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!

The thing about little piggies eating roast beef has always seemed really barbaric and gross to me. In fact, the whole traditional lineup of the piggies' activities is inane, at best. So with Cameron I have always modified the game to use ( different activities. )

On Monday I went to school to work on my Binder -- knock wood, the last one I'll ever have to do, praise goddess -- and T. got his first taste of Mr. Mom.

I told him that I would make every effort to be home by 6 o'clock every day, that if I was held over I'd call, so, you know, if he wanted to have dinner ready and on the table when I got home I wouldn't mind it a bit! (Wow; I could get used to having a "wife"; LOL!)

Anyhow, T. reported to me later that evening that Cameron had asked for me, and T. told him, "Mommy will be home at 6:00."

Whereupon Cameron said directly, "I'm going to make 6:00 on the microwave to help Mommy get home faster."

Awwwwwww.....

We are back in Fresno as of yesterday, and it is as hot as ever (although the folks in Eugene who are on Facebook report that it was 106 there today!! Here it was 108, but at least people here have AC). Finding it hard to be productive until I get used to the heat.

Cameron has mysteriously picked up the a/an thing. Previously everything was a. But this week I hear him saying, e.g., "I made an 85." His brain just amazes me.

And he is also very interested in ( spelling words. )

"I went swimming on Friday, and I blow bubbles, and I floated and I counted to one hundred -- and I count to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . . 98, 99, 100 -- and I slide down the slide a lot of times and you [Mommy] got me the green ball and I played with the green ball and the girl [another kid about 4 years old] took it away and I wanted it and I said 'yes pweez' and she said 'NO!'" (Aw, too cute!)

"And [after a while] she give it back and I throwed it down the slide a lot of times and then I took a shower and I went to the blue door [of the dressing room] and I wanted to stand on the green bench and I fell down off the bench. And I was crying and crying and crying, and I got red on my cheek, and I was crying and crying and crying. And [repeating] I wanted to stand on the green bench and I fell down off the bench. And I was crying and crying and crying, Mom. And I got red on my cheek."

Isn't that just the saddest story you've heard all day? :-(

To say that Cameron knows his numbers backwards and forwards is not just a figure of speech. It is an understatement. Because he knows them backwards, forwards, and upside down.

He knows exactly which numbers he can make with his foam numbers (There is only one of each number from 1 to 10. "Hard to make a 77," he says. Recently we cut the 10 apart, so that now he has a zero by itself and an extra 1 to work with, which is very happy about: "Mom, I can make an eleven!" "Mom, I made a sixteen-sixteen!" [by turning the 9 upside down to make another 6, of course]). He has also noticed resemblances between certain letters and certain numbers, either right side up or upside down, and he will re-purpose them accordingly.

( Anecdotes )

Geez. The kid just blows me away.

Cameron and I tell each other stories. It's really awesome. They're always about him, of course, but must have a beginning, you know.

He will launch into a ( detailed narrative... )

Then there are the stories he asks me to tell him. Once, when he was sitting quietly, I asked him if he would like to hear a story. "Yeah!" he said, though I'm not sure he knew what that meant. So I began, "Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Cameron..." ( Read more... )

Some kids have pretend tea parties with their dolls.

My son?

Cameron is in the living room, talking very sweetly to his foam numbers: "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That's right. Wow, all you numbers almost fell down. Where's the 3? Oh, there it is. What comes after zero-six? That's right, zero-seven. Then zero-eight, and zero-nine, and ten."

I think I'm going to die of cute.

We've managed to cobble together a couple ways to do stuff together as a family on a regular basis. Most nights we all eat dinner together, which is a real accomplishment, and we've also taken to making an after-dinner stroller run to the nearby Rite-Aid. Not the most romantic of walks, but Cameron enjoys it. He loooooves automatic double doors, and he always wants to be the one to open them. He gets very upset if someone else walks through and we don't wait till the doors are closed again before walking through ourselves. And of course he wants to see them close again behind us, so he excitedly reminds us, "I wanna watch them closing! I wanna watch them closing!" We don't buy anything, but we do take the same route through the store every time, which is to visit all the numbered aisles in order. "There's number eighteen! There's number nineteen! No number twenty..."

When we finish we repeat the double-door ritual. We've perfected the art of whisking him away the moment the doors finish closing, so that he won't be upset at not getting to watch the next customer, and the next, and the next, and the next, go in or out. He waves and yells, "Bye-bye, double doors!" which is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

On the way back we take a tour through a nearby strip mall, in which Cameron looks in the windows for ceiling fans and announces the addresses of all the shops: "There's a eighty-seventy-six! There's a eighty-eighty! There's a eighty-eighty-four!" (He also tells us all the house numbers he sees on the way there and back, and has observed that there are consecutive house numbers across the street from one another: "There's a sixteen hundred and a sixteen-oh-one, Mom! Mom, there's a sixteen-twelve and a sixteen-thirteen, Mom!")

It still blows me away how smart he is.

Cameron has achieved that developmental milestone, the fib.

It is not yet lying, in an intent-to-deceive kind of way. Just an experiment in saying things that are not true to get a grip on what is and is not, in fact, true. Or perhaps just to be contrary. For example:

Him: "Light is on!"
Me: "That's right, the light is on."
Him: "Light is off!"
Me (in a "no, you silly" voice): "No, the light is on!"
Him (grinning): "Light is off."