Campbell's Blog

What is different to me in raising the second child, is that you aren’t fully occupied with just finding things for them to do in isolation and one on one satisfying their time. Instead, he can just sit and have a small thing to play with, and mostly be occupied with observing his sister and what is going on in the room.

All around Campbell seems to be a pretty happy baby. The only times he cranks up are when he is bored with whatever he is doing, has a dirty diaper, or is hungry. A lot of the time he is pretty happy and even laughs quite a lot. A lot of his laughter comes just when he sees something he finds funny going on, for no apparent reason. This was the case this past week when Lisa captured him sitting in his sister’s room watching her play around and for some reason he just found it extremely funny. I’ve never heard him laugh so hard.

Funny Sister Video 2

69.3 MB / Time 0:38

I have the second video in the series listed first because it is smaller. If you are up for more and a longer download, then tackle the next video too. It is the first one that Lisa recorded.

Funny Sister Video 1

128 MB / Time 1:11

Campbell’s six month appointment was in the middle of this month. Wow how he grew. He weighed 17lbs. 9.5oz. His height was 26 and 1/4 inches and his head circumference was 43 and 3/4 cm. That puts him in the 50th percentile across the board! He also has two cute teeth on the bottom. Our little baby is growing too quickly.

As happened with Mara, Campbell is getting older and a little bored with his existing sitting activities. Even though he could possibly outgrow this item very soon, Mom went out and got the little one a Jumperoo upon recommendation from Aunt Jen. It would be an understatement to say that he loves it! When you put him in it he gets the activity right away and starts jumping. In fact, he has been in a complete fit crying, but once you put him in this he gets happy and laughing.

Lisa took some video of him last week when the Jumperoo first arrived home. Take a look.

Jumperoo Video

4.3 MB / Time 0:58

Yeah, I realize this is a little late but better late than never. Having two kids is a lot of work! So Campbell had his four month pediatrician appointment on August 22, 2007. He weighed in at 14lbs and 10.5 ounces. A height of 24 and 1/4 inches long and a head circumference of 42 cm. That puts him in the 45th, 25th and 30th percentiles respectively. Our sweet little man is growing rapidly.

He’s gotten so much personality as of late. If there is anything going on that sounds even half way interesting while he’s trying to drink a bottle well you might as well forget it because he needs to check out the action.

Our little hercules likes to sit up by himself now although we still watch him because sometimes he can topple. Lisa, our new nanny, showed him how to stablize his body with his hands out in front and she said he does it all by himself now. He also is trying to roll over from his back to his front. He gets to his side at this point but that is about it.

Last week we had a visit with a pediatric pulmonologist at Wake Forest but the visit was rather inconclusive about what exactly is going on with his breathing and coughing. He is now taking some Singulair powder on his rice cereal to hopefully stop some of the coughing. Amazing how much he had grown from the August pediatrician visit. At WFU he weighed 15lbs and 15.2 ounces and measured between 24 and 1/2 and 3/4 inches long.

He started rice cereal right after his four month pediatrician appointment and just two weeks ago he started trying all the veggies. He’s had carrots, squash, green beans and peas now. Tonight I actually started a fruit. Bananas, to be exact. It’s the same funny expression with every new food. How are these eating solid food facial expressions for personality?

Way back when we started Mara’s blog we put together a set of pictures on shutterfly. One of my favorite pictures was of Mara sitting on top of my shoulders when she was about four months old. We recently got the chance to do the same pic with Campbell. Maybe this will be a “classic” too. He looks cute up there.

Campbell was telling us the other day that he misses Grandma already. She came in for a visit last week and left on Saturday. They would just sit on the couch and laugh and laugh. It was so much fun. Luckily we are going to see her again soon.

Here they are cracking each other up.

With Grandma Video

8.0 MB / Time 1:42

The last post we shared the pictures we had taken at the beach last week. We took some more photos during the rest of the week and we will try to post them as soon as we can.

