The Cline head

Us Cline's have BIG heads. Yes, I wear at least a Large if not an XL helmet. We have always known that Stanley has a Cline sized head. Here in Hawaii, it was proved true when he tried to put on Steve’s hat from when Steve was around 6 months old. Our dear 4 month old has way too big a cranium for it! Proof below. 

Hello Maui

On Saturday, Steve and I arrived with our cute Stanley in Maui. We are having a week vacation together where we stayed a year and a half ago. Don’t worry readers, we were reminded that our blog does not take vacation; however, we don’t have much internet access, so the updates will not be frequent.

This has been an amazing vacation so far and Stanley has been so much fun. He smiles all of the time! He hardly cries, he enjoys looking around at all of the new things (though at times this takes precedence to eating), and he has started to be able to play with Sophie the giraffe by himself while Steve and I do something for a few minutes.

Stanley has also been quite the charmer and captures many people’s attention with his big smile.

Here is a set of pictures from our adventures so far…

The first day, we took Stanley to the kiddie pool and he was infatuated by the gravel on his feet. There was no chance of having him look up at the camera. He wanted to see what was surrounding his feet. Sorry the sound is the trade-winds, so turn down the volume and just watch.   

Stanley enjoyed hanging out with us near the pool.

We then went and had a picnic by the ocean. Stanley got to spend some of his time naked after blowing out of his diaper during the lunch. That was only the first of 4 blow-outs that day. He is going to run out of onesies if he keeps this up.

Normally I don’t photograph Stanley’s naps, but for posterity, here Stanley is wearing Steve’s old jacket from when Steve was a few months old and a onesie that Steve ‘sewed’ for his sister Liz when Steve was about 5 years old. (Notice the wonderful heart he put on it.)

Today, after Stanley’s first dip up to his chest in a pool, we went up the volcano Haleakala.


We were a bit worried about Stanley and the 10,000ft altitude, so we did not stay long. (We were especially worried after we saw a guy pass out on the road while taking a photo at 8k ft)


But, we did stay long enough to enjoy the view and take a few photos. These moments were the only time that Stanley also got to enjoy the views. For the rest of the time, he was covered with a blanket for sun protection. And, in general, he hates the sun in his eyes, but with his sunglasses, he was his smiley self.

So long for now. We will update when we get back to a Starbuck's for internet. 

Assisted Sit/Roll

Just took this video of Stanley.  He started trying to sit up from his lounging position on the couch, and this is the usual outcome.  I guess he really wants to grab that cup!

Dad's Stuff = Stanley's Stuff

First it was my napkin rings (now a rattle and toy for Stanley), and now this!

This is a nice cup.

It's mine now!

Apparently, my red cup that I use for water is just too exciting to be left alone.  Stanley is playing with it now, grabbing it and pretending to drink from it.  I wonder what I'll be giving up next?  I have a feeling there is a trend developing...

Running on fumes

Steve and I are running on fumes. Thank goodness for Stanley's dear nanny Halima. She came in this morning and easily saw that Steve and I had barely slept. In this case, 'barely' seems like an overstatement. Stanley was agitated all night. We should have given him Tylenol, but wouldn't you know it, every time I thought to give him some, he fell asleep for a few minutes.

Halima took it on herself to help me with the laundry while the boys were sleeping. I don't know what we would do without her.

Anyways, both of Steve and I are really looking forward to our vacation next week.

Stanley 4month stats

Stanley and I went to the doctor for his 4 month checkup on Friday. Stanley was doing his normal standing that he loves. Since I did not have any toys, he was enjoying playing/chewing on the straps of my purse. When the doctor entered, he laughed a bit. He asked me how Stanley was doing and I suggested we have been having fun, but he is probably doing what most four months enjoy doing. The doctor suggested that most 4 month old babies would be sitting in their mother's arms and not riffeling through her purse. Then he went on to say, that if we read a particular book, only read the parts about 'active' babies. I guess Stanley takes after his parents who are pretty active and if I add, he seems to have the ADD type behavior of his Papa Doug and Mom Julia. I still felt somewhat proud of our little explorer.

