Someday I may write a book about the fascinating character that is our little Campbell. Tonight, I'll write a long over-due, long chapter.
Dear Campbell,
A month ago you had your second birthday. We spent the day together as a family experiencing some of our brand new Arkansas surroundings. We had a cook-out and swimming at Beaver Lake,
and then later we went to Chuck E. Cheese, which you and your sister are convinced is the most exciting place on Earth! You had a blast and we all had fun making it your special day.
At age 2, Cam, you are a little ball of fire. While you've mostly grown into your thighs and your head, you have managed to continue to astound, but now with feats of pure energy and exuberance. Your curly hair and classically beautiful facial features are a funny match for your loud shouts of joy and your constant need to have your hand in a toilet or lick a new flooring surface. People can't help but adore you and we, as your parents, have a hard time punishing for anything without laughing out loud at your over the top responses or your total nonchalance towards the trouble your are in!
Your words are coming much more quickly now. Today you started to say "why?" to everything. Your words aren't especially clear but there is something irresistably adorable about your diction and sentence structure. For the last few days you've had this conversation with me a few times a day: "Mama, wha da boooogooo go?" "I don't know, where is it, Cam?" "uh mouf (in my mouth), uh mouf, mmmm, yummy!" Daddy loves your enthusiasm whenever you yell "YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!" (which is often), and one thing we hear you say probably more than anything else is "a pity dess!" , which is "a pretty dress", and you insist on wearing one at all times, but never the same one for a whole day.
When you were a baby, you would NOT laugh. I tried and tried and tried everything I could, but you just wouldn't. You were 10 months old when you started laughing. Now you laugh well, and often. You love to laugh. You love to laugh at whatever anybody else is laughing at. And your laugh is so contagious! We all feel a little happier when we hear Campbell laughing.
You get into trouble fast. fast. soooo fast. You break and damage like it's a part of your daily regiment. And you are always hurting yourself. The other day we were having dinner at some new friends' home and I turned around when I heard you say, "eye huhts, Mama..." to see you spraying Lysol in your eye! A quick sniff of your breath indicated that you had sprayed it into more than just your eyes. That dinner ended abruptly! At Grandpa Clark's funeral it was impossible to keep track of you and I had several people come to me with reports of finding you in places you shouldn't be, such as standing on top of a toilet stuffing it full of toilet paper, playing with the toilet in the family/handicap restroom, opening the door to the parking lot, and judging by your diapers for the next week, sneaking a whole lot of fruit (and we'll get to why that's contraband).
Campbell, we can tell that you are only going to continue to bring joy to those around you! We love the little person that you are and the very big personality that you have. We are so grateful for the special touch of vigor and vim that you bring to this family.
We love you. Truly truly.
-Daddy and Mama.
Below are two stories I've been meaning to blog about you and haven't yet.
I can't think of any clever way to preface this story, so here goes:
While we were in California this summer you just couldn't get enough of the trampoline! You and Cadence were having a great time with Uncle John on the trampoline when I noticed that he was jumping like he had much bigger kids on that trampoline with him. I went out and warned him that your "little bones can't take it" and to take it easy, since, even if he's careful and thinks you won't fall off, if you land too hard....
Can you guess what happened not two minutes later? I ran out when I heard you screaming and John helped you off the trampoline and into my arms. I held you and tried to comfort you but you kept screaming. John said he thought you may have hurt your knee, but I thought it must be your ankle. We tried to ice it, which you hated. Gramps walked in the door just a few minutes after it had happened and assumed you were throwing one of your over the top tantrums and decided to give you the Gramps treatment. Without giving me a choice, he scooped you out of my arms and set you down and tried to have you walk with him to another room. You, of course, collapsed. He carried you to the couch and tried to talk to you like an adult. He hadn't been aware that you were hurt, and I didn't realize that he didn't know.
Meanwhile, I was asking aloud if I should take you to the emergency room and everybody agreed that I should wait to see what would come of it. I just had never heard you scream that way. But, having learned with my first that most emergency room visits are not pleasant, quick, or helpful, I agreed to wait. We gave you some Motrin and Mamaw, who had just completed EMT training, wrapped your ankle and you slept like an angel.
The next morning you still couldn't stand on it, so Mamaw and I took you to an urgent care clinic nearby. You, by the way, hate and severely distrust anybody in a white labcoat or scrubs. X-rays, doctors everywhere, waiting, and the pain...you were not happy there. And screamed until you couldn't anymore and fell asleep on the examination table. So you were asleep when they told me that you had fractured your ankle bone (buckle fracture) and that you would have to be in a cast for one month. They put it in a soft cast for the day and we would have to go get it casted the following day.
That day was supposed to be our Disneyland day (which Dad was chickening out of spending all that $$$ on anyway), so we decided to take it a little more easy and went to Knott's Berry Farms instead, which was perfect! We figured you were going to be sitting around anyway, whether we be at home or in a stroller somewhere. I used to say to my friends that I wanted to put your legs in braces sometimes so that I wouldn't have to worry about you running off so much, so that was sort of like a dream come true :) Except that you were in so much pain. It was so sad to see you like that!
The next day Mamaw and I took you to get it casted. We were able to get a waterproof cast, thank Heaven! We chose hot pink and called it your "Barbie boot" (two things you loved) so that you would be happy about it. And you were! You loved it. The first week you wouldn't move your leg at all. No scooting, crawling, even sitting on your own was pushing it. The second week you crawled along and got your taste for independence back. The third week (the very day we headed off for Yosemite) you finally started walking, albeit clumsily, on it, and by the fourth week you were running, jumping, using it as a club, anything you can think of.
The first couple of days your ankle seemed stiff, although you could dance on it just fine. Your right leg had atrophied just a bit and it was a little clumsy.
Here's another big Campbell thing I've been neglecting to blog about:
(Can you tell that it's getting very very very late? I'm tired and no longer feel like creative writing)
Fructose Malabsorption--
When Campbell was maybe 6 months old I blogged about how she was such a terrible sleeper. I spent much of her first year of life trying to find solutions to why she was such a "were-wolf": she was so pleasant during the day but a monster in the night. She was up twice a night, ever night, for one to two hours each time. She would scream and scream. I tried to let her cry it out. I tried over and over and over again. I tried everything I knew. But she never did sleep through the night. I was getting a little ragged.
Another interesting thing about Campbell was that she was famous for her terrible diapers. She always (I mean like several times a day) had really smelly, really crazy diapers.
Another thing was that she often got a really painful diaper rash. One that could only be cleared up with prescription ointment, and then it would come back within a week or so anyway.
Hmmm... any adult getting acceptable amounts of sleep would have put all those things together a little sooner...
So When Campbell was about 20 months old I thought to myself, it must be her diet!!! duh, Mard.
First I cut all dairy, and then I waited. And waited. I thought maybe I could see a difference. And then one day my friend was watching her and gave her a big cup of juice, and that night I could really tell something crazy had happened....and then I thought hmmm.....
So the next day I cut fruit. All fruit. And that night something magical happened. She slept. She slept through the night!!! (not me though, remember, I have another baby :) ) And her diapers were normal. And her diaper rash started to clear. HALLELUJAH!
Now she can have bananas, and that's it. It's been confirmed with a GI specialist that it is Fructose Malabsorption. Like Lactose intolerance, she may or may not outgrow it.
I just can't believe it took me so long to figure it out. But now that we've figure it, life's much better!
