! Here's the back before it was cut.

2006-04-08T16:24:00.000-04:00

Cameron in his high chair getting his hair cut by Auntie Jenny

2006-04-08T16:23:00.002-04:00

The cape didn't last. Cammie gets squirted!

2006-04-08T16:23:00.001-04:00

Cheese! All done!

2006-04-08T16:23:00.000-04:00

Brushing off the little bits of hair

2006-04-08T16:22:00.002-04:00

Happy guy!

2006-04-08T16:22:00.001-04:00

Short hair!

2006-04-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

We raked up the leaves in the back yard this week. Daddy piles leaves up around Cammie!

2006-04-08T16:21:00.000-04:00

Cammie helps rake!

2006-04-08T16:20:00.001-04:00

Face-first into the pile

2006-04-08T16:20:00.000-04:00

Daddy and Cammie relaxing in the biiiig pile of leaves.

2006-04-08T16:19:00.001-04:00

Daddy is re-drywalling Amma's bedroom. Cammie comes and gets his first lesson in taping!

2006-04-08T16:19:00.000-04:00

More mud!

2006-04-08T16:18:00.000-04:00

Cameron does it himself!

More "Firsts"

2006-03-29T13:29:00.000-05:00

I found writing my last blog entry to be quite helpful. As soon as I said out loud, er, in print, or rather, created a digital-and-light representation of print…well. As soon as I admitted that, yes, a day with a two-year-old can be tiring and frustrating, it didn’t seem to bother me as much. Also, I got my biggest response ever. Two people mentioned it to me, both of whom sympathized and told me to hang in there.

Those of you who have already had small children and lived to tell about it are likely laughing their behinds off at my surprise discovery that –gasp- toddlers aren’t all sunshine and roses.

Speaking of roses, I have a set of four botanical prints (well, they’re actually framed calendar pages, but they look quite nice) on the wall. Cameron used to name the colours when we walked by, but one day he asked me what the names of the flowers were. I told him: rose, daisy, hens & chicks and chrysanthemum. “Chrysanthemum” is an awfully big word for Cameron, but I knew that if I had told him that the flower was a “mum” that he wouldn’t believe me. When I told him that the guys in his book wearing armor were “knights,” he pondered this for a moment, then wrinkled his little nose and said “nooo!”, since it was clearly daytime in the picture.

I asked Cameron to say the names of the flowers for me, which he did happily: “rose, daisy, chryssum and chickens!” I just today asked Cameron to say “chrysanthemum” to see if he remembered it. He blandly replied, “chrysanthemum”, then brightly said “chrysanthemummy!”

We had two big firsts this past weekend. On Saturday, Cameron didn’t go down for his afternoon nap, and was going to be quite tired at bedtime, so we decided that it would be a good night to try and have him sleep at Amma’s house. This was Cameron’s 1st night sleeping away from home since we moved into the new house 10 months ago, and his first ever night sleeping away from Mommy and Daddy.

Amma reported that he slept from 10 pm to 7:30 am, and didn’t wake up once in the night! When it was time to come home, Cameron cried and said that he wanted to stay at Amma’s house. But for the past three nights, Cameron has been especially clingy. Last night, I got him to sleep without too much fuss, then came downstairs to relax for a while. Cameron woke up and cried heartily at finding himself alone. I wet upstairs to him, and asked if he was crying because he woke up and found Mommy was gone. He sobbed and hiccoughed and said "Mommy was gone!" I told him that Mommy was very close by and that I had just gone downstairs for a drink of water.

The water bit was one of many small, simpyfying lies that Cameron gets told throughout the day, such as "Hobbes is sleeping," rather than, "Hobbes is cowering upstairs because he's afraid to play with you, kiddo. When Daddy said to get Hobbes to catch the flashlight, he meant for you to shine the light on the floor for Hobbes to chase, not for you to wing the flashlight at the poor cat."

The other "first" this weekend was Cameron's first haircut. On Sunday, Aunt Jenny came by, and we plopped Cameron into his high chair, plied him with toys and treats and rhymes, and got him to hold still enough for a proper haircut. He didn't mind the cutting part, but it took more and more distraction to keep him still towards the end of the cut. He doesn't seem to care one way or the other that his hair is shorter now. I asked him the next day what had happened to all his hair, to which he replied "Auntie took it away!"