I can't believe it's been two months since my last post!!!  To say I'm behind in posting pictures is an insult in being behind - I've got pics from maaaany events in December, January, and February, not to mention just not having any pics of Dexter up for you to see his growth.  I'll try to rectify that soon, in the meantime I've had a chance to capture a short video of Dexter laughing.  Finally, Dexter has his own video!  :)  Enjoy!

We had broccoli for dinner today.  Usually we have to cut it into smaller pieces for Cam and sometimes we have to 'hide' it by mixing it into his rice or whatever else is on the plate, but today he was grabbing them on his own and eating them whole.  At one point, he popped an entire piece into his mouth, chewed it all, swallowed it, looked at me, and said "Booyah."

There have been many awesome moments with Cam, that may have been the most awesomest moment to date.

I'll be right here waiting for someone to play with me

Dex is a very laid back, low maintenance baby.  He'll sit on his bouncer without a peep while we are doing some chores or keeping Cam occupied.  Ten to fifteen minutes later we'll go to check in on Dex and he'll light up with smile and start kicking his legs and waving his arms excitedly.  Poor little guy, he was just waiting for someone to attention to him.  No complaints, though, just sitting there waiting patiently.

He is a laid back baby, but when he gets upset he'll let you know with a mega put where his lower lip engulfs his upper lip and his eyes portray such a pained look.  I find it quite endearing.  :)  He pouts for a few seconds then resumes his laid back self.  But if Dex transitions from being merely upset to actual anger, watch out - when he gets mad, he gets really mad.  He follows the mega pout by unleashing an ear-drum shattering cry.  It's actually difficult to hold him when he's crying since he's close to your ears and it's just plain painful on the ears; I now understand where the term 'ear piercing' came from.  Luckily he doesn't cry all that often so it's not something we have to deal with too often.

Dex is also quite a chatterbox, he'll happily babble away in his baby talk with you when you play with him.  He says lots of different things as he's capable of several different sounds and syllables, but not just sounds - he's also physically expressive.  There are head bobs and shoulder shrugs and chin dips and making "O" shapes with his mouth and jutting his head out... it's a lot of fun to have a conversation with him.

We've also discovered that he's ticklish.  When you tickle his neck, he'll shrug his shoulder into his neck and his face gets all scrunchy and his tongue sticks out.  I love seeing Dex's toothless grin and the way his little tongue sticks out just a bit.  He's recently started to laugh, too.  It's not the long uncontrollable laugh that Cam had at this age, instead it's a quick burst of joy.  :)

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A couple night's back, Dex slept from 11pm through til 9am without waking up.  We were completely shocked and utterly amazed - was Dex about to turn into one of those mythical babies that sleep through the entire night from an early age??

It turns out that that was just a one time occurrence.  Dex does wake up in the middle of the night to feed, but he only wakes up once.  Sara's very happy that he sleeps for at least five hours at night - it's soooooooo much easier than the painful ordeal that we went through with Cam waking up every hour to eat.  I'm even happier about it since I'm not much help at night; Cam is still not sleeping through the night and needs somebody to sleep with him so I'm down in Cam's room while Sara's on her own with Dex at night.

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I'm still behind with posting pictures, but I've been able to post November pics, through Dexter's 10th week of life.  Enjoy!

New Year's Eve was an extremely low-key event for us.  We were trying to get Dex used to a bottle in preparation for going to daycare so we decided to stay at home to make it easier to stick with the program.  We let Cam stay up all the way til midnight... EST.  We watched the ball drop in New York at 9pm and then we all went to sleep shortly after.

Earlier in the day, Sara said to Cameron "it's New Year's Eve Cameron, what should we do to make it special?"  It was a rhetorical question, but Cam spent a few seconds thinking about it and replied "Um, how bout cake?" to which Sara said "that's a good idea Cameron!" and it was indeed a good idea, something we would not have thought of.

Cam was obviously pleased with himself - he spent the next few minutes saying "good idea Cameron"  :)

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Cam loves the zoo, during the Christmas break we talked about the zoo often and Cam got all excited to visit the zoo.  We finally ended up going but on our way there it started to drizzle and by the time we got to the zoo it was completely raining.  We didn't want to walk around in the rain so we said to Cam "it's raining Cameron, we can't go to the zoo" to which he replied "use umbrella!"  Can't really counter with anything so Sara and I were quiet.  A few seconds later Cam follows up with "use hat!"  More undeniable logic from our two year old.  Seriously, this kid, he's gotta stop having such good responses.

We couldn't really counter with anything but didn't want to walk in the rain, so went with Diversion Tactic #1: "Cam, let's go home and watch a movie!" and he excitedly replied "okay!"  It never fails.  :)

Editor's note: this post was originally written in November but the author has been too busy to complete the editing job til now.

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In a couple years, this pic will be replaced by one of them punching each other

Sara's mom headed home a couple weeks back, basically right after our Lake Tahoe vacation.  We all miss her, and Sara actually cried a little after she dropped her off at the airport.  (Sara will kill me for posting that, so you didn't find out from me)  We ask Cam "where's popo?" and he says "Can-dace!" which is Cam-speak for Canada  :)

Before Popo left, we had spent an afternoon at Golden Gate Park.  We entered the park on the Pacific Ocean side and it was extremely foggy and cold and wet and we were rethinking visiting the park for the day, but we drove inland all of five minutes and it was sunny and warm - a perfect day for a picnic.  Typical crazy San Francisco microclimates.

