Cameron Lo

Finally! The long-awaited picture of Cameron’s very own sweet smile! (We last posted an open-mouthed smile that’s a bit more of Darren’s trademark.) Cameron really does love to smile though. More recently, he loves to chat too! When you talk to him, he’ll totally light up and coo in response to your small talk. Here he was smiling and enjoying Grandma’s conversation with him.

We think he’ll be as much of a chatterbox as big brother Darren! We joke instead of having them in separate rooms like we planned, we might put them in the same room so they can chat at night in bed before falling asleep. 🙂

Since both my mom and dad commented to me recently that Cameron doesn’t seem to smile much, I’ve been reminding myself—well, more importantly, Vincent our resident photographer—to capture his smile soon. Tonight Mrs Tam coaxed Cameron to smile for the camera—Cameron smiles at her a lot since she’s probably his favorite person at the moment being his roommate and primary caregiver. I hope to dethrone her when she leaves. 😉

This open-mouthed smile from Cameron we caught is actually a classic Darren smile. Whenever Darren runs, he has this smile on his face, which I just love. Like big brother, like baby brother!

P.S. Cameron had his 2-month well visit today. Turns out he’s not 24″ long—the pediatric dermatologist’s nurse must have mismeasured—he’s “only” 23.25″ long, but that still puts him at 77 percentile, unadjusted for his slight prematurity—not too shabby!

When we asked Darren to smile for the camera, sometimes he puts on his fake laugh. So here’s him being silly while Cameron looks very “grown-up”, sitting up all by himself and not even 2 months old yet (1 day away!)

Darren loves to hold Cameron. He asks me to let him all the time, but I’m finding the first pose isn’t working anymore because Cameron is growing quite well. At our visit with the pediatric dermatologist last Thursday (an annual follow-up for Darren’s strawberry hemangioma and a first visit for Cameron’s noticeable and numerous Mongolian spots on his butt, back, legs, and arms), Cameron weighed 10 lbs 2 oz and measured 24″ long, which are 41 and 97 percentile on the weight and height charts respectively, not adjusting for his 2.5-week early arrival.

Today I managed to find a new pose and Dad even caught Darren’s smile. Cameron actually loves to smile—I saw his first smile on day 2 or 3 (I should have written it down in Bobohelper!) and his first laugh (yes a hearty laugh out loud!) on day 5 or 6. We haven’t been too diligent or quick with the camera unfortunately, but hopefully one of these days we’ll capture Cameron’s cute smile for the world to see. 🙂

I realized a few days ago that I didn’t have new clothes for the kids to wear for Chinese New Year, so I ran out to our local Janie & Jack. I wanted to find a complete outfit for the boys, but the only things I liked were a “I love Mom” shirt and a “I love Dad” t-shirt. I thought, I might as well stock up for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. It only struck me after I got home that the shirts were intended for Valentine’s Day, same day as Chinese New Year this year! So it turns out the “I love Dad” t-shirts are perfect because they’re in red (you’re supposed to wear red on Chinese New Year.) Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Vincent has a theory that siblings are often quite different. Well, when it comes to tummy time, he’s right. Darren used to hate it, crying whenever we put him on his tummy. Cameron, on the other hand, doesn’t mind it so much. He might complain after having lifted his head a while, but sometimes he just chills and falls asleep! And sometimes he actually rolls over! I was the first to witness the rolling over couple weeks ago and Mrs Tam has seen it too a few times since. I’ll have to catch it on video soon one of these days!

Sometimes on Wednesday mornings when Darren is at his swim class with Dad, I’d bring the playmat out to the family room and play with Cameron there. When Darren’s home, he runs around so much and so fast I worry he’ll trample over Cameron. But today when Darren came home, I thought I’d stay put. Maybe it’s because he had both Spanish and swimming this morning (he usually only has 1 class every morning, but Wednesday mornings he has 2), he seemed quite mellow, so I asked him to lie down next to Cameron. It’s been a while since we got a picture of both boys together!

Cameron likes to sleep with lights on for some reason. If all the lights are off, he fusses and cries. Once you turn a little bit of light back on, he’s happy. My theory is when he was in the hospital’s regular nursery, the lights were always on. I can’t be certain but I think the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) where Darren stayed for ten days dimmed the lights at night. So during the day, sometimes we let Cameron sleep in the family room facing our backyard and we don’t worry about pulling the shades since he likes the light, which makes for a great photo op for Dad!