The Terrible Twos Have Begun!

With November came Cameron's second birthday and the terrible twos (which we understand are followed by the even worse thrashing threes). He's two, he's asserting his independence and he isn't afraid to throw a tantrum to let you know that he wants to have his way. So, Mama and Daddy are learning new patience they didn't know they had and Cameron's throwing the occasional fit for 5-10 minutes at a time when things don't quite work out like he had planned. Even with that, we have a fun time and he makes us laugh every day.

What's happened since August? Well, Cam was dedicated at church on Mama and Daddy's 7th wedding anniversary. He did pretty well throughout the ceremony and wore a traditional Kazakh hat. There was a moment of nose-picking - of course, this was a new thing that he decided to try as we stood in front of about 20 members of our family. All in all, it went well though and we had a brunch at our house afterwards to celebrate. Uncle Kevin and Aunt Cathy are his Godparents.

We travelled to Minnesota over Labor Day weekend to visit Grandpa Bollin. We all had a lot of fun and got to do many things while we were there. Grandpa lives near Lake Harriet and Cameron started singing "Row, row" as soon as he saw the water from the car. Genius! We played at a couple of local parks and also got to ride on the restored Trolley that runs near the lake. The big event though was going to the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul. We saw lots of animals, drank the free milk (white and chocolate) that they were giving out at the milk bar, went down the big slide, went on the Merry-go-round with Grandpa and danced with Mama to some music performed by a band from South America. Cameron also really enjoyed riding the bus to the fair. This kid is very much into public transportation. A good time was had by all.

Cameron has gone to Memphis Kiddie Park a couple of times and enjoyed the rides. Though, it seemed that the rides sometimes lasted a little too long for his liking. However, he did like the train ride around the park and would stay on it all day, if he could.

Mama and Cameron made a trip to Mishawaka, IN in September to visit our close friends, the Holups, and to attend Elizabeth's 5th birthday party. We had a lot of fun playing "choo-choos" at the birthday party and also playing with the sand/water table. We went to the South Bend Zoo for Member's Night and enjoyed ourselves in spite of the pouring rain. We took shelter under a tree while eating dinner and did manage to get a ride on the train before we all declared ourselves drenched!

Cam the purple dragon had a lot of fun on Halloween. We went to about 20 houses and he was consistently saying something like "Bop-bop-ba-dop" for "Trick or Treat". People seemed to understand what he meant though and he did say "Tank you" before leaving.

Cam's second birthday party was at Malley's, a local candy and ice cream shop. We had cake, ice cream and he opened gifts while we were there.

We went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago. The Children's Museum is great and a can't miss if you go there with anyone under the age of 10. Cam and Mama also went to the top of the John Hancock tower while Daddy took a nap and we walked up and down Michigan Avenue and also stood in line for Garrett's Popcorn. Daddy found us later and we went to Pizzeria Uno to try out the Chicago deep dish pizza. Later that evening, we took a carriage ride around the Michigan Avenue area. Our driver was Bruno and the horse was Cisco. Apparently, they had both been on vacation for about 2 weeks and Cisco was not happy to be back at work. He kept disobeying Bruno's commands - we ended up on the sidewalk at one point because he refused to turn. He also sort of freaked out when we came up behind a FedEx truck that was unloading. Cisco reared up a bit and Bruno got down off the carriage to lead him on foot past the truck. It was a little scary, but we were in good hands. Cameron had a great time on the ride and went and gave Cisco a pat on the nose at the end of our tour. The next day we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and saw about half of it. Cameron was in rare form and at one point, took the hand of a little girl who appeared to be about his age and walked her over to where the gorillas were going in and out of the building. She wasn't entirely sure that this was the thing to do, but went along with it. We stayed with our friends in Mishawaka on the way home and they had a mini-birthday party for Cameron, complete with cake. He had fun blowing out the candles again.

Cam's 24 month appointment at the doctor will be on Christmas Eve, so we'll have more statistics then. However, he is just about 36 inches tall and weighs almost 29 lbs. We went to his last adoption health service appointment back in October and they said that they are very pleased with his attachment to us and they said that developmentally, he's at or above where he should be. We were pleased with the news! He's saying new words everyday and is probably approaching 75-100 words in his vocabulary. He's also stringing sentences together like: "What is that?" "I catch." "I don't want that." His inflection when he says "Oh no!" and "Oh my!" are dead on. He loves to throw, catch and kick balls and he's still very enamored of trains. Oh, and in October, he moved into his big boy bed and hasn't looked back since!

Hopefully, we'll get another post in before the end of the year. Happy Holidays!