LOL

Caleb is a mystery. He smiles a whole lot, and usually when we try to make him laugh, he smiles back at us. But now, he laughs pretty frequently too. But most of the time, we have no idea what makes him laugh. Or if we do know what makes him laugh, we have no idea why he finds it funny. Sometimes he laughs when we're interacting with him, but we're not doing anything funny or different than usual. Here are some other random things that have made him laugh in the past: Gabe's coughing, diaper changes, stuffed animals at Raymond & Sandra's place, and the wine bottles/wine rack in our house, and of course, his reflection. It's kind of funny though because when he finds an object he finds funny, he doesn't actually keep looking at it. He'll look at it, laugh, look away...somehow glance back, laugh...look away, etc etc.

This morning though, I discovered that he finds my scary "ROAR" funny. OK, maybe it's not so scary...but anyway, here's a clip of little Caleb laughing at it. He actually laughs more later in the clip...

Infant Dedication

We'll be dedicating Caleb at the 11am GrX service next Sunday (April 22). Yay!

Videos

I finally got around to uploading some older videos of a 2 month old Caleb that needed a bit of compression. Here they are:
Deep thoughts: This is around the time Caleb first started making lots of noise. Of course, now he makes a ruckus quite frequently.
Early Conversations: Along a similar note, we try to have "conversations" with Caleb. Of course, even now his replies are still his random "eh eh" "whoooo" and "cooooo" noises.
Bobblehead: Yep, Caleb does an excellent impression of one of those bobbleheads. His neck is much stronger now, but he still bobbles occasionally (but definiltey not this much!)

There's also a few newly uploaded (and not so old videos) on the video page. More to come later today if I'm not too lazy...

What's in a name?

"Caleb" has been in the top 50 most common names since 1997 and in the top 100s for the rest of the 90s. (By the way, check out this site to see the popularity trends of your name!) But in our experience, so many people have had difficulty pronouncing Caleb's name!

I understand that Caleb is not spelled the way it sounds (which is pronounced [Key-luh b] according to the pronunciation key, or practically like "K"-lub). Some people, like Gabe's mom, pronounce it like it's spelled, "Kay-Leb." That's more understandable, but his name has gotten seriously butchered in the pronunciation department by so many people. The first time we took him to the doctor, the nurse came out and said "Suh-leeeeebeh." We didn't respond, so she tried again "Kal-leebeth." We also didn't respond, so finally she said Caleb's middle name "Tyler." Then we looked at each other and said "ooooh, she's trying to call Caleb."

Actually, my mom and uncle often confuse the name "Caleb" with "Gabriel." It's pretty funny. My mom will say "Gabriel is the most important now. Everyone comes to see Gabriel, he's always the center of attention!" and "I saw the new Gabriel videos" etc. They both say that it's difficult because Caleb and Gabriel sound so alike. I find it funny, but I can't say that I agree. :) Thankfully, they're both getting much better at it (although my uncle still slips sometimes and calls him Galeb). Before Caleb was born, a large family dinner and the family spent the whole dinner learning to pronounce Caleb (and asked us why we picked such a strange name).

I know I should have expected it since before we named him Caleb, my coworker told me a story about how she was on a conference call with a Caleb, and asked the question "Is that correct Celeb (like celebrity)?" And he replied "uh, yes, but my name is Caleb." haha. It's just that I always hated when people pronounced my name "Sondra" so I was hoping that Caleb wouldn't run into such issues.

Here's why we named him Caleb - Caleb means Faithful and Bold. In Numbers, Caleb followed the Lord wholeheartedly and stood up in faith. So despite all this, I think it's an excellent name :)

Checkup Stats

Last week, we went to the doctor's for Caleb's 4 month check up. Here's how he measured up in all his previous visits...



This all seems expected to me except for the head circumference percentile statistic. Personally, I think Caleb has a HUGE head (see pic below).


Granted it's not huge compared to an adult head (after looking at Caleb all day, gabe's head looks gigantic), but definitley compared to his little body. Aparently babies' heads are suppsed to be 1/3 of their body (I'm not sure if that's in size or in weight). Anyhow, that's all good and stuff, but seriously, if Caleb's head size is truly less than 30th percentile and he's about average in weight and length, there are some kids out there with ginormous heads! They've got to be like 1/2 head or somthing! That's just scary.

Inherited traits?

Usually people either think Caleb looks a lot like me or a lot like Gabe. There's rarely someone who thinks that he looks like both of us. How is that possible? When he was first born, more people thought he looked like Gabe than like me, now it seems more people think he looks like me. I've heard that by nature, babies look more like their fathers when they're born so that fathers can sort of bond with the new baby and be assured that the baby is theirs - then later on the child comes to resemble the mother later. I'm not sure how true that is or if it's relevant in this case - I actually just think people thought Caleb looked more like Gabe when he was skinny and now that he's chubby (and has chubby cheeks!) he looks more like me. Who knows...

