It turned out Cameron is actually just shy of 34″—the minimum height requirement for many rides at Legoland—even though he measured 34.5″ at his 2-year well visit at the pediatrician’s. Either the measurement was wrong or there’s a big height difference between lying down and standing up. Anyway, Cameron got away with quite a few rides in the first day and a half at Legoland, but towards the end of the second day, after waiting in line for a boat ride for almost an hour, Cameron got turned away! Lucky Darren got to go around a second time—first with Dad, then with Mom—yes I was actually the one who really wanted to try that boat ride! π
Since Cameron started getting rejected from rides, the best place for him to hang out was the Lego play area. Interestingly I noticed a couple things about Cameron’s personality during his free play. First, he’s pretty logical and organized. When he was getting Lego pieces to build out a “structure”, he went along with the established “framework”:
Second (and I wish I caught this on film), he’s kind-hearted and eager to help. There was a kid—probably at least 5 years old—at a Lego station, exactly like the one Cameron was playing at in the video above, who wanted his dad to get more Lego pieces for him to build. His dad refused and said they could either go together or they wouldn’t go at all. Witnessing the standoff—even though it’s all conducted in English—Cameron decided to run to a play structure where he had put away many Lego pieces. It’s not that close by, so after he grabbed a Lego piece, he got lost on his way back to the father and son. But he soon figured out the way and successfully delivered the Lego piece to the kid. I couldn’t hear either the father or son thank Cameron—perhaps the father thought our little helper ruined his teachable moment—but I was so proud of my boy—just barely 2 years old and helping out these much bigger people! Who’s really the bigger person here? π
We had so much fun in Carlsbad/San Diego over Labor Day weekend, we’re back for more for this Christmas weekend! Our first stop was, however, the Carlsbad outlets, partly because we were starving after our flight, and partly because it was too late in the day to go to the amusement parks, which we have a few days to hit anyway.
I was in no way complaining about going to the outlets, but as usual Vincent was the victorious shopper and I the empty-handed one. So instead I took the kids to ride the mini (but mega-overpriced) train that’s set up in the middle of the outlets. They loved it of course and rode it again and again!
It’s Cameron’s birthday today! When I took him to Mandarin class this morning, the teacher started playing her Mandarin CD and it happened to be the “Happy Birthday” song! I asked her if she knew it was Cameron’s birthday because we did fill out Cameron’s birth date in his application form, but it was just a happy coincidence. We sang the birthday song in Mandarin to Cameron twice in class! I love the lyrics, which has a new twist—at least it’s new to me—it goes “η₯δ½ ηζ₯εΏ«ζ¨, η₯δ½ ηζ₯εΏ«ζ¨, η₯δ½ ηζ₯εΏ«ζ¨, η₯δ½ ζ°Έι 快樔 which translates into “We wish a happy birthday, we wish you a happy birthday, we wish you a happy birthday, we wish you to be forever happy.” That indeed would be wish for my baby–to be forever happy! Singing that to sweet little Cameron brought tears to my eyes. At Cameron’s birthday dinner that night at one of his favorite restaurants, I asked Darren to sing the birthday song in Mandarin again after the English version. Happiness always my angel!
Yes it’s a travesty we haven’t documented Cameron’s baby talk more because in the past couple months he’s started speaking in complete sentences with logic and humor even! I remember distinctly the weekend before Halloween, I was driving him into the city for dinner with friends and as I was exiting the freeway, there was a bit of traffic, so I said “Oh there are so many cars here!” to which he responded immediately “ζδ»₯εζ ’” which translates into “That’s why it’s so slow.”
I have to say though part of the difficulty in filming Cameron is he’s less of a “performer” like big brother Darren, so oftentimes when I do make a point to video him, he stops what’s he doing and saying. I guess I need to be more prepared and sly, so I could catch him in action more.
That said, I got lucky today and Cameron complied with my request to tell me whom he loves, which is everyone—the little angel that he is!
Another Gymboree classic! Kids have the biggest smiles when they see the bubbles come out at Gymboree, including Cameron and Darren who used to love this song too. I remember having to sing this song over and over again on Darren’s first trip, which was on the Big Island, in our rental car in order to entertain him and keep him from melting down on those long car rides. As I mentioned in a post almost half a year ago, Cameron is so cute and happy at Gymboree that I’m thinking a birthday party there is a must. That way we could take pictures of his smiley face without feeling bad about photographing other kids since after all it’s his birthday party!
Thanks to Ah Ma visiting, we finally have a long overdue video of Cameron participating in a Gymboree classic song! (Actually I wish I had filmed Darren too who loved this song when he used to go to Gymboree religiously!) But back to Cameron, usually he follows along “uneventfully”, but today he decided to freeze for a long time, which cracked everyone up! Yes—can you say “class clown”? π Like brother, like brother!
Cameron is pretty good with identifying people around him. Today he showed off his craft in front of his godfather. In the video we asked Cameron to point at various people and he nailed them all. Pretty cool! Godfather Raymond was certainly impressed.
Cameron loves to laugh. The person who makes him laugh the most is Darren. In this video the brothers were playing in the backyard after dinner. Darren got a new toy and was showing it off to Cameron. Cameron somehow thought that it was really funny.
Cameron and Darren went to a birthday party today that’s at a bowling alley and they got to try bowling for the first time! I actually tried to take them bowling a few months ago, but Darren fell asleep on the car ride over, so we turned around and went home. Today, with a little bit of beginner’s luck and a lot of Dad’s help positioning the launcher, Darren almost got a turkey! Overall he got too many spares and strikes to count. Cameron also got to bowl—just to round it out, he got a split! π
Cameron has been working on identifying his body parts for a long time now. He finally got to show off today. π Better late than never! Plus, before he could point, but now he’s also naming the parts, so it makes for an even more interesting video! π Perhaps it’s because he has a chatterbox as a big brother, Cameron’s vocabulary seems to be building faster than Darren’s as far as I could remember. I’ve been tracking Cameron’s vocabulary and he has 58 words already!
