As of tonight, Cameron had not nursed since Sunday morning. It started last Friday, when he was getting to bed late and he wanted to read a book, and I told him he could choose between nursing and reading a book. He chose the book. Afterwards, of course, he wanted to nurse, too, but I reminded him of his choice, and he brushed his teeth and went to bed without incident. Every night since then, he has chosen the book, asked to nurse afterwards, and accepted my refusal.

Meanwhile, Saturday and Sunday morning he crawled into our bed and nursed -- not very usual anymore. I suppose it was as much for the coziness as anything, since the weather has gotten cooler. Monday and Wednesday I had to get up in the morning to go to work, Tuesday it was for the funeral, and today it was for the dentist, so he hasn't had a chance to nurse in the morning since Sunday.

Which has resulted in four and a half days of no milk leaving the mams. I was all set to make the "I think this might be it" post as soon as Cameron went to bed, but tonight he persisted, and I gave in. Bad inconsistent Mommy. I doubt he got much.

So, the process goes on.

Cameron has entered the tattling stage. Except, he has no one to tattle on. So he tattles on himself. He does something he is not supposed to, then announces, "Mommy, I picking my nose." Or, "Mommy, I standing on the couch." Or, "Mommy, I eating my cereal with my fingers." Etc. Usually I respond by asking, "Are you supposed to be doing that?" "No," he answers and (more often than not) stops the behavior -- for the next ten seconds, at least.

Cameron can now count by 5's up to 100. (He says, "I'm gonna count from 5's.")

He also knows the Monkey book by heart and can recite the whole thing start to finish. We've caught several decent takes of it on video; one of these days I'll pick the best one and post it, but that could be a while.

That's all for now.

I've heard that around Cameron's age kids start asking, "Why? Why? Why?" all the time, not because they really understand what it means but because they have discovered that it's a great way to get grownups to respond to them.

Cameron's started to do that in his own way, not by asking "Why?" but by asking, "What does [thing I've just mentioned] start with?" Sample conversation:

Me: "We're going to Meeting and WinCo today."
Him: "What does WinCo 'tart with?"
Me: "W."
Him: (pretending to guess how to spell it) "W-E..." (E is his favorite letter these days. Who knows why.)
Me: "W-I..."
Him: "W-I-E..."
Me: "No, W-I-N-C-O."
Him: "What does that 'pell?"
Me: "WinCo."
Him: "Oh. WinCo 'tarts with W."
Me: "That's right."
Him: "W-E..."

And at this point I start to get a little tired of the conversation. So to change the subject, I say, "If you want to go to WinCo you'd better get your shoes on."

Him: "What does shoes 'tart with?"

Sigh. I love my child, but another year of this could get old. :-P

Friday night the on-campus housing at Fresno State had a Halloween Thing with door-to-door trick-or-treating at the dorm and some other activities. This proved to be just Cameron's speed. He loved running up and down the hallways, and he was able to say, "Twicka tweet" on cue, hold out his bag, and say "Hank you" (with some reminders). Now, of course, he is obsessed with candy and every hour says, "I want candy!" Sigh. I guess it had to start sometime.

Yesterday, Saturday, there was a free swim party at the swim center. Only rub: it was during nap time. But, I thought, he's been starting to resist naps lately; why not give it a shot? So, for the first time ever, we purposely, on purpose, in a pre-meditated way, planned a day that did not include a nap.

It went great. He didn't seem cranky or wiped out at all. He had a blast. I managed to get him into bed at 7:30pm (a good hour and a half ahead of usual), and he slept quite well, AFAICT.

I, too, hit the hay early; I was out by 10:30 or so. Add that to the extra hour from the time change, and I was feeling quite refreshed by 7:00 (new time) this morning. Cameron had been up for an hour already since we didn't bother changing his clock yet. We got to Meeting and Kathie, who usually watches the kids, didn't show up. Cameron was a perfect angel, just standing quietly in the next room where I could see him for nearly the full hour. I wonder, I thought, whether he might still be a bit tired from yesterday?

Sure enough, after Meeting we went to WinCo as usual, and then HE FELL ASLEEP ON THE WAY HOME. Which he has not done in at least a year. And even more unusual, HE IS STILL ASLEEP as I write this. He did not stir when we got home, so I just took a page out of the baby Cameron days and brought my laptop out to the garage, where I noted with satisfaction that the wireless works. Cool!

So I guess he's not quite ready to give up naps for good yet. Thank goodness.