His stats were:
Weight: 15 lbs, 12 oz
Height: 25 1/2"
HC: 44 1/4cm

He is now 75% for both weight and height. For those of you who remember when he was about 90% for weight, Stanley cannot keep that up. He really dislikes the bottle lately and just eats enough to get by during the day until I get home in the evening. The doctor had a few suggestions, but agreed that this is probably why we still have a boy who eats 4-5 times a night. For the entire day today, Stanley ate a whopping 6 oz. I guess it is better than me--when I was little I never took a bottle.

Weekend Fun

We all had a busy weekend this week.  On Saturday morning we woke up, made a nice breakfast and then took Lolo to the airport to head back to Rochester.  She had a great time visiting and was sad to leave Stanley, but it had been a while since she was home.  She and Stanley had a nice time together while she was out.

Bye Lolo!

That afternoon we went down to Los Altos where Julia got her nails done and then we had dinner with our friends Jules and Debbie before heading home that night.  On the way down there, Julia was riding in the back of the car with Stanley and all of a sudden he had had enough.  Julia thought maybe he was hungry, or at least feeding him would calm him down.  So, she decided to feed him while they were both strapped into their seatbelts.  I looked in the rearview mirror and this is what I saw:

Good thing she's flexible.

She got the job done.  Nice work, Julia.

Today, our friends Eric, April, Brian and Andrew came up to visit.  We all went over to visit the fire station down the street where Brian got to see the fire trucks up close and personal.  We were all having a nice relaxing time chatting with the firefighters, when one of them accidentally blew  the horn with us all standing there in the garage.  Everyone jumped back about six feet and all the children immediately began crying.  Quite a wake-up call!  Let me tell you, those things are really loud.  Anyways, April overheard two of the firefighters talking after everyone calmed down and one of them said to the guy who blew the horn, "nice one, Frank!"  To make up for it, they let Brian climb into the driver's seat of one of the engines.  He seemed to forgive them.

Captain Brian.

My pacifier Mom

Stanley has not been very keen on his pacifier lately. However, last night Stanley was in his car seat, Steve was driving, and I was sitting next to Stanley to keep him from crying. It was amazing to watch him develop a skill within a few moments. At one point, he grabbed his pacifier by the side and put it in his mouth the correct way. He removed it, studied it, put it back in. This repeated about 6 times. After that he must have figured he had it down enough and was ready for another development or maybe a nap.

It was a fun little thing to watch.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Stanley is getting a lot more hair on his head recently.  Just in the last two weeks, Julia and I have noticed he is much fuzzier up top than before.  Take a look for yourselves.

How long before I can have a mohawk, Dad?

Lolo thinks we are crazy, but I'm pretty sure on this one.  He'll have a mullet in no time, I'm confident.

Mommy and Baby

Julia really has been enjoying her time with Stanley when she gets home from work.  They spend a lot of time hanging out together and enjoying each others company.  Here are some photos of their recent Momma/Baby time.

Stanley at 4 Months

Stanley turned 4 months old a couple days ago.  The most recent developments seem to be that we have gone almost completely backwards with regard to our sleep and ability to soothe Stanley.  For instance, just a few weeks ago Stanley was only waking during the night once or twice to feed and we could get him to go to sleep fairly easily just by swaddling him and laying him down in his crib.  Now, Stanley wakes 4-5 times during the night and we can't get him to sleep unless I walk him up and down the hallway bobbing up and down.  Astute readers will recall this is how we got Stanley to sleep when he was just a few weeks old. 

Also, the rest of our tricks don't seem to be working.  Stanley doesn't like his pacifiers anymore.  Feeding doesn't really work to soothe him to sleep anymore.  Despite this, Julia is reminding me that he is still a joy.  And it's true. 

Stanley can:

- As of today, roll from his back to his front (once), we gave up the swaddle a week ago because he was trying to roll over like this in the crib
- Make new noises like coo's and gurglings that we interpret as him trying to roll his r's practicing for his Russian lessons
- Pick his neck and torso up much further than before, but still falls forward
- Hold onto toys and throw them on the floor (especially the jingle bell rattle)
- Smile at people he knows and likes (like us and Halima)
- Get his foot into his mouth during his "happy baby" pose

YUM!!

