* * * Disclaimer - this blog is my way of recording life (as much as I want to keep a good journal...I don't). So, if you're not interested in every last detail and development don't keep reading! But I need to remember all of this stuff so I'm writing it down in a place for family and interested friends to read if they want to! I won't be offended if you don't care how many teeth Camden has right now! :) * * *
It is amazing to see how quickly Camden is growing and changing every day! He is learning so much all of a sudden that we can't keep up with all his growth! We went to our pediatrician on Thursday and had a great visit with her. We LOVE Camden's doctor, Nancy Turkington. She spent an entire hour with us, chatting about Camden, answering questions, checking his health and watching him run around her little office. She was very impressed with his development and said he is healthy and thriving! Woo Hoo!
Here are some of his new stats:
Weight: 22 pounds and 8 ounces = 40th percentile
Length: 31 and a half inches = 90th percentile (!)
Head Circumferences = 19 inches = 90th percentile (!)
Camden is definitely no longer a little baby. He is practically running around now, climbing up the stairs at every chance he gets, and getting into everything he's not supposed to get into. He is obsessed with balls and loves to throw (and just carry around) a tennis ball and is totally getting the hang of kicking as well! We have a little mini soccer ball that we were playing with in the field the other day and Camden was literally dribbling it around, changing direction and using both feet, for about five minutes all by himself. Scott and I couldn't believe it! We were pretty impressed! Camden isn't all about sports though. He LOVES playing with his new wooden kitchen and has just recently started to really pretend. Until a couple weeks ago I had never seen Camden using his imagination, but now he stirs up his little vegetables in a bowl and pretends to sip out of it like it's soup or something! He also just got the hang of his little wooden stacker toy and will sit by himself for 5-10 minutes trying to put all the rings on the stick. This is such an exciting development for us as he has never been very good at entertaining himself! That seems to have changed since he turned one! YAY!
He now says "Mama," "Dada" and "Hi," but most of his communication is through his baby sign language. He knows all of these signs: more, nurse, night-night, eat, water, thank you, please, all done, book, drive/car, tubby/swim (he made this one up himself!), diaper change and sorry. He also loves to clap (especially when he's proud of something he does. He puts a ring on the stacker and looks up at us with a big smile and claps for himself. He knows how proud we are of him!), give high-fives, blow kisses and wave bye-bye. He is also learning his body parts and points to his body if we ask him where his toes, nose, teeth and belly are! It's pretty adorable!
Here is a video that I posted on facebook that we took about a month ago. It's a little blurry, but it gives you an idea of his signs.
Camden has been eating like a madman these days. He LOVES fruit (but the veggies are a little harder to get in him). Peaches, pears, strawberries and watermelon are his favorites right now. He also loves eating eggs and cheese. We still haven't introduced cow's milk, but now that he's one we are going to soon. I'm curious to see if he's going to like it or not.
The most challenging area (by far!) of raising Camden so far has been his sleeping (or lack there of). From birth he has just had a difficult time sleeping and we still have a long way to go before he is independently sleeping through the night...but we have made lots of progress recently! August is our month of committing to trying to help him stretch out his periods of sleep at night. We've been doing a bit of traveling this summer and have just had weird schedules (which doesn't help when you're trying to teach a baby to sleep) so August is our stay-at-home-and-give-him-some-consistency-and-really-tackle-this-issue month. Until now, Camden was waking up every 2-3 hours (with a four hour stretch thrown in there a few times) at night to nurse. That adds up to a lot of wake ups for us and we have been exhausted for a looooong time now! Over the past couple of weeks, Scott has gone in to Camden's room when he wakes up and tries to comfort him and get him back to sleep without nursing. This has worked really well so far and his first stretch of the night has extended from 2-3 hours to about 5-6! YIPPEE!!!! Last night was our BEST night ever! Camden went to sleep at 7:30 and didn't wake up at all until 3:05!!!!! I nursed him and he went back to sleep until 5:30ish when he decided he was up for the day! A 7.5 hour stretch is by far the longest he's ever slept so we are hoping he will continue to improve! The poor little guy has been teething like crazy (he only has 2 teeth on the top and three on the bottom) and we can see that there are a couple teeth ready to push through. Teething causes Camden so much pain and during the worst of it his nights are horrible - waking up screaming and not falling back to sleep for hours sometimes. But when teething isn't hurting him too much, his sleep is definitely improving so we are happy! Thank you, Lord!
It's hard to believe Camden is already one. We had an incredible first year with him and are so looking forward to all the adventures that lay ahead of us this year!
