Tag / CamO

by Kelsey

It’s All in the Numbers

Let’s start off by saying I’m glad Cam can’t tell time yet. He also doesn’t seem to have an opinion on what is “a lot” or “little” so I still for now have the freedom of saying we had a lot of sweets when we had the right amount, or that we only have a little time before bed and I can pick whatever amount of time I want.

But, he is getting better at it. He’s better at counting, can recognize most numbers, write some of them, and has heard certain recurring times enough that he knows 8:00ish is time to get ready for bed and 9:00ish is too late.

One thing I really love is when he tries to say the biggest number he knows. It makes no sense and it’s great.

Here we are discussing how long Bugs Bunny takes to eat a carrot (an astute observation that he never finishes the carrot, if I might add):

If you look close enough you’ll see he’s struggling to focus on me at this close distance–which is what we’re trying to correct with his glasses.

Anyway, the conversation was cute and he cracks me up… and that’s all folks!

by Kelsey

Anatomy of a Boy

No no no no, not like that. I think everyone knows the true anatomy of a boy. What I mean is… there are some moments in Cam’s life where I can’t help but think he is such a classic boy.

This photo captures one of those moments.

Such a Boy

Here’s the anatomy of my little boy:

  • pajama top
  • no pants
  • rain boots on an unseasonably warm day
  • filthy nose
  • pizza sauce around the mouth
  • bed head
  • brandishing a stick-like object, in this case his beloved broom
  • acting out some imaginary situation
  • not a care in the world!

I cherish these moments and hope he will always be a silly and free little boy.

by Kelsey

Cam’s Birthday & Open House at Preschool

Cam’s preschool does a celebration for each kid’s birthday. I was out of town with work, but Joe, Demi and the grandmas attended. They reviewed photos of significant events in Cam’s life and had him walk around the sun, one time for each year. Then the kids got to enjoy a special treat. Ralle, Cam and Joe made fruit snakes on silly straws and the kids gobbled them up!

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But you know the saying…. every party has a pooper. Yes, this really happened. The Olanoffs really know how to make an impression.

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Then, on Friday, his preschool hosted an Open House. Since I don’t get to drop off or pick up, I was a little too excited to have him show me everything. We followed clues around the school to visit all the major areas and he showed me his favorite things. I was impressed by the organized way they play with everything. He’d take an activity tray from the shelf, find a desk, play with the activity start to finish, clean it up, push his chair in and return the tray to the shelf.

I was also impressed by his motor skills. The activities required concentration and coordination and he was really good at doing each activity like pouring sand from one small container into another small container.

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Last, but not least, I almost fell over dead of excitement when he DREW 2 LETTERS! Cam hasn’t been very engaged by pens, crayons, pencils in the past. He’ll scribble for about 15 seconds and then move on to the next activity. So I assumed writing the alphabet was many months away. But he was playing with a letter bubble where you push it and the dice pops around. It landed on a lowercase j. Cam said, “Look! J for Joe!” and proceeded to go to his tray, draw a dot (while narrating “first draw a dot”) and then a curved hook underneath it. Then he pushed the bubble again and a lowercase l popped up. A lowercase l isn’t quite as impressive of course, but he drew a straight-ish line in proportion with the j. *Proud mama moment*

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I also loved how I told him I was excited for him to show me things and he took my hand and led me around telling me all about it. Listening to a 3-year-old explain what’s going on is one of my very favorite things.

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Neighbor Kaya was also at Open House so we got a cutie little photo of them together. One funny thing is that during Cam’s birthday celebration he got to pick a person to come up and look at the photos with him. He chose Kaya and Joe said that 2 girls started crying. Then, at Open House, a little nugget named Elizabeth (who informed me she is also 3 years old) exclaimed “Camman” when we arrived. She ran over to hug Cam and he ran from her. Again on the way out Elizabeth came to say goodbye. Turns out Cam isn’t ready to hug Elizabeth. As best we could get him to explain, he just doesn’t know her very well.

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by Kelsey

Camden Cruz is 3 Years Old!

A Portrait of the Boy as a 3 Year Old

He knows his ABCs, although when he sings it, ‘S’ is ‘X’ so there are two Xs (exes? X’? Exi’?). He has recognized “C” on the computer keyboard for a while as well as a few other letters like J for Joe and X (I’m realizing his favorite letter is X). He also has said, “Look at that stop sign! It has an O next to a P and a T and an S!” He can count to 20ish pretty consistently but when there are a lot of things in one place he says there are a hundred or a million of them. He recognizes many numbers like 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8. He knows his shapes including spheres (pronounced ‘spears’) and cylinders and semicircles.

He has been able to get his bottom half undressed for a while and recently started pulling off his shirt. He can get his pants on now and it’s fun to watch him concentrate as he does it. He is not potty trained but he wants to be. He’s excited about his Paw Patrol underwear and would prefer to wear them though he’s often too absorbed in what he’s doing to recognize he has to go to the bathroom. I think that being at school makes him want to ditch the diapers too because it’s the cool thing to do.

