Fun Noises

Stanley has really started to notice cause and effect lately.  This evening he tipped over a metal water bottle and noticed it made a really cool sound.  He picked it back up and did it again, and it made the same noise.  He laughed and laughed, and then kept on going.  It only got funnier as things progressed.  I'm glad he was so amused.  I thought it was a cool noise too.

Fattening those cheeks

We are all working on little Stanley's eating. Thankfully so is Stanley. He has been eating and eating and eating and did I mention eating.

The Tuesday after Stanley was sick, we took him for his 15 month checkup. They weighed him twice and I mentioned that he had been throwing up all weekend. When the doctor came in, he was somewhat uneasy about Stanley's weight. Stanley had grown taller and is still about 50% in height, but he had actually lost almost 1 lbs of weight since his 12 month check up. You can imagine this is of great concern to a pediatrician, but once he realized he had spend 4 days not eating and throwing up, he said to have him gain back some weight and come in for a re-weight check in a few weeks. We are trying to fatten him up to get back his cheeks from Thanksgiving.

Remember those cheeks from Thanksgiving. Let's aim for this. 

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. With all of the Cline family and the two Kelly men.

This is the first time since leaving home at 18 that I did not travel for the holidays. It was wonderful and Santa even found us in San Francisco. We are not sure how his raindeer did in the pooring rain, but they managed to deliver some wonderful presents. Thanks Santa!

Santa came!

The Cline family together on Christmas...
the first time since 2005!!!

Papa Doug got fruit cake and we have all enjoyed
the home made delight except for Stanley. We have
spent two weeks coating it with booze.

Crowns all around except for Stanley that hates all hats
except Aunt Liz's hats

Family photo Christmas morning.

Earlier this month we enjoyed a horse drawn carriage
ride through Noe Valley. This is in front of Walgreens. 

Out little family of 3 and the great tree Dad
got on his bike.

There was a lot of shredding happening on Christmas. 

No matter who opened a present, Stanley felt it was his. 

Naps are way over rated

Stanley thinks napping is way over rated when there are fun things to do with grandparents. We had some amazing adventures today.

The grate was amazing! 

A past post

Our blog has been falling behind like everything else in the past few weeks. Stanley managed to get us ALL sick.

After Stanley spent the weekend of my birthday sick, he got me sick. Steve and Geoff were also under the weather, but managed a bit better than me. After all feeling a bit better on Wednesday, we suddenly on Thursday were back to throwing up. Poor Geoff had to move out of his apartment and drive back from Fresno between getting sick.

As a result, when Papa Doug and Lolo arrived for Christmas, they had to stay away from us. We wouldn't even let them come say hello to Steve or Geoff. (Stanley and I went down to their hotel to say hi, but didn't touch them much.). Steve had gotten the Christmas tree while he had energy, but that was as far as we had gotten on decorating.

Luckily we were all back in shape just barely in time to eat an amazing roast for Christmas dinner. And the presents all were wrapped with a few hours to spare.

So much for being prepared for Christmas.

Poor Stanley, he apperenlty played so hard he
needed to sleep...on the marble.

Geoff tried to keep Stanley busy, but none of us had energy to play with the kid.

 

'Hi' World

Stanley learned to say 'hi' last night. He enjoyed repeating it and telling Lolo and Papa Doug hi quite often. Sadely he did not want to tell the blog. Everytime that I turned on the camera, he would stop saying it and say random noises. As soon as he heard the click of the camera off, he would start saying 'hi' again. I caught one little 'hi' in the video below.

 

The rest of the videos all turned into this.



It's raining it's pouring

Stanley's first unaided picture

Well except for the caption at the top

Sick little boy

I guess it's time; at 15 months, Stanley got sick. He appears to have brought home Norovirus or at least some sort of rough flu.

So far in his life, Stanley has only gotten some colds. We count our lucky stars that he has been healthy. This was not for the lack of exposure; Stanley has passed Steve and me quite a few sicknesses, but Stanley seemed to escape the effects himself. Now though, the poor little guy is in a rough way vomiting and has a fever. Before we realized what was happening, he projectile vomited Sunday morning and then was in quite a great mood playing. Talk about boot and rally. Unfortunately, he deceived us; we ventured out on the train and about 1.5 miles from the house he puked all over the Muni train. Amazingly when a baby pukes, everyone is very thoughtful and tells us to take care of the baby. I cannot imagine this would have been the reaction if it was an adult puking.