Popo had made some homemade sushi and Cam loved it.  I'm actually not sure what he liked better: eating the sushi or saying "sooooshi!" - he was so excited every time he said it.

There were tons of squirrels at the park, and they are sooo not afraid of humans.  I overheard a couple call them "vermin" and "wingless pigeons" and I could not understand it - they're cute little critters!  They came right up to us, even climbing right onto the bench where we were sitting and posed all cute-like, asking for food.  We found out why they're such nuisances pretty quick, though - when they didn't get food they were actually bold enough to jump at us to swipe some food!!!  One jumped right at Cam and I pulled him out of the way right in time, or the squirrel would have landed on Cam and who knows what would have happened at that point.  We avoided the squirrels whenever we stopped for a snack the rest of the day and had a nice day at the park.

We also visited Fisherman's Wharf with popo.  I figured Cam would love seeing the Sea Lions, but he wasn't all that interested and looked for other entertainment after only a couple minutes of watching them.

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We took Cam to the dentist for the first time.  He was not at all nervous, but that was probably because the first thing he noticed was the Megabloks table - he didn't see the big scary dentist seats and gleaming sharp tools of the dental trade.  The doctor was very nice and had a very calm demeanor about him, and Cam was still not nervous when we sat down with the dentist to listen to what was going to happen.  Finally it was time to check out Cam's teeth and I had to hold Cam down and of course he cried through the inspection and toothbrushing that the dentist gave him.  He was soothed when he got to pick out a "prize" for finishing his dentist appointment - a little plastic dinosaur.  At home, he fought and cried when I brushed his teeth for the first couple days, but after that he lets me brush with no complaints, though sometimes he does fight me not to avoid brushing, but to brush himself.  It's funny when he tries to brush himself - he just holds the toothbrush in place for a few seconds then says "all done".  :)

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Hallowe'en at Taleo

We ended up not going trick or treating this year.  I had to work that day (yes, I had to work on the Saturday. Boo.) so we ended up not going out trick or treating.  Sara had bought a big bag of candy and was all set to hand out the goodies through the night, but nobody showed up.  I don't mean "nobody" as in one or two kids knocked on our door, I mean "nobody" as in not a single person came trick or treating.  Our neighbourhood has gone from "sleepy and quiet" to "perfect environment for burglars" in my eyes.

Anyways, we didn't have any Hallowe'en activity at our home, but my office threw their annual mini-party for families so Sara dragged Cam and Dex all the way out to my work.  Not much to say about the party itself except that Cam had fun walking around and helping himself to the candy bowls lying around the office.

The big notable event was that Sara got rear-ended on the way to the office.  Sara and both boys were all frazzled and crying, but thankfully it was an extremely low speed collision in stop'n'go traffic and nobody was hurt.  The other driver was very sorry and placed a thoughtful follow up call to Sara to see how she was doing, and his insurance company (Allstate) was great about taking care of everything.  They even made sure we replaced the kids' car seats, something we didn't think about doing.

I'm quite happy to have replaced the infant seat as the one we had was a hand me down as getting a bit long in the tooth, but I have a hard time letting Cam's car seat go.  The collision was extremely light and I can't imagine that any of the seat's cushioning has been compromised by the accident.  It's better to be safe than sorry, of course, but I can't bring myself to throw what is a perfectly good seat away so it's currently sitting in our vestibule while I figure out what to do with it.  We'll probably stick it in the Lexus as an occasional use seat for when Dex gets bigger.

That's it for now, enjoy the few pictures I've posted.

We had Dexter's one month checkup.  He feels like a big and heavy baby, and I guessed him to be 10lbs 8oz... after weighing him, it turned out he was 11lbs 14oz!  Almost 12 lbs at one month!!!  Crazy giant baby!

That's 93%ile, from 35%ile at birth.  Another 2 percent and Dex woulda been off the charts!  For comparison's sake, Dex was half a pound heavier than Cam was at one month (maintaining the same half pound weight difference from birth).  Dex's other one month stats:
Length: 22.5 innches (70%ile, compared to 30%ile at birth)
Head circumference: 14 inches (50%ile, 30%ile at birth)

Dex is already bigger than Cam.  I was holding Dex for a lengthy period the other day, and my shoulders were aching the rest of the night.  I wonder just how big Dex is going to get...

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Dex all dressed up

For Dexter’s one month celebration, we had a small gathering of family at our home. Sara's mom cooked up a storm and we all enjoyed a delicious celebration, complete with red eggs :) The only regret is not taking a picture of all the food!

It was really nice having the 2 boys all dressed up. When we put Cam in a collared shirt, he said "Dada clothes" - that stuff'll melt his Dad's heart.  :)

Since Dex was in his Sunday-best, we took the opportunity to take some passport photos. Although we have decided not to go to Toronto for the holidays, we wanted to be prepared should we change our minds or decide to escape to a Mexican resort. Taking Dex’s picture was easier than it was for Cam, probably because Dex is older and not as giggly or perhaps it’s because we are experienced now ;)

Enjoy the pictures of Dex from two and a half to four and a half weeks.