Stanley loves:

- The stroller and being outside on walks
- Standing up
- Eating his hands and feet
- His fuzzy blue blanket
- His "balls and sticks" toy that he gnaws on
- Watching football with Dad
- His chair and space station, although he may outgrow the chair in a bit

Stanley dislikes:

- Tummy time
- Being ignored
- Sitting still
- Pacifiers usually
- The time between 3-4am

News from Noe

We will write more on Stanley's 4th birthday tomorrow. But, for now, we have resorted to Children's Tylenol after a LONG night last night of screaming. Even the lady upstairs said this morning "Stanley you were not happy last night". I guess the walls are not Stanley screaming proof.

With the start of intense drooling, substantial crankiness, biting everything, and not sleeping at all, we thinking the teething has commenced. I'm not sure if it was tiredness or pain, but he was not very smiley today and he was particularly cranky for Lolo and Steve on MLK day.

I can say, I was also in a similar state today at work: tired and cranky. Hopefully the Tylenol helps.

Talking

A little video to share of Stanley talking.

Aiming for a lower weight class

Today, Steve, Stanley and I went into a the neighborhood baby store to weigh Stanley on their scale. I took off his clothes and unfastened his diaper for his weigh-in. He had a clean diaper. I walked him over to the scale using the old diaper as a guard incase of pee. Apparently, I had the wrong side. Just as I was taking away the diaper, Stanley decided to give back some weight by pooping all over him and the floor and a tiny bit on me. It was at least a 1/2 oz of poop. After a further clean up of him and a good clean of the floor, he weighed in at 15 lbs 11.5 oz.

I guess he really didn't like the sound of 15 lbs 12 oz. That was just too big.

Never a dull moment with a baby, but they sure are memorable moments.

Wow is 4 months

Things have been going very smoothly. The nanny is wonderful, Stanley is talking like a champ, he smiles tons. The wonderful part...

But, now for the honest not so fun part. If you don't want to hear me rant, then I'd recommend stop reading now.

I've heard that 4 months is the peak of fussiness. Oh boy for Stanley it really is. Every morning in the last while we have woken up at either 3 or 4 am with loud crying. I usually try to feed him and he doesn't want that, but then two minutes later all he wants is food. I was getting worried something was very wrong with him, but then if he sees or does something he will start cooing and smiling until he decides it is time to scream again.

And, these last 4 nights he has been up eating or crying at night on about the following schedule:
10pm, 12:30pm, 2 am, 3 or 3:30  am, 4 am (sometime 5 am) and for sure 6 am is when he wants to get up. Don't think about trying to snuggle with him to keep him quiet--he is moving like there is a marathon to run. At first I thought (hoped) he was being loud in his crib and would go back to sleep, but he let us know for sure he was not going back to sleep until he had something different. I like to think this is because he misses me during the days and wants to be with me (A nice thought as I'm stumbling around at 3 am getting him in and out of his crib)

After his last peak of fussiness around 2-3 weeks old, Steve and I have learned lots of tricks to make him happy and stop his crying. NONE of them are working right now. And, for sure the pacifier is out. He has taken it about twice this week and the rest of the time he gags to get it away.

Hopefully this phase too will pass. (quoting my grandfather)

I want what you have mom and dad

Stanley has really taken to looking at what we are doing and not what we give him to play with. He was infatuated with Steve's water glass this evening. Stanley kept pulling it closer to his face to eat--I'm sure he is more interested in the glass itself than the water inside.

He also really wanted my plate and ignored the toy I put on his lap. I thought this behavior would come later in his life. I guess we have many years of this in the future. 

Hi Mirror Baby

Stanley loves looking at his reflection in the mirror. Mirror baby is really thoughtful; everytime that Stanley smiles, mirror baby smiles back--imagine that. And, Mirror baby is even held by Stanley's 'mom' or 'dad'.

Stanley just cannot resist mirror baby. Even if we have an upset Stanley, mirror baby makes Stanley stop crying and start smiling. We can also get Stanley laughing lots while looking at mirror baby. He just loves him lots.