It is so hard to see him sick. Yesterday, he could not keep milk down, but all he wanted was the comfort of nursing. I felt terrible; not only was our baby sick, but we couldn't even give him what he really wanted.

We made a bedroom out of our living room and Stanley and I spent the day sick in the living room.

Above, Stanley has come to hang out with Dad. It might look like a normal photo to most people, but our little boy never lays down like this unless he is off to bed. Poor little guy!

OK

So, maybe this was a bit much.

Yes, that is a 7 foot Christmas tree. It was very hard to ride. Probably not the best lashing job, but I was by myself while Julia and Stanley were home sick.

Christmas cookies

Making Christmas cookies.

Christmas pictures

We took advantage of Geoff being in town on Saturday to take some family Christmas pictures. We enjoyed taking a little ride on a horse drawn carriage through the middle of Noe Valley and then wondering around to different areas for our Christmas picture. Geoff got some good shots. Thank goodness we did this on Saturday. Sunday morning Stanley was in his running mode and did a face plant on the side walk. It left quite a puffy and bloody lip. It would not have looked very good in the pictures.

Quick stop in the laundry mat for some delicious coffee

Two Kelly men

Walking...

Stanley's favorite past-time. walking/running

We had quite a few pictures like this...get me out of here!!!

Enjoying the Christmas decorations

Strangers

Uncle flounder is living with us for a few months since he just moved to SF. We all love it!!

Uncle flounder keeps Stanley occupied and Steve and I are getting spoiled with an extra set of hands to help care for everything. Geoff even picks Stanley up from Halima when we cannot get home in time.

Out on an adventure.

Stanley loves people that he knows but he is quite apprehensive about strangers. Uncle flounder captured it in these pictures from Costco. A friendly man came up and wanted to give Stanley a friendly high 5. Stanley had nothing of it.











But check out the photo from 10 seconds later when he sees Uncle Flounder.

Lounging

We were at Costco the other day and they had this tiny recliner out as a demo in the aisle. We put Stanley in there to see if he liked it. I think he got the hang of it pretty quickly. That is some nice lounging there.

Chalk

Stanley and I spend the morning at the market and walking around downtown while Steve and flounder slept.

Since it was quite early, Stanley got almost free run of the chalk and asphalt on which to draw.

He still doesn't have the hang of drawing, though he made a few lines here and there. He enjoyed more giving chalk to older kids and watching them make pretty pictures.

I was pleased that he didn't even try to put the chalk in his mouth until about 20 minutes of playing with it.

Rain

We had a huge rain storm come through last weekend. It dumped something like 7" of rain around the area with lots of wind. Finally when it cleared, we ventured to the rec center. Stanley really wanted to stomp in this puddle but it was off limits.

Later I was chatting with another mother and turned around to find Stanley enjoying a slightly smaller one.

Originally, I thought I was being a good mother giving him shoes with soles on them rather than soft soled shoes. His standard leather soles just absorb water when the ground is wet. Maybe we'll need to invest in some rain boots at some point.

 

Desperation

We had a very cranky little boy two nights ago. He appears to be teething like crazy. I was trying to cook a nice Sunday night meal for all of us while Steve was out working. Stanley only wanted to be held. I tried lots of our ticks: give him an 'orchastra' of pots and pans to bang on, turning on his kids music, letting him play DJ, and giving him cups of water to touch.

Nothing worked, so I resorted to desperation. I gave him lots and lots of buttons, a full keyboard worth of buttons. He loved it and I was able to put a wonderful dinner on the table.

Word of the day

This was our conversation with Stanley tonight while putting him to sleep.

Steve: Happy
Stanley: Haaa ppy, happy, happy, happy.
Pause
Julia: Happy
Stanley: Happy, happy, happy

I guess Stanley was happy.

First Words

Stanley really knows what he wants lately, but just today and yesterday he has started to try to speak 'words'. We officially think his first word is 'apple'. He loves to chew on long slices of apple and when Steve offered him an apple slice tonight he took it and said "aapl". Close.