He just started getting into music. Usually after the bath he dances around his room and asks to hear certain songs. He always has another dance move (“Did you see my new dance move?!”).

Favorite books:

  • Goodnight Moon
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • Give a Mouse a Cookie series
  • Clifford

Favorite color: red
Favorite show: Blaze and the Monster Machines
Favorite school supply: tie between scissors and glue
Favorite activities:

  • Going swimming
  • Going on “the cation“
  • Building and smashing everything
  • Playing store with a giant box in the garage or in the toy box in the playhouse at Poppy and Inny’s
  • Filling buckets, moving buckets, emptying buckets, repeat
  • Chasing imaginary monsters on our night walks
  • Pretend picnics in the yard or the house
  • Blowing and chasing bubbles
  • Wasting water disguised as washing his hands or watering plants or filling buckets or cleaning dishes etc

Favorite toys:

  • His hammer
  • Hot Wheels racecar track
  • Marble Maze
  • Blocks
  • Anything that lights up. His flashlight, “beary,” his elephant that projects stars on the ceiling
  • Dad’s tools

Favorite movie: none. I’ve discovered that every Pixar, Disney and classic starts with something dramatic. He’s typically in tears within the first 15 minutes and we shut it off.

Favorite foods:

  • Peanut butter and jelly toast, not toasted
  • Every fruit on the planet including loquats, pomegranates and persimmons which all grow in the neighborhood
  • Pizza
  • Cupcakes
  • Salad (this video cracks me up, he’s so excited)

Low points from the last year:

  • Going to the dentist
  • Staying overnight at the hospital when he had his infection
  • When he ate _____________ (fill in the blank with your favorite item below):
    • floss (twice)
    • Chapstick cap
    • licorice from the Vons parking lot
    • hunks of grass
    • sea snail eggs (yes, we called poison control) … sorta can’t blame him. They look like candy.
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    • a stranger’s gum off the ground (this was followed by croup and a trip to the ER… I swear it was the germs from the gum)
  • Tantrums, 50% of the time over milk, 25% of the time over wanting something sugary and the last 25% misc. Even though it’s normal at this age, that doesn’t make them easier or less sad.
  • Starting preschool

High points from the last year:

  • Vacation in Palm Desert
  • Bringing home sister–he had a little gray bunny ready as a gift to her
  • Starting preschool
  • Gymnastics and pool time at the YMCA
  • Going kayaking and paddleboarding and paddleboating
  • Going to Disneyland
  • Riding the train to Oxnard
  • Moving into a new bedroom with a big boy bed

Cam's Big Boy Room & Bed

  • His birthday! If the point of celebrating a birthday is to make someone feel special, then we nailed it! On Saturday, he had a Paw Patrol-themed party with his best buddy Morgan. On Sunday, we went apple picking. On Monday, I took the day off, we went to the lake in the morning, to Urban Jungle in the afternoon and had a BBQ at Poppy and Inny’s house with all his favorite people and all his favorite food. He was genuinely having the best day ever. As a mom, this is all I can hope for.

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by Kelsey

Dinner with my Monkeys

Since Demi hasn’t really been into solid foods we haven’t had a dinner where all of us were eating at the same time. She’s usually on my lap lunging, grunting and reaching for every bite that bypasses her on its way to me.

But she’s starting to get into it and her gag reflex is getting better, so last night I set Demi up with some avocado while Cam and I had burritos with avocado.

It was more like dinner and a show. Highly entertaining.

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by Kelsey

Cam Says, Part III

Here we go again…

Joe put some rubber/spongy tiles in the garage, the kind that go together like a puzzle, and the edges are kind of useless in my opinion. We don’t need the edges to be flush and they are skinny and flimsy and always coming apart. They’re basically a tripping hazard. So, I placed a few of the loose ones in the small trashcan by the side door.

Well, a couple days later we were in the house making dinner and Cam turns to me and says, “You know, mom, it’s not nice to throw things away that other people are still using.”

Mini Joe.

We’ve gone through the Starbucks drive-through enough times that Cam gets the concept of saying your order through the window of the car and then pulling forward to pick up the order.

Some days I order him ice water, some days we splurge on lemonade. He enjoys asking for his drink through the window and getting it from the cashier.

Today after I picked him up I decided to go to the Mexican food drive through for lunch. He asked me for lemonade, but they don’t have any. So I told him I would get a horchata to share. But then, as I was trying to tell the woman my order over a very crackly speaker, he spotted a picture of flan on the menu, which looked just like an unfrosted cupcake.

He started shouting “..A CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE!”

“AND A CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE!”

I laughed and tried to repeat the end of my order because she couldn’t hear me. And he yelled again “A CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE!”