Over the past few weeks Campbell has become more of an interactive baby and has entered into a real fun phase where he truly lets you know he is working on learning as much as possible. He isn’t nearly as passive anymore. He has bundles of smiles to give and he is curious and looking around all the time.

At the beach Mom caught him in a fun moment. A week or so earlier she had noticed that Campbell was doing a little more than a simple coo sometimes. It doesn’t sound completely distinctive, but after multiple times of doing this, we are sure at this point that he must be giggling. A sure sign is also (the obvious perhaps) that in order to get him to make the sound you tickle him a little. Since he really can’t “defend” himself I tell Mom not to do it a lot. You know how it is if you get tickled too much it can be annoying. You be the judge, is he annoyed?

Campbell Giggles Video

5.0 MB / Time 1:01

This week Campbell is on his first trip to the beach. We are at a house with 5 other families on the Outer Banks, Pine Island in Corolla, NC. In total it is 24 people, so that means a lot of kids running around. Campbell saw the ocean for the first time yesterday, Tuesday. He didn’t get a chance to dip his feet yet, but we hope to have him do that soon. He’s been spending too much time sleeping. Here he is on Dad.

Going Overboard

Big sister is having a great time with both the pool at the house and the ocean in the back. She hasn’t swam so much in consecutive days and that is really helping out her skills. Later we will put up video of Mara on her blog if we can.

Mom and the Kids

Click through either of the pictures to see all that we have taken so far. See Preston, Carrie Lynn, Reagan, and others…

The week before Campbell’s two month check-up (mid June) we thought he might be getting sick. The next week he had his check-up including all his vaccinations and then the following week we were at the pediatricians again because he was breathing rapidly and we thought we were hearing some wheezing. The first day the doctor didn’t hear it but wanted to see him again the following day. She heard it this time. We couldn’t really figure out what might be causing it though. He was coughing some too and very mildly congested. It’s not really RSV season and she thought he’d be too young to be showing signs of Asthma, which I have. She gave him a round of antibiotics, Zithromax.
I had been sick right before him and mentioned this to the doctor so she thought he might have whatever respiratory infection I had. She had originally said at his 2 month appt. that he probably would not catch anything from me because I was breastfeeding him and he was getting my antibodies to whatever I had. Long story short, a couple of weeks past and he seemed better but not well. Then when we were driving home after visiting Jen and Conan’s for Grace’s Christening, he seemed to have another spell of the rapid breathing in the car. We saw the pediatrician the following three days and it was decided he needed a round of oral steriods to clear up his lungs as well as a nebulizer treatment of Xopenex (.31mg) to open him up for easier breathing. We also got scheduled to see a pediatric allergist. Her conclusions were much the same and he was getting better. She decided we should start some nebulizer Pulmicort and discontinue Xopenex unless needed. We saw her a week later again for a follow-up and Campbell sounded much better. She couldn’t even hear a wheeze at this point. We now have another appointment in one month to make sure he is still doing well.
It’s been tough worrying about our little guy and his breathing, wheezing and coughing! He’s been such a trooper. His demeanor would certainly not indicate he was ill in any way. Here is a picture of him below smiling with his nebulizer mask on while getting a treatment. The other pictures (be sure to click on any to see all of them) are just adorable ones that we’ve snapped. Those dimples get me everytime!

A couple of weeks ago the Evans family made the trek to Richmond for Grace’s Christening. It was Campbell’s second visit with his cousin but the first at her house. Since the Christening didn’t happen until Sunday we decided to have a little fun before then. We went to their Jen and Conan’s fitness club which has a spectacular outdoor swimming pool. The kids really loved it as you can tell from the photos. Wow what a super cute bikini little miss Grace was wearing too. Already a tiny fashionista! For those of you who don’t know him the unknown guy holding Grace is her Uncle Shawn, Conan’s oldest brother. Remember as always to click on any of the pictures to view the entire album.

Silly smiling Campbell

“Now I’ll be serious and pose with my arm around my cousin”

“Hey Campbell let’s do this punching/fist thing I just learned for this picture!”