Hi Camera

If Stanley could speak, I'm sure he would say 

"I always want to look good in front of a camera.  I will push my dad right out of the way to get the camera to focus on me."

It is a good thing you live in a digital age Stanley--we will continue to take lots of Stanley photos. 

Pacifiers

I was worried that Stanley would use his pacifiers for years. He just loved them for a few months starting when he was 1 month old. For a while I thought we would need to take them away from Stanley at some point later down the road. However, Stanley stopped using them to suck on about a month back. I asked Halima if I should put them away and she said that Stanley likes to use them as a chew toy.
Halima knows well. Tonight, I gave him one.

At one point, he was even holding it like an ice cream cone and eating the round edge as he held the part normally in a baby's mouth.

Crawling Update

He has it down and his speed has increased dramatically today. Tomorrow, I'll try to capture it earlier in the night. Tonight, we were video chatting on the computer with Papa Doug and Lolo, so this crawl is when Stanley was getting tired of crawling over and over across the same part of the carpet.

Just two days ago, Stanley could barely lift his arms and move them. Once in a while today he lifts them so high that it looks like he is swimming. What a difference a day makes to a baby.

6 months 1 week and 3 days to crawling

Stanley has been moving all about with his strange method of walking his feet to his hands and then using his head as a 5th appendage. But this evening, he finally figured out crawling!! Hurray!!

I was too excited to watch his first crawl that I did not even think to video it.  As a result, this video is from a bit later when he didn't do quite as well. However, you can tell that the crawling is developing.

Stanley really is enamored by the black hard marble that we want to keep him away from.  How appropriate that he already loves the things we don't want him to be on.

Eating saga

Despite the fact that Stanley is 'obese', he is not an eater. He loves to nurse, but our food trials have not been very successful. We have tried rice cereal, avocado, and pears. Tomorrow we will try sweet potatoes.
The avocado and rice cereal really did not go well. The pears usually are ok for the first bite and then he is done. Ironically, the little boy who always have his mouth wide open, closes his mouth completely if he sees food on a spoon.

At one point, he had eaten his one bite of pears and was done. I tried to get some in his mouth and as he moved all about with his mouth closed I ended up smearing pears all over his nose and even got them in his ear.  He knows when he doesn't want something.

Stanley and Papa Doug at the table

Papa Doug capitalized on his one chance to
get pears into Stanley's mouth

 Now, don't get me wrong, Stanley loves to eat anything and everything that isn't food. He enjoys his metal spoons (without food on them). Based on the below picture, you would think that he would want to eat meat. But, Stanley would much prefer the head of his wood monkey than his pears.

I'm sure this phase too will pass. 

The cute little thief

We have been a bit behind on our blogging. Our excuse for being behind is that Lolo, Papa Doug, and Flounder were here visiting. We had such a wonderful time, that there was just no time to blog.

Sunday, Papa Doug and Stanley had an afternoon together while Mimi and Lolo went to a museum and Steve and I went on a bike ride. The museum and bike rides were nice, but Papa Doug and Stanley had a fantastic time around Noe Valley. They ventured to the swings and played at home on the kids mattress we put in our living room.

 Papa Doug comes up with lots of little games that Stanley just loves. For example, he has Stanley flying high on his foot or he pushes a little rubber toy car against the stairs and then the rubber car bounces back at them. Stanley is mesmerized by these little games.

At one point, Stanley was playing by himself and Papa Doug was reading the newspaper on the chair right near by. All of the sudden, Doug felt a little pick-pocket. Stanley had scooted over and was picking Papa Doug's pocket. Stanley was more interested in the handkerchief than the money farther down; this cute little pick-pocket will learn which thing to take soon enough.

Lolo stayed an extra day and got to spend some added time with Stanley. It is wonderful to have Lolo and Papa Doug around. It is so nice to spend time with them, and even more amazing, the laundry gets done, the dishes are done, Steve and I eat wonderful home cooked food, and we always have wonderful cookies to eat for dessert. 

 Stanley liked spending some time with Flounder. Now that he is living in CA, hopefully we will see him more.

Even cousine Katya and Aunt Mimi came to visit.

Crawling Progress

Stanley makes strides every day trying to crawl.  He's certainly not there yet, but he gets a little closer every day.  You can see below that he doesn't really have the best technique.  He likes to straighten his legs out a lot and almost stand up on his feet with his head on the floor.  I'm not sure he really understands the mechanics of the whole thing.

But then, he also has moments of near brilliance where he seems to really get it.  Here he makes a pretty convincing movement.  It is only one "step", but it is the first movement that we would really say is recognizable as "crawling", per se.  Take a look.

I'm sure he'll keep moving on and will eventually get there.  We'll keep you posted.

Stats

A memorable comment from Stanley's doctor... 

"He doesn't look obese!?!" 

Yes, our son is obese; however, in my eyes, 6 month old obesity sure looks cute. 

Height: 26"

Weight: 18 lbs, 1 oz

Head Size: 46cm

What's the opposite of camera shy?

Stanley seems to like the camera.  We've said this a few times so far, but it's hard to capture because all you end up with are pictures that make it look like he is just a wonderfully happy, smiling baby all the time (see pretty much any of the previous posts).  What doesn't come across in the pictures is that this is more of a perturbation due to the measurement.  He will stop crying and screaming when he sees the camera (particularly the red one) and turn on the charm.  We set up a secondary camera that he didn't know about to capture this phenomenon for you all.  Take a look.

