3 months old

Today we took some 3 month pictures of Shelby. She posed very nicely and is quite the pretty little girl (if I do say so myself). Camden did well posing with her but we didn't get any good ones of him on his own today. In some ways, it is hard to believe she is already 3 months old. In other ways, it seems like she's always been a part of the family. What a sweet little muffin she is.

The weather has been nice this weekend so Matt finally mowed the lawn. We were company free this weekend since Matt's parents postponed their visit until next weekend. We've enjoyed some time together, just the 4 of us. April has been a very busy month with Camden's birthday, Tara going back to work, a long visit with Grandma Cochran, and potty training. If Shelby would just sleep longer stretches at night, we'd all feel a bit less tired!

Honey Bucket

I never thought I'd see the day when Matt would so willingly go into a Honey Bucket. We were out on a Sunday drive when Camden told us he needed to use a potty (I've also never said the word "potty" so many times in my life than in the past week as we've hit the potty training hard - with Grandma Cochran's help!). We stopped at the first one we found and Matt bravely took Camden off to use it.

Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of my little boy who has pretty much gotten the hang of this no diapers thing.

...with the greatest of ease

Camden continues to love jumping off of things. It started with jumping on pillows, then 'flopping' on pillows, then jumping off the couch onto pillows. Now he is jumping off the couch onto the floor with no pillows. As you can see by the big smile on his face, he loves it and for the most part doesn't get hurt. Shelby just watches him with a perplexed look on her face. She keeps an eye on him never knowing what he'll do next. Many of the pictures we have of them together show her watching him closely.

This is my first attempt at posting a photo blog directly from Picasa2. It's not fool proof, but it does work.

Drum roll please

For his birthday, Camden got a 'music box'. It contained a harmonica, tambourine, maracas and a drum (thanks cousin Maggie!). He loves to play 'band' where each one of us takes turns on a different instrument while we march around the house. Sometimes we improvise makeshift instruments such as a plastic coat hanger for a trumpet or trombone. We all have a great time. Most of the time at least one of us ends the session with a headache.

Anyway, here is a short video of Camden playing the drum. I think you'll be impressed with his technique.

Red40 and the potty progress

So our little guy is doing pretty well. He's not 180 degrees different after taking Red40 out of his diet, but he doesn't seem to fly off the handle at a moments notice. He still does every once in a while which we attribute to getting up too early or not feeling well.

We went to the pediatrician this week for Camden's three year checkup. We asked about Red 40 and he said there was no medical or scientific study to prove it had an adverse effect on behavior. He did however say there is a correlation with Aspartame and behavioral issues. So we'll keep an eye on those things and see if it continues to help. Basically the doctor said that if we think it is working, there is no harm in keeping Red40 out of his diet.

We're having some small victories in the potty training arena little by little. We think putting him in underpants instead of diapers is helping. He went poo poo in the potty for the first time today. Unfortunately (or fortunately) grandma was on doody for that one, so mom and dad didn't get to be part of that. Apparently about 20 minutes after going, he said something to the effect of "I like going poo poo on the potty". Hopefully he will continue to work on it.

80 degrees, Cousin Maggie and a Baseball bat

Friday Camden was at Pat's (daycare) and she celebrated his birthday. He had a big plastic baseball bat and ball as a present to bring home. Unfortunately, we don't have a big enough yard so I told him we'd take him to the park the next day to play with his new toy. Saturday we awoke bright and early to a gorgeous day of sunshine! We also awoke to a little boy climbing into our bed, leaning over into our faces and saying, "go to the park now?"



Camden had another surprise Saturday as Uncle Mark and cousin Maggie drove over for a visit. The dads took Camden and Maggie out to play in the sunshine and I (Tara) took Shelby to the grocery store and had some time to get dinner put together and muffins baked for our Sunday School group.



Here's an update on our Red Dye experiment. Camden has not had any (as far as we know) since Monday and guess what? He's been polite, well behaved, and FUN! Now, as with any experiment, it is difficult to factor in all of the variables that go with being a three year old, but I am convinced that the Red Dye is a factor on the days when he has the huge tantrums and meltdowns. I haven't seen any of the downright defiant or out of control behavior that I had been seeing and I am so glad!! It begins to make you feel like you don't know how to parent when your kid keeps going off the deep end for seemingly no reason.


Meanwhile...Shelby peacefully slept while the house was quiet! Sometimes she manages a long snooze with Camden around, but in the peace and quiet Saturday she had a nice, long nap. She'll be three months old on the 14th.

Camden and Shelby Playing

It is so cute to see Camden playing with Shelby. Here is a little video of their interactions. It's great to see Shelby give him some big smiles.

Red 40

Yesterday was a great day for Tara with Camden. He was well behaved, didn't have any potty accidents and took discipline well. Why so good one day and so bad another? She was reading on one of her message boards about other moms with troublesome three year olds and some intersting observations they've made. Apparently a common food additive called Red Dye #40 can have negative affects on a childs behavior. Not all kids...but some. We've decided to give it a little test with Camden.

Recently he's fallen in love with Crystal Light Fruit Punch and has been drinking it for almost every meal. It has no sugar or any other 'bad things' I thought we wanted to keep him away from. It does however contain Red40. Yesterday, he had no Crystal Light Fruit Punch and was an angel. We're going to keep him off of anything with Red40 as best we can for the next few days and see what happens. We'll have to be diligent to keep track of what he eats and stay away from Red40....it's in a lot of food.

Here are a few of the stories we read yesterday that helped us decide to give this a try:
http://floridadalton.com/files/RedDyeAwareness.htm
http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/2008/01/21/red-40-and-cracking-the-bad-behavior-code

We'll report back in a few days and document our findings for Camden. Our plan is to keep him off Red40 for a few days then give him some Fruit Punch (which we guess has a lot of it) and see what happens. Pray for us!! We really want this to be our solution for keeping our sweet well-behaved boy around more consistently!

Trip over the Mountains

We took a trip over Snoqualmie pass this weekend to have a birthday party for Camden at Grandma and Grandpa Cochran's house with family. It was a very fun party with balloons and streamers and dump trucks and dirt cake and cup cakes and drums.

On the way home we started hearing the reports that there was a snow slide across the road several miles ahead and to expect multi-hour delays. By this point it was too late to take an alternate route so as traffic began to slow to a crawl we feared that little Shelby would wake up and be hungry at a point where we couldn't pull over to feed her. Tara said a quick Prayer asking God to help Shelby stay asleep until we could feed her. She slept the entire way home (about 4 hours) The delays ended up only putting us behind 'schedule' by an hour. What a blessing!!

Camden was the perfect little traveler as well. He didn't sleep the whole way but he quietly played in the back seat and didn't make a fuss at all even though we didn't stop at all to stretch our legs (for fear of waking Shelby, who can make her displeasure widely known)


The Dirt Cake


Birthday Boy


The Dump Truck


The birthday boy and mom

A fun time was had by all!