Hi Halima

Welcome Halima to our house. Today, Halima started taking care of Stanley. I'll see this evening how Stanley transitions to his new care-taker. She seems quite wonderful, very thoughtful, and very experienced. I have a feeling it will be a lot easier for him then for his poor mom. It just doesn't seem right that after only 3.5 months, I need to go back and be away from my son for 11 hours per day--this includes my 8 hour day and my miserable 3+ hours of commuting a day. It is going to be a rough few weeks/months.

I will post a picture of Halima and Stanley in the next few days; I will try to take one in the next few days.

Sunny SF

It was 70 today here in SF and the views were amazing all weekend.

View from Dolores Park

A walk at Lands End with Zury and Carolyn

Go Broncos

Aunt Liz has really kept my two men in great style while they support the Broncos. We added the blue pants and orange socks to the one-sie to finish Stanley's outfit.

Developments

Stanley really developed quite a bit while Lele was around. Here are some items that she noticed he developed during the 6 days she was here.

- He finds his thumb in his mouth. I believe it is right thumb, but I'll have to watch. If he chooses his left hand then he likes the first two fingers.
- For our bed-time routine, we have taken to washing Stanley's hands. We figure this will turn into washing teeth later. On Thursday and Friday, Stanley really started grabbing at the water and playing with it. He seems to really enjoy the texture of the running water. At one point, he was grabbing at the water and then grabbed the faucet. Yup, just what I'm sure you expected, water sprayed everywhere. I'm sure we will have many more spraying sessions, but I'm ok with them--it is fun to watch him explore these new items
- Stanley is much more in control of his talking. When we are smiling with him, he will make all sorts of sounds. And, in the morning he is quite the chatty little man. He talks quite loudly; everyone sleeping can definitely hear his quite noises.
- Stanley loves to laugh with us lately. We can get him laughing, which of course makes us laugh, and so on.  So much fun!
- His grasp is getting to be so strong that we can almost pull him up my his hands holding ours. Not completely, but almost.

Exciting is the world of a 3.5 month little guy. I wish that I learned this quickly.

Lights!

We took down our Christmas tree this week.  Stanley used to love sitting under the tree, staring up at the lights and shiny ornaments for long whiles.  When I took the lights off the tree, I thought I would give him one last hurrah with them.  He seemed quite enamored with them, but it did make for a very tangled mess when I had to wind them back up to put back in the garage.

Don't take them away, Dad!

Two Peas in a Pod

This week grandma Lele is visiting to take care of Stanley while Julia and I head back to work before the nanny starts next week.  They are having a grand old time hanging out together and mostly they just walk around Noe Valley with the stroller enjoying the sunshine, napping (Stanley) and grabbing some coffee (Lele).

The other day we got home from work and found the two of them sitting on the couch, dressed in very nearly matching outfits.  Quite adorable, we thought.

Twinsies!

I'm sure Stanley will miss Lele when she heads home this weekend.  In the meantime, they will keep enjoying each others company (and the nice weather we've been having) on their long walks around the neighborhood.

Stanley at 3.5 months

Stanley at 3 1/2 months is so much fun to watch and play. He just loves to smile and enjoys smiling back at people. He is a pretty happy baby, though he still hates waking up from naps and gets pretty cranky when he is hungry.

He has a cute little laugh that is developing. His laugh happens when he sucks in air and is smiles lots; it makes a different sound than what we normally think of laughing, but we think it is pretty cute. Lele caught it on video today.

I have been amazed at how quickly he is learning new skills. He found his thumb the other day with Lele and has found it a few times since. (Right thumb) And, he has been grabbing at different items of course with the intention of putting them in his mouth. 

His vision has also greatly improved. He can see me from across the room and flashes his big smiles at us to make our hearts jump. He also is 'talking' lots more. Today on the changing table, I also fell over when he said 'hi'. Granted it was just a group of random noises to him, but it still sounded a lot like 'hi' t me. 

Stanley at 3.5months loves:

- Moving all parts of his body all the time. We have an active child!!

