happy half birthday Cam Cam!

happy half birthday to Cam Cam!! i can't believe this kid is already six months old! he is far from the little blob that he used to be. he's so full of character and intrigue and it's been really fun watching him grow. speaking of grow, he is quite the colossal chunk nowadays. we haven't weighed him since he was four months old but we think he's coming up on, if not already at, 20 lbs. for reference on massivity (real word is 'massiveness' but i like the sound of 'massivity'), his lower limbs look like those turkey legs you get at Disneyland. we were on a shuttle the other day and when this stranger danger lady found out how old he was she said that "he's a beast!" true dat, lady, true dat.

look how massive my child is!

as you can see from the first picture, he's sitting up now. we often placed him in sitting position but he wasn't ever really able to stay upright for more than a few seconds. then one day recently we plopped him down and he just stayed that way for a while. now he can stay sitting for more than ten minutes without falling down onto the floor (timmmmbbbbeeeerrrrrr!!!), though we definitely still have to constantly watch when he's sitting just in case he face plants. 

we decided to start Cam Cam on solids around 4.5 months with the intention of going sort of slow. we started out by having him try rice cereal every so often and he did fairly well. my mom told Diana (his other caregiver and my sister-in-law's mom) that we thought solely drinking milk wasn't cutting it for him any longer and we were going to start him on solids. then Diana tells us "oh, i gave him some noodles last week." *insert wide eyed shocked face emoji* LOL or what? and then she said she gave him some peach and apple that she scraped with a fork too. here we are thinking we were starting to give Cam his first tastes of mush and he's over there eating like he's a pro at a buffet! then she sent me a video of him eating small pieces of noodles via chopsticks. even more HAHAHAs! now before anybody gets upset for us like how dare she feed him without our okay, Ted and i were prepared for the people we entrust him with to do things like this. see, within chinese culture there really isn't any 'i wish you'd do things this way or that way.' you have to go all in knowing his caregivers are going to do whatever they want and you have to trust that they have his best interest at heart. we were well aware that things like this would pop up and this is just the beginning. pretty sure one day someone is going to cut his hair in some hideous fashion and we're just going to have to shrug our shoulders and take plenty of pictures to laugh at later in life. anyway, since our little dude is already a carb lover and swallowed noodles with no problem, we decided to just start giving him all sorts of stuff. aside from pureed fruits and rice cereal, he's tasted noodles, diced cantaloupe, avocado and mango, rice and bread. it's been fun trying different things and seeing his reaction. and since we've started giving him one real serving of solids in the evening he hasn't been waking up to eat at all through the night. BUT the last couple of days, when we try to feed him his last bottle he's been refusing after a few ounces (he usually has 8-9 oz and the last couple of nights he's had 3-4 oz). but when i say he's refusing, i don't just mean he's not opening his mouth or pushing the bottle away. i mean he's crying and arching his back, so we're not really positive what's going on. we know he's not in pain because we'll put him down and whistle or do something ridiculous to distract him and he's fine. we're thinking we're giving him the bottle too soon after the solids and he's asserting his disapproval in the only way he knows how. we'll tweak some things and see what works out. 

i think this guy is going to start being mobile sooner than we thought. over the last week while on his tummy, he's been able to wiggle around enough or push with his arm so that he starts out facing one way and ends up 180 degrees the other way. and as of a couple of days ago he started to sort of push with his arms and scoot backwards. i think his intention is to move forward towards his toys but he ends up further away from them. poor fella. 

oh! and we took him on his first little vacation. we went to Yosemite with a couple of other families with kids (all boys). i wasn't sure how he'd do on the long car ride (4-6 hours depending on stops), being out everyday for many hours each day exploring Yosemite, or sleeping in his pack n' play in a new environment (he's never slept overnight anywhere outside of our house). i'm happy to report back that he did so so sooooo good! he kicked ass at all of it. on the car rides to and from Yosemite, he slept half each ride and didn't really fuss at all. our days out in Yosemite could have been a disaster if he didn't get naps but he managed to take naps in his stroller or in the car, which is never a guarantee with him. we even managed to get him to take a nap outside while the other boys played around in the river, though that only lasted thirty minutes. he woke up because some a-hole sneezed like he had a fur ball in his nostril. oh and i dipped him into the cold river while he was naked. needless to say, he did not like that. he cried in .5 seconds. as far as sleep went, Cam did really well overall with that too. the first night he woke a few times early in the night, i think due to the new environment but after that he woke up once a night which was typical for him. he did start flipping over onto his tummy a lot in the middle of the night, which was sort of annoying because we had to flip him back (he still can't flip from tummy to back). throughout the whole trip in general, he was super chill and just went with the flow. Ted and i are really impressed with him.

seeing the sights

'sup ma. 

the first four months were really tough on me but as things have gotten better i find myself feeling lucky that i've got such a chill child. now that Cam can put himself to sleep at night and usually puts himself to sleep for naps unassisted (sometimes we still have to coax him along with a pacifier but that's often only when we're in a foreign place like near the river or at a park), he's such an easy kid. he's pretty mild mannered otherwise and we're loving every minute we get to spend with him. not to say things won't get hard or there won't be challenges but right now we've got it good.

that's bunny. we call him Bun Bunz and he helps Cam go to sleep. he likes to rub it against his face, suck or bite on his feet or ears and flop it around in his hands before he knocks out.

what a gem. sometimes Cam blows raspberries so damn hard that his face turns red and he looks extra chinese.