March 09, 2007
The meaning of life
Yesterday Cam was telling me about the relationship between dinosaurs and pirates - they don't like each other much it seems. I informed him that dinosaurs actually lived before pirates existed. Then he asked what happened to them. And so I had to tell him that they got wiped out by an asteroid. He responded with the blindly obvious: 'well what are humans for then?' Since presumably we're just here for fodder. I put aside my own struggle with meaninglessness and said 'To love and be loved son.' He nodded in sagely approval, before pointing out that he had in fact seen dinosaurs at the farm earlier in the day. I guess that's his subtle way of saying that I'm full-of-shit. Thanks Cam.
Posted by John at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2004
Elton...
Posted by John at 02:15 PM
October 19, 2004
Cam's back from Italy
Posted by John at 09:18 PM
May 28, 2004
The Brownie Monster
Cameron has discovered brownies, football and digging in the garden. There are more photos in the gallery
Posted by Sam at 01:52 PM
December 25, 2003
Happy Christmas
Cameron had a wonderful Christmas, and received a haul of presents (he loves them all). As usual there are some photos in the gallery.
Click on the image below for a larger version.
Thanks so much for all the gifts.
Posted by Sam at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2003
11 months and counting
Duckman is 11 months old, and having a blast. His latest favorite things are:
- his ball pool
- bathing in the big tub
- his wooden walker truck (from Grandad)
- DUCKS (a major obsession)
He has four teeth, he can stand alone for a few seconds, he says 'duck' and 'up', he can climb up the stairs, and he is down to one nap per day :-(
He is a super happy boy. There are more photos in the gallery.
Posted by Sam at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2003
9 Months Old
Cameron is now 9 months old, and is as gorgeous as ever. He is just getting his two top teeth, he has a new best friend called Lisa, and he spends his days puling up to standing on anything that he can reach.
There are more photos in the gallery
Posted by Sam at 02:22 PM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2003
5 Months Old
He's five months old and gorgeous! (but I may be biased).
Click for larger versions
Posted by Sam at 02:07 PM | Comments (4)
March 24, 2003
Last Few Months
We just bought a new scanner, so I've uploaded a few photos to the gallery.
We've been pretty busy for the last few months; John's parents came to stay in January, we went to Cambria for a weekend in February, then Rachel came to stay for a couple of weeks and we went to Tahoe, the Russian River, Yosemite and Cambria again.
Cameron is fine. He is recovering from his first cold, but is getting back to normal. He's mastering his hands and can now reliably grab things and shove them in his mouth (everything goes in his mouth). He is much stronger, and can hold his head up and will sit with support. He's talking alot - saying 'ah-goo', 'hi', 'haaa' etc, and will sleep for 8-10 hours at night with one feed.
Posted by Sam at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2003
Get off your horse and drink your milk
Cameron had his two-month checkup today. He weighs 12lbs, his head is 15 1/2 inches in circumference, and he is 23 1/2 inches long. He's average in everything apart from his height, which is in the 75th percentile.
He had four vaccinations today, and screamed his head off, but seems to have recovered from the ordeal.
He's great fun now - he has a gorgeous social smile, and will coo interactively. He's taking a lot more interest in the world and has started reaching for attractive objects. His new favorite toy is his aquarium - he gurgles and grabs for the fish.
Here he is in his cowboy outfit.
Posted by at 06:38 PM | Comments (2)
January 25, 2003
Duckman
At bedtime, after a couple of hours of grissling, huffing, and puffing, the Duckman enjoys chilling out to the Buddha Bar.
Posted by John at 11:26 AM | Comments (1)
December 25, 2002
Happy Chrismoose
Happy Chrismoose everyone. Here's Cameron in his Xmas outfit from Aunty Lin and his Great Grandma. Cameron got all the gifts...and now he's going to have his first full bath!
Posted by John at 08:32 PM | Comments (1)
December 24, 2002
Happy Christmas from Cameron
Cameron had his first doctor's appointment yesterday. He weighs 8 pounds and 2 ounces, is 20 3/4 inches long, and his noggin is 14 1/4 inches in circumference. He's very healthy and no mother he does not have disproportionatly large feet.