And, just this morning, Halima told us that he says "CooCoo" which is the way the Russian birds sing. In addition, Halima is very curious where he picked up the Russian word for 'love'. She thinks Stanley must have heard her saying it to her kids on the phone, but apparently Stanley now says любить. I definitely wouldn't have picked this out of just babble, but our little boys appears to be bilingual: one word in English, two words in Russian.

Getting into the Christmas spirit

We adventures to union square this past weekend to see the tree. Stanley was running around like crazy enjoying the sights and sounds. It was hard to hold him for a picture because he was endlessly trying to pry himself out of my arms to run around some more.

Union square

We went to union square this last weekend to do some shopping and see the Christmas decorations. We had a great time in the beautiful weather. Stanley got to see the giant tree and run around in the square some. It was nice to enjoy the sun before the rain comes later this week.

You might be able to see in the pictures that we were barely able to keep Stanley contained. He really has a lot of energy lately!

More Dancing

When we were in Denver for Thanksgiving Stanley got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade with Lele.  Lele was very glad that she had another enthusiastic viewer for the parade, since most of the family usually is only interested for the football games to come on.  Stanley even got into the act a little bit, dancing to some of the acts as they performed in the parade.  Have a look.

Slides

Stanley used to be terrified of slides at the parks near our house.  The other kids would run laps around the slides, going up and down, giggling all the while.  Stanley would have none of it.  We put him at the top a few times, hoping he would figure it out, but no dice. 

About a month or two ago, we showed him how to go down the slide on his belly, feet first, and he decided it was really fun.  Now he loves the slides and makes a beeline to them whenever we get to a playground.  Yesterday at the playground near Lele and grandpa Tom's house he was having a great time going down the small "little-kid" slides, and then started eyeing the longer, twisting "big-kid" slides.  We helped him get up to the top and then, after deciding if he REALLY wanted to go down this big slide, he went down.  He LOVED it and went right back up for more, and more, and more.  He was pretty angry when we had to leave, but we'll go back soon. 

Piles

Stanley is taking after his mother again. He started taking all the videos and DVDs off the shelves and putting them into separate piles. Two on the couch and two on the floor. Reminds me of the kitchen counter sometimes.

Like mother like son

I had the difficult duty of waking both Julia and Stanley from their naps this evening. They both fell asleep around 4:30pm just as it was getting dark out. I thought this might be a problem, but they both seemed tired so I let it slide.

My suspicions were confirmed when I woke them up at 6:30pm. Julia had no idea it was still nighttime and I'm pretty sure Stanley was thinking the same thing. They were a cranky mess for a while until they both woke up all the way. No more naps that end when it is dark outside.

Potty

There is no picture of this because I don't want to horrify my son in 10 years, but this morning Stanley went pee in his little potty. We were all very happy about it. Steve and I were happy because he used the toilet correctly. Stanley seemed happy because Steve and I we're dancing around afterwords.

Friends

Peter and Stanley keep Halima busy

Dancing

Over the last month, Stanley learned to dance. He takes after his grandfather Doug and loves dancing. Stanley picks up his feet and turns around a bit. And, if there is no music on the radio, it doesn't matter since he even sings his own music.

I have had a very hard time catching him dancing because he stops as soon as the camera comes out. But, tonight, I finally captured a bit of it by hiding behind the door frame.

 



If he hears music, his dancing feet come out quickly, even if it is just for the music interludes between news on our NPR station.

Working

I'm not feeling well, apparently Stanley wants to help me get my work done. This is what I saw when I came out of my room this morning.

Cambridge

thanks for the photos Betsy

Stanley it's OK you don't like Harvard, just keep in mind Brown
when applying to schools.

Stanley happy at Burdick's

Leaves

Wow Mom look, these things fall off the trees here in New England.

Boston with Mommy

Stanley and I have had a great long weekend in Boston to see friends. It was kind of an impromptu trip and we left Steve to fend for himself after his trip to Florida. Steve is going to be happy to see little Stanley when we get home tomorrow--it has been more than a week!!

I was getting a bit nervous about the trip with Hurricane Sandy and Stanley screaming throughout many of the nights this past week. But, the trip has gone smoothly. We even got a spare seat next to us on the way out! And, the screaming has stopped as Stanley's front top right tooth cruised out today and the left one is just behind.

Here are a few pictures from our adventure with Betsy and Andrew.

Big shoes to fill Stanley

Hmm! Not who we were expecting in the crib