The Many Names and Faces of Campbell Clive

Partially in response to Matt and Mimi's post about how many nicknames Matt has for Joshua, and partially because I've been meaning to post about how adorable and funny my little Camster is.

1. Cam
2. Cammi
3. Camby (Cadence came up with this one and uses it frequently)
4. Cam Cam (as in "Bam Bam" from Flinstones or "Pam Pam" from Office)
5. Cambo
6. Camboni
7. Campblo (I actually think this is what Cadence thought was her real name at first)
8. The Great Campbino
9. Porkchop (sorta messes up my flow here, but one of Spencer's top choices) var.: Poikchop (Cadence's version)
10. Campbell-oni
11. Cambone
12. Cam 'n Cheese (this debatably counts as two because Trevor* points out that it can refer to either "ham and cheese" or "Mac and cheese" with the mac backwords).Every once in a while I make the mistake of leaving one of the kids alone with Uncle Trevor. This time he happened to be equipped with some eye-liner. Whoops.

13. Campbellina (like "Thumbelina", a movie we watch often)
14. Camtastic
15. Campbell Ca-Bampbell
16. Campbell-bo-bampbell
17. Campbulence
18. Camcorder
19. Cammers
20. Bean-Machine (apparently this is from the root-word Campbino, "and she is shaped like a bean" Trevor adds)

The Great Campbino is a funnier baby than your average cutie-patootie. Not only is her head large and bald, her thighs laughably rolly-polly, and her face often serious and soul-searching. She has a sense of humor, too. It just took a while to develop and what it developed into was something....special.

Ye olde Bean Machine laughed for the first time at six months of age. From three to six months I humiliated myself in as many ways as I could think of to try to get this girl to laugh. She laughed once and then I spend two more months of humiliation. And then she laughed again at 8 months. Once.

Since the most recent recognizable laugh she's been doing this thing. Well, we finally realized she IS laughing. She opens up and lets out a loud throat-cough kind of a sound. I know I need to just record it and put it up here. I know she can laugh for real, but she prefers this throaty sound for now. It sounds more like she is choking. It's so funny.

Also, if she is pinned down, for instance, in a high chair or the changing table, and she sees Cadence, she has what I call a "happy seizure". Her body spasms and her head starts shaking from side to side really fast and she smiles really big. It always makes me worried and makes me laugh at the same time. It's pretty intense.

And then, of course, let's not underestimate how adorable her nakey little body is. If I have to keep getting up every night to feed her to maintain her squishable bod, I'll do it.

And by way of update/babybooking, Cammi J has started crawling right at about 8 months and she is all over the place now (almost 9 months). She pulls herself up on everything and she can stand on her own for a few seconds. Today at the tot lot she crawled through the play tunnel (like a tent tunnel) with absolutely no fear. I was proud. She says, "bah bah bah" and "doh doh doh" all day long. She is very attentive and will entertain herself forever as long as I am sitting right there with her. If I expect her to entertain herself while I change Cadence's clothes or make lunch....forget it. She's so funny and so much her own little person.

*For those of you who don't know, Trevor is Spencer's brother who has been living with us for the past couple of months, and who will live with us until June, when we are moving to Texas for an internship. Trevor is in the process of redirecting his life (was about to go to Grad school to study Psych and decided that wasn't what he wanted), and so for that time we get to have him around. He is oh-so-helpful and the kids love him. I call him my "Manny".