Posted by John at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2002
Cameron In Action
A couple of very short movies for the family back home. Note that you will need a movie player installed on your PC. You may already have the 'Windows Media Player'. If not IE will prompt you to download it, this also could take a long time. These movies are only a few seconds, so don't bother unless you are very keen.
Firstly we have Cameron wriggling about a bit. (729k, or ~20 seconds with a 56k modem.)
Secondly we have Cameron hiccuping along to a bit of mozart. (8565k, or ~4 minutes over a 56k modem.)
Posted by John at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2002
Cameron's First Week
Roll cursor over images for captions...
Posted by John at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2002
Cameron
Just the facts:
Our baby boy, Cameron Thomas Merrells, was born this morning, Sunday 8th December, at 6:22 am in El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, California. He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and is 20 inches in length. He's a very healthy, happy and loud baby!
The gory details:
The birth was long, very long. We had two days of intermittent contractions that just wouldn't become convincingly frequent, long and hard. By Saturday night we were exhausted and thinking about serious medication to get some sleep. Our doula, a lovely lady who does professional labour support , suggested we try a bath. To our delight (and dismay) the contractions then came really fast and strong. Sam laboured hard at home for four hours, mostly standing, leaning against a table, me pushing her back as hard as I could. We then went into the hospital at 2:30 am to see how far we'd got. She was 5 cm dialated, which was great. Our labour nurse was really nice. She'd worked at El Camino for 40 years and our baby was to be her last delivery before retirement. She was very supportive of our desire to have a natural birth. We were both dispondant that we might have another five hours of dialation to go, but our doula persuaded us to keep going a bit longer. The next 45mins was quite surreal. Sam was sat on a plastic chair in the shower and I squatted on the other side of the curtain ready to push her lower back as each contraction came. I nearly lost it here. I couldn't stand to see her in so much pain. At the next check Sam was 9cm dialated and burst into tears with shock that she'd got so far so quickly. We started the pushing phase soon after and Sam learnt fast, but the contractions died down with being in bed. Sam pushed hard for an hour. I almost lost it. Our doula came to the rescue again and we did a couple of pushes squatting on the bed. Our regular doctor was away so the oncall doctor came to perform the delivery. We were so lucky as she totally accepted our desire for as little medical intervension as possible and patiently waited for nature to take its course. He appeared at 6:22 am. I cut the cord. He yelled and yelled and threw his arms and legs around. He was straight onto Sam's chest. It was the most amazing moment. I was so totally shocked. I'm not sure why, as we'd been anticipating this moment for five years. I had such a head rush that blood started pouring out of my right nostril. Sam is just the strongest woman. To breath through all that pain and to be totally exhuasted and still push the baby out is just the most amazing thing. I'm in awe.
Posted by John at 11:06 PM | Comments (6)
November 10, 2002
I'm BIG!
Finally we managed to take some photos of me looking semi-human. Here I am at 7 months and 8 months respectively. Click on the images below to get a full-size version.
This is the new house - it's semi-detached and we live in the left-hand side.
Posted by at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2002
Fetus Envy
John came over all maternal last night, and made his own 'veg-baby'. We think it's to-scale, but we didn't weigh it.
Posted by John at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2002
It's a boy!
We had an ultrasound today, and saw BBM at 19 weeks. The doctor seemed certain it is a boy - the pictures haven't scanned in very well, but the originals seem to support his theory.
The first words out of John's mouth were 'its got a HUGE head', to which the doctor responded that that was not the most reassuring thing to say to an expectant mother :D Perhaps we'll call him 'Noggin'.
We saw everything, and saw him moving. He's becoming quite active, and seemed to enjoy 'Minority Report' last night.
Check out the photos.
Arm and hand:
Head and spine:
Leg (it's upside-down, thigh on the right, foot on the left):
The decisive piece of anatomy (looking from below the baby, the pelvis is top right):
Posted by John at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)