I fear Cameron might be about to give up his naps. Oh noooooes!! We're still trying to put him to bed at 1 or 1:30 or so, and he dutifully stays in his room till 3:30, but I hear an awful lot of thumping and bumping in there till at least 2:00, and then again starting at 2:45. Right now it is 2:25 and he just now quieted down. And this is after a Very Big Day yesterday.

( Very Big Day )

Did he sleep in today? Not a chance! He was up before we were, ready for a huge breakfast of french toast, a trip to the elevators, a huge picnic lunch, and an energetic game of "run to me" that got us all the way back to the car. Home, and then the aforementioned hour of wakefulness before finally resting his eyelids.

On the upside, it will make scheduling things easier, not having to work around siesta time. I hope I can keep up.

One of Cameron's favorite things to do with T. is to "look at the numbers on Mommy's computer" while I'm away at work. T. opens up a text window and sets the font to Really Big, and C. types away. Numbers (his latest is counting by twos, either evens or odds), words, etc. He knows where the backspace and return keys are and what they do.

And he knows how to use the mouse. It took him a very long time to notice the pointer on the screen; he would be sitting on my lap, and I'd point to something with the mouse, and ask, "What's that?" and he didn't seem to realize that I was pointing at anything specific. Now he has not only figured that out but can move the mouse to a specific area on the screen and click. Ha!

His favorite web site is, of course, this one. He knows how to set the timer for whatever time he wants and start and stop the countdown. Scary.

It's been long-established that Cameron knows many pieces of music and can distinguish them by ear, often from across the house. But he hasn't shown any interest or aptitude for singing. OTOH, he does readily, and quite faithfully, imitate other sounds he hears ("When I unlock the car, it goes 'beep beep!'")

Tonight I sat at the piano (while he was on the recliner, not in view of the keyboard -- though I doubt that would have made a difference) and quizzed him. ( Quiz! )

I remember loving that game when I was his age. I was discovered to have perfect pitch when I was 2 years old, and by the time I was 3 I knew all the names of the notes, including the sharps and flats (well, at least one name for each note: F#, for example, was just F#; G-flat did not yet exist for me), and I could name them instantly upon hearing them. It was great fun to get such mad praise from everyone for something that was so easy for me. I couldn't imagine (still can't, really) how it could be that other people can't do it.

( My theory )

Anyhow, so I'm getting a chance to test my theory on Cameron -- tempered, of course, by my belief in not "drilling" a child on anything he or she is truly not interested in. Now that he "knows" C and A by name, we will see if next time he can recall them. Even tonight he was able to recall them correctly after I played a piece in between (in G major). Right after I finished the piece, I played G above middle C, and he immediately told me that it was G. So perhaps he knows that one too. Smart boy.

Cameron has been on an emotional hair trigger off and on for the last couple weeks. That, combined with increased appetite, make me pretty sure he is headed into his 3-year growth spurt.

Anyhow, one of the things that, more than once, has made him fly into an inexplicable rage is my opening his curtains. We're not talking about when he first wakes up here; we are talking after breakfast, he will hear me from the other end of the house and come running in screaming, "You don't DO dat!!! You wanna cwose the cootains!! Waaaaah!!!"

Yesterday I asked him first if he would mind my opening the curtains. At first he started to get agitated and tell me no, but then I offered, "If I open them we can see outside. Would you like me to lift you up so you can see outside?"

"Yeah!" he suddenly said, brightly. So I hoisted him up and had him stand on the window sill (with me right behind him, of course). He pointed out a bunch of familiar things in the front yard, then pointed at the floor and said, "If I fall all the way down there, you['ll] say, 'That was no fun at ALL.'"

Which, when I thought about it, was probably exactly what I would have said. Aww, too cute!

Cameron knows how to set the clock on his CD player, and also on the microwave. At first he seemed to believe he could make it be whatever time of day he wants by simply setting the clocks to say that time. For instance, there was this Also, he would wake up early in the morning and set his CD clock to 7:10, and then get very upset when his light didn't come on. Now he will do the opposite: he will wait for his light to come on, deduce that it must be 7:10, and set his clock accordingly. Which is quite astounding to me, actually. The only problems now are that
(a) These two clocks do not reliably say the right time, and
(b) He is so enamored of setting the clocks that he tends to goof around with his CD clock long after he is supposed to be in bed asleep. When I go in there and bust him (reset his clock and sternly tell him to get back in bed) he pitches a mini-tantrum. Sigh.