- His play station

- His lounge chair

- Being naked

- Baths

- Putting anything in his mouth

- Standing and pounding his right leg in a jig fashion

- Eating from the source

- Diaper changes

- He still likes his swaddle

- His pacifier, though this comes and goes

- Walks outside

Stanley doesn't really like:

- The bottle (starting this week)

- The car, though his phobia seems to be subsiding (I'm knocking on wood right now)

- Being tired

Stanley can:

- Standing holding his own weight as long as someone holds him up

- Hold up his neck even while being picked up

- Grow out of cloths at a rapid rate

- Roll to his side from his back

(We haven't seen anymore rolling from front to back since around Dec 24th)

- Hold items and bring them to his mouth

- Clasp items with both hands (i.e. the hands seem to meet in the middle at objects)

One great grandma to the next

Stanley is a very lucky boy. He gets to have one grandma and then the next with barely a day between. This whole week, Stanley is hanging out with Lele while Steve and me are at work. Poor grandma Lele arrived on sunday to a SCREAMING boy.  Sunday night, Stanley screamed like we have never heard before for about 2 hours before putting him to sleep.

Also, Lele has had some trouble getting Stanley to eat from the bottle. (I think the holiday from bottles really took a toll on his accepting them.) He loves to eat at night directly from the source; instead of his previous 1 night wake-up, the last two nights he has eaten three times during the night. This is leaving poor Steve and me mighty tired for our first week back at work in a bit.

Stanley got a good nap during his 3 hours walk with Lele this afternoon--here is a photo she sent from their walk this morning when Stanley was awake.

What?

Today I walked down into the living room to join Julia while we ate sandwiches for lunch.  As I came down the few steps towards the couch I looked down and started laughing at this:

I don't see what you're laughing at...

Julia's reply to my laughing was, "what?", as she didn't think anything was really out of the ordinary.  I didn't really know what to say.  Oh well, whatever works!

Go the F to sleep

Before Stanley was born, my mom gave Steve a book "Go the F* to sleep". It is quite a funny children's book about a father trying to get a kid to sleep so that he can watch a movie with his wife. The entire book is basically saying Go the F* to sleep.

I figured my mom was giving it to Steve since I was never a very good sleeper. I understand now! We have been trying to get our little boy to sleep all day. He was awake even when he normally sleeps on walks. He was wide awake looking around in the moby for more than 1/2 the hike and awake for my 30 minute run while in the stroller. I think he has started seeing a lot further and wants to enjoy his new found sight.

Steve finally got him to sleep, but 3 minutes later he was back up and smiling. Even while nursing, he will stop look up and smile at me. It is very endearing, but really, won't you just go to sleep for a few minutes?  The book title seems very fitting for today.

'Cold' SF

For the first day of 2012, Stanley, Steve and I ventured out on a walk in Lands End. It was a 'cold' 64 degrees and sunny. Quite a nice start to 2012. Here are some photos of our adventure.

Bye Bye Rochester

Yesterday, Stanley, Steve, and I ventured back from Rochester.

We will miss being in Rochester. It was lots of fun to spend time with Papa Doug and Lolo, see friends, have a wonderful Christmas, and even show Stanley snow. When we took him outside, Stanley gave us a look of "what the heck are you doing out here, it is cold!"

I just imagined he was thinking. "Guys, I like the cold, but this is the freezer, take me inside."

In general, Steve and I can sum our vacation with the word SLEEP. Finally, lots of sleep. Every morning, we would hand over Stanley early in the morning to Lolo and Doug and Steve and I would sleep for ages. One time, I even slept till 1pm! This is the first time that I feel rested in months.

On the way back, Stanley really gave our packing job a run for its money. 4 blow outs later, we were on the last outfit and I was covered in Stanley bodily liquids. The first item of business was a bath for Stanley and me when we returned home. If you can, try to avoid 757 planes with an infant. They do not have changing tables. Since he is too big to change on my lap, the first time I changed him on the toilet seat cover. Not ideal. The next blow out was when there was lots of turbulence. So, Steve and I did it while sitting in our seats. Also, not ideal, especially since we were able to get first class.