Cameron Lo

Ever since we made a pit stop in Monterey on our way to Santa Barbara in January, we’ve wanted to visit Monterey again. So I planned a weekend stay during Darren’s days off from school. After a two-hour drive, the kids needed to run around! Perfect time for checking out Dennis the Menace playground, which I had heard so much about. Even though the famous authentic train exhibit that kids could normally climb on was off-limits, the kids pretended the play structure that had a bell and ladder to be a train and had endless fun.

And then there was a giant slide, which Cameron enjoyed surprisingly—he’s usually the cautious child, but I guess with Darren in front of him, he wasn’t scared. I didn’t manage to catch their faces in the video of them coming down the slide, but you could hear Cameron’s laughing and that’s music to my ears. 🙂

After a bit of practice at his school’s Halloween party, Cameron is ready for some real trick-or-treating in our neighborhood!

This is the first house that the kids decided to trick-or-treat at:

There were a few houses that were too scary for Cameron, but he knew to stay away from those. After an hour of trick-or-treating, the kids came home loaded with candy! Since it’s a special night, they got to enjoy their favorite sweets, which were M&Ms and a lollipop for Cameron.

I indulged him further by introducing him to my favorite—Kit Kat—and he loved it of course! 🙂

Since Cameron only goes to school Tuesday and Thursday mornings, his school’s Halloween party is today. The festivities kicked off with a “performance” by the kids. I was only paying attention to Cameron and the kids right around him, so I don’t know if others were more on top of it than my little one, but I’d think this piece was pretty hard for 2-year-olds in general.

The real performance would come later after Cameron was done trick-or-treating in the school’s administrative offices…

…and eating his loot…

…when he’s washing his hands!

Actually he normally could sing in both English and Mandarin pretty much perfectly, but he bungled it today. Still got an appreciative audience’s praise though! 🙂

Cameron’s school had a Father’s Night Out tonight. Since it’s almost Halloween, the teachers planned a pumpkin carving party. Vincent prepared in advance by gutting a pumpkin. Darren wanted to help, so he decided to create a step-by-step instruction sheet for how Vincent should carve out the pumpkin’s face and Darren made sure Vincent had the instruction sheet with him when he and Cameron left for the party. At the party, Cameron helped by painting the pumpkin!

Does the jack-o’-lantern look a little scary? 😉

Today Cameron went on his first field trip at Arata Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay. He had fun even on the ride over since he recognized Lemos Farm, which he’d been to with Darren a couple times already. Arata was trickier to find though—I saw another mom’s car circling too!—so unfortunately we got there a bit late, but Cameron still got to participate in all the activities that he wanted to, including a “train ride”, a “hay ride” (not real ones, but he liked them anyway, just as he did at Lemos Farm), a pony ride (this one’s real), and most importantly for me, posing in the pumpkin patch. I took so many pictures, but Cameron wasn’t looking at the camera for most of them. And then of course when his teacher, Teacher Tammy, walked by with her new camera that the Parent Association got her, he smiled for her and I knew she got a really good picture of him. She promised she’d give me a copy, which I found on the school’s website. Thanks Teacher Tammy!

Cameron started going to Music Together classes when he was just a year and 1 month old—that’s 1 year and 9 months ago—and Darren has been going a year before that, but I rarely video them in class because the teacher requires a high level of parent participation. Today though when Cameron started spinning to the music, I just couldn’t help but pull out my iPhone—he’s so silly and happy! And of course at the end he made the requisite request to view his own performance!

That’s how Cameron greets his swim buddy—Amara—who was in Cameron’s first swim class when he was 8 months old and has been in the same class with him since then. Cameron has grown to love Amara. 😉 Today we ran into Amara and her mom at the grocery store after swim class (in which he got his blue ribbon!) The two kids had so much fun together—shopping and dancing to the music in the store—I had to invite Amara over for a playdate, scheduled for less than 2 weeks away! 🙂

Cameron’s swim teacher has been trying to get him to do up-faces (which are what his swim school calls getting an exchange of air while swimming on the stomach) to swim across the pool. A couple of weeks ago, his swim teacher and I all of a sudden realized Cameron could do his up-faces without any help because he’d only be holding a spongy toy that’s as small as his palm, but psychologically he thinks he has a floatie. Last week, he swam across the pool, doing up-faces, all by himself. Even the most senior supervisor on deck noticed and clapped her hands at Cameron’s milestone. Today after Cameron executed his up-faces swimming across the pool again, his swim teacher told me he earned his Blue Ribbon! I wasn’t expecting it because more often than not, the teacher gives you a heads-up to get you to help the child work for it. The only other time it was a surprise was when Darren got his Green Ribbon, but that was 3 years ago! I love good surprises, so Cameron’s Blue Ribbon made my day! 🙂

When I came home with Darren from his gymnastics class today, I found Cameron holding court over his firemen, fire trucks, and other vehicles, reading them his fire truck book. I have no doubt he’s inspired by Darren who loves to play teacher with his stuffed animals, but Cameron’s spin on it is pretty creative too! I videoed Cameron for two and a half minutes, but as Vincent had instructed not to go over 30 seconds in the interest of our readers’ time, I created the following clip—yes I cheated a little bit! 😉

Gymboree is usually quite good at pretend-play with their limited equipment and toys. Today the famous Gymboree log became a choo choo train, which Cameron loved of course. But it turned out what he loved more was falling off the train! Not very realistic—I hope—but clearly Gymboree is even better at making little ones laugh!