But that brings to question...what else does Caleb inherit that's like us?

• His dimples. Neither of us have dimples, but Caleb has 3 dimples (2 on his right side, 1 on his left). Is that stuff hereditary?
• His sneeze noise. Caleb makes an "awww" after many of his sneezes (and sometimes before). Apparently, I used to do that when i was a baby too (according to my mom). Do things like that get passed down?
• His "blue steel" face. Is this a baby thing? I don't think that's from either of us.
• His blonde eyebrows & lovely tan. Caleb was born with blond eyebrows (we're VERY happy they now look more normal). He also had a very nice darker complexion when he was born so we got lots of comments like "hmmm...Gabe, are you sure he's yours? He’s awfully tan...and blonde. *wink* *wink*"
• His sleepy feet movements. He moves his feet in his sleep, just like Gabe! both my boys have their feet constantly moving in their sleep. i always thought that was weird when Gabe did it, and now Caleb does it too!
• His "body builder" type body is clearly from me. :P Yes, people have commented that he looks like a body builder. It’s actually just that his fat is pretty defined so he looks muscular. If only we can all be so lucky :)
• His affinity for playing with this tongue. Seriously, he's always sticking his tongue out or making some weird face with his tongue. I don't really think that's from either of us.
• His laziness. That's clearly from Gabe. :)
• Caleb says "uh oh!" when he poops. We didn't teach him that, in fact, we've never even taught him to say "uh oh"...he just does it (and he says it rather loudly :) )
• His personality. Caleb's a really good baby. He's rarely fussy and doesn’t complain very much. This is clearly not from me (I was a very whiney baby...and kid...and adult...) I'm so glad he's more like Gabe in this area. Although I like to think he's fun because of me. :P
  

Growing boy...

12/6/06

2/22/06

Say Cheese..

Caleb's definitely not Camera shy...but apparently he thinks his concerned face is his best look. Usually he'll be doing something funny or cute, I'll whip out the camera and once he sees it he freezes like a deer in headlights, staring straight into the lens with a furrowed brow. So catching Caleb in his natural state is a rare occurrence.

Yesterday, Caleb was sitting on my lap totally laughing at Gabe - I mean very hearty, happy, loud and super smiley laughter. My camera happened to be next to me and since Caleb was looking at Gabe and not me, I was able to film him doing his laugh for like 2 straight minutes (with no furrowed brow!). I was so happy about this rare opportunity, but I was SO bummed when I realized that I didn't actually click the button all the way to start with so I actually didn't film anything. Booo. Anyway, he laughed again today, and I did catch that on video. But Caleb notices the camera so he stops and looks at the camera very concerned a few times in the middle of his laugh. Actually, I think he seems to be more humoring me with some laughing noises rather than laughing in this one. Well, at least he knows how to make mommy happy :P

On another note, I'm so thankful for digital cameras :) There's no way I'd be able to store this much film or develop this many pictures.

New Discovery...

hGabe discovered that when you squeeze Caleb's chubby cheeks together, he sticks his tounge out! What a strange little person :)

Posted by: mommy
(daddy claims he's going to post too, but since he hasn't yet, it makes these little "posted by" notes pretty pointless :P)

Nursery Rhymes

So...how well do you know your nursery rhymes? i always laugh at Gabe because he doesn't remember the lyrics to the most common nursery rhymes (like twinkle twinkle little star, itsy bitsy spider, etc). Gabe used to sing different songs to Caleb while he was still in the womb...but whenever he tried to sing a kiddy song, he'd need a lot of help on the lyrics from me or from google. :) once when i started singing baa baa black sheep he said "what the heck? baa baa black sheep? don't make stuff up! why don't i sing moo moo brown cow." what a silly hubby.

anyway, the other day Gabe was trying to sing BINGO to Caleb. so he started singing (to the tune of Old McDonald)..."Old McDonald had a dog..." I quickly interrupted him and said "Old McDonald had a FARM..." Gabe paused, and replied "See, that's what i thought, but the farm's name is Bingo? Old McDonald had a farm and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O..."

That actually left me stumped. I couldn't remember the tune to Bingo and I couldn't think of the regular words to Old McDonald had a farm...and why the heck would his farm be named Bingo anyway? :) Anyhow, I actually had to do a quick search to remember Old McDonald had a farm...e-i-e-i-o (what the heck does e-i-e-i-o mean anyway?) and to remember that the farmer had the dog named Bingo. Maybe in a few years, Caleb will be correcting my nursery rhyme lyrics...so sad, so sad...

posted by: mommy