This morning, while diligently chasing Nigel hither and yon, I’m quite sure Callum said “cat”… or something that sounded an awful lot like it. Since his usual verbalizations run to “dug-uh” and “duh,” “cat” seemed like a pretty deliberate departure. Wow. The beginnings of language.
Here’s a video on YouTube featuring Callum. If you can’t see the video in the window, you can try clicking on the link.
Interesting piece in Inside Bay Area about baby sign language. We haven’t been pushing this hard with Callum, because he still isn’t doing more common gestures like “bye bye,” but we’ve learned some of the common signs (more, milk, eat, mother, father) and expect we’ll begin using them more as time goes on. We’ve got a couple of videos
Scarcely a diaper change goes by that we fail to have an encounter with the Squirm-meister General, as we have come to call him. This is the part of Callum’s personality — which is increasingly ascendant — that insists upon flipping over, standing up, grabbing for faraway items, and generally making things difficult on the parents. This is despite the fact that we’re only trying to do things that are for his own good…. like protecting him from falling off the changing table, dressing him in warm clothes, and removing and replacing a dirty or pee-drenched diaper. He just doesn’t seem to appreciate our parenting at such times.
Of course, this gets me imagining the future, when we’ll be saying “no” to unchaperoned parties or past-midnight bedtimes. His squirming will, by then, have morphed into something a bit more psychological, I’m sure. I guess we should appreciate the fact that his “needs” at the moment consist only of grabbing, keeping in constant motion, etc.
Now an update… The boy has his first tooth coming in. It’s his left, lower incisor, and it’s sharp. I had one of those horrible working-mom moments when I told the day care provider about the tooth and she already knew. *sigh* Why didn’t she tell me? Also, he’s taken to standing up at every opportunity. He’ll “walk” forward when I’m holding both his hands but he’s not doing much locomotion when holding onto anything else. Generally, he’s becoming a menace to himself and others. I’ve also taken to calling him “the marauder” for the trail of destruction he leaves in his path. Maybe it’s time for better baby proofing 
I’ve heard from a lot of people that the earlier version of the crawling video (done through YouTube) isn’t working on their systems, so I’m trying this route, too. Hope it works for everyone this time. BTW, you also get a little taste here of how dangerous Callum is getting to himself. Seems like he’s bonking his head on something or otherwise causing himself injury pretty much every few minutes.
Last week, when I was in NYC for business, I subjected a frightening amount of people (thanks for indulging me, folks) to video of little Callum laughing and crawling. But I hadn’t shared such footage on the blog. So I’m now rectifying that omission with a video taken while I was away. He’s grown so confident in his own abilities to get around it’s quite scary for us parents. You’ll see what I mean if you watch.
I’m checking out YouTube as a means for adding videos to this site (and for a column I’m writing). This is old video, but we’ve got new stuff upcoming. Thanks for tolerating this test!
Callum is #15 on the list of the top 100 names for baby boys in England and Wales, 2005 edition.
Interesting story in the NYTimes about “cuteness” and its biological underpinnings. We found out last weekend that Callum was born on the same day as the panda cub (Tai Shan) mentioned in this piece. Callum was ahead in growth rate for a while, but the panda has now overtaken him. At last measurement, Callum was a little over 17 lbs, while Tai Shan has hit 25.
You may notice that the parents got smarter between Video 1 and 2 and actually put a bib on Callum. We also figured out that we need to hold his hands so he doesn’t grab the spoon and the food. You can tell we are beginners, too. He was very very enthusiastic for his first solid meal — rice cereal mixed with breast milk — but even so most of it went on his face and bib. Still, it was wonderful to see him so excited and ready for the new experience.