I gave up and pulled ahead to the window to place my order because he kept shouting, not wanting to give up on that dream.

Luckily, she found it funny and Cam loved the horchata. But my goodness, this kid loves cupcakes.

Aaaaaand a totally unrelated video of Cam enjoying a mid-summer squall.

 

by Kelsey

Beach Day 2017

I am jokingly titling this “Beach Day 2017” like it is the only one because, well, it might be the only one! I don’t know how it happened, but summer has almost completely slipped away.

Luckily, it was a great day.

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Demi is a very tactile babe and spent a bit of time combing her fingers through the sand. I just loved watching her chubby fingers grasp at it.

Cam splashed around and built sandcastles while Demi napped. Then Joe and I played pass the baby while Cam threw the stick for Craig’s girlfriend’s golden lab and Cam and I paddled out. He was such a good boy holding still while I took us around the water. This particular pocket of the bay is usually pretty calm, but next time I’m going to put him in a full life jacket with the understrap so we can do some more exploring.

When we were done, Cam was super sandy, cold and tuckered out. There aren’t many things I like more than a worn out little boy. I get such gratification out of wearing out the unwearable.

by Kelsey

Afraid of the Dark?

Cam’s bedtime routine has changed over time, but for a while now, it has been pretty much the same. After brushing teeth, Cam gets his milk and (shamefully) his “baba,” then we read stories, turn off the lights, play music and fall asleep.

When Cam moved into the bigger room, but my office wasn’t yet built, his room housed all my work equipment, so ‘turning off the lights’ was an ordeal. We had to lay cloths or papers over the top of my desk phone and cell phone, over the charging light on my laptop, Joe’s blinking light on his laptop and any number of other random sources of light so it was perfectly dark and we could turn Cam’s stars on.

But suddenly in the last week, he decided he was afraid of the dark. We couldn’t help but think he was faking it because he’s never been afraid of the dark before.

Apparently he’s right on time with his fear of the dark. I get a weekly email from Baby Center and the one last week for kids who are 2 years, 11 months and 3 weeks discusses our 2-year-olds becoming afraid of the dark. How do they know!?

So instead of telling Cam he’s not afraid of the dark, we bought him a new night light. And. He. Is. Obsessed.

Meet “beary,” also known as “the sweetest guy I ever had.”

He took photos of him. A lot of photos. Sat him on a chair so he could sit next to him. He read him a book. He took him on a walk. He tucks him in. Yes, he’s obsessed.

And now we go to bed in a discotech.

by Kelsey

Cam’s First Days of Preschool

It happened and we all survived. Some of us are unscathed.

Seriously though, what a flood of emotions the last week has been.

Cam was on the waitlist at this preschool for a couple months and about 3 weeks ago, they called me to say he would be starting on July 25th. At that moment, everyone started stressing in their own ways. Every time I thought about it, I’d get a shot of adrenaline and anxiety. Grandma Inny lost a ton of sleep the week leading up. Grandma Monkey stocked up on presents. And Joe was a little more sappy over his son than usual (and honestly, he’s already pretty sappy).

We talked about school as much as possible the few days before so it wouldn’t feel like a surprise to him. Some conversations were met with comments like “I don’t want to go” and some were much easier–especially after his new lunchbox came in the mail (Blaze of course). It seemed like he was warming up to the idea.

And then the day was here. We prepped Cam’s backpack with the essentials and packed his very first school lunch. Joe had the onerous task of dropping him off because Tuesdays are commute days for me. When they arrived, Cam immediately hit the playground and Mrs. Karla told Joe he should go. So, he went. And Cam didn’t cry!!

I called Joe about 45 seconds after drop-off because I was on pins and needles. Joe answered the phone and couldn’t talk. He was completely choked up. And that made me cry. Who knew Cam’s first day of preschool would turn us into puddles.

Inny and Monkey drove to daycare promptly at pick-up time. When Monkey walked in, he cried tears of relief and excitement. Mrs. Karla said he did great. They all got in the car and the grandmas asked him about his day. His first comment was, “there are a few too many kids.” Ha! What a ham. The grandmas reported he was a happy talkative kid all afternoon.

Each day since then (there have been 3 more drop-offs) has been teary. Cam has been upset for a few minutes, but has stuck close to Mrs. Karla and then gotten into the groove. And each day, the report has been the same, that he did great, talks a lot and asks a lot of questions.

After day 1 and then reflecting on week 1, I felt sentimental that my little guy is now in school, I felt proud that he’s doing well, I felt grateful that my “village” cares so very much and has helped us both logistically and emotionally with the transition, and I felt excited about the new people Cam would meet and things he would learn. I know there’s so much good stuff ahead for him.

We don’t have a lot of photos because, well, with all the change and anxiety, we’ve been focused on the matter and not really pausing for photos. But hopefully we’ll snag some as it becomes a little more routine.

For now, big exhale. We’re over that hurdle.

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