Zero to laughing in about 15 seconds.  Not bad.

Gaining

For his 6 month birthday... he weighed in at 18.00.0. 

Wow Mom, that is big! 

For those of you that notice the diaper below him, the scale was zero'd with that on there. Don't worry, I didn't cheat. 

6 months old

Stanley turned 6 months today on Saint Patrick's day!
For his birthday, Papa Doug showed up and Steve went skiing.

Stanley is so much fun right now--well at least Papa Doug, Steve, and I think so. He spents most of the day happy, smiling, and enjoying exploring new things.

He is quite the mover. He is still not yet crawling, but he is getting close. However, with his strange 'yoga' downward dog type movements, he does a great job at getting anywhere he wants to go. Yes, that includes stuck in the corner, able to bang his head against the glass cabinet in our living room, and yes onto the marble floor. On a better note, he is able to move toward his toys. It is fun to watch him learn this new skill. He easily gets up on his hands and knees, but then what is next is a little different. He starts walking his feet up toward his hands and puts his head on the ground. It makes a little triangle with the ground, but it down work to propel him forward.

Also, Stanley has been trying to pull himself up with the table edge. He hasn't mastered it yet, but sure is getting close.

And, as Papa Doug and Halima have commented, Stanley never stays still. His head is always moving and turning all over the place. He is very inquisitive.

For example, when Papa Doug showed up, Stanley instantly decided to explore his glasses case.

Like everything that Stanley explores, Papa Doug was going to end up with drool in his glasses case and on his pen. 

Thankfully, Stanley can spend quite a bit of time by himself. We have been following with Halima does. She gives him a toy and then leaves him to play with it by himself. He keeps himself very entertained and then when he starts to be done with it, we walk over and play with it a bit longer with him. It helps us to get things done and it also is nice for him to explore thing 'on his own' (in quotes since we are about 10 steps away). 

As for other news about our nanny-share. The two boys love to look at each other. Here is a cute photo of both Peter and Stanley seeing each other with their respective dads. 

The eating has been going so so. We have tried rice cereal and it is about the same as avacado. He gags and then finally when the spoon in clean, he happily sucks on the spoon without anything on it. I'm sure he will start to enjoy food soon. The strange thing is that he loves to taste of lettuce. yes, lettuce. He sucks on it for ages until it disintegrates. Odd to me, but maybe Stanley is just trying to eat his greens. 

As for the sleeping. Hmm, what should I say. Stanley seems rested, but I can't say the same for Steve and me. With Halima here this past week, we have been trying to let Stanley cry it out to get him to sleep. Halima has been doing it for Stanley's nap and it worked well. For the rest of the night, it is a mixed bag. Tuesday he screamed for 15 minutes, Wednesday he talked and went right to sleep, Thursday he screamed for 1+ hours. He still wakes up at 12:30am-1am and wants to eat at 12:30, 2:30 and 5am. Steve usually tries to put him back him his crib, but his dear cuddly  mom would prefer to cuddle with him. We haven't figured out a routine for 2:30-7am. I'm sure it will come with time. 

Stanley loves: 

- Metal spoons

- Anything metal and shinny--like napkin rings

- Moving around

- Downward dog type poses. 

- Exploring everything, particularly the things he knows he shouldn't be touching--remote controls, iPhones, cameras etc. 

- Sitting up in his high-chair

- Going on walks

- Baths

- Watching people

- Birds (prefers watching them over dogs)

- Swinging

- Facing forward while carried (he has found a way to basically make you turn him forward)

Stanley dislikes: 

- The rain cover on his stroller

- Sleeping when he isn't tired

- Eating food

- Being tired

- Pacifiers

Stanley can: 

- move about the room, particularly the mattress in our living room

- hold his bottle to eat a full 5 oz of milk

- easily roll to reach anything--I"m pretty sure it seems to be both directions without any preference for one or the other

- Get up on his hands and knees very quickly

- Find the edge of the mattress very easily

- Make it very difficult to get his diaper changed because he tries to roll off the table, over to his tummy or really any other place he can go. 

First Solid Food

Tomorrow Stanley turns 6 months old, so to celebrate, this evening we gave him his first solid food. 

Since we live in California, what else would we serve him for his first food than...avocado. We smashed it up very well. 

Based on how much Stanley loves to 'eat' or at least chew on spoons, I figured he would be ok with the food at least getting into his mouth. 

Much happier Stanley before the event. 

Here he is super happy at the beginning. Unfortunately, when we put any avocado on the spoon, he kept thinking the spoon was dirty, so he would throw it on the ground if it had the green stuff on it. Or, he would take his hands and sort of wipe it off before putting it in his mouth. Smart kid I guess. 

We kept trying, but more got on his face than actually in his mouth. Oh well. I assume he got a bit into his mouth. 

Once the dirty green stuff was off of his spoon handle, he loved eating the handle side of the spoon and also took some time to enjoy eating his wonderful bib that Mitou made for him.









At least it was an adventure. More to come I'm sure. Rice cereal?

Rec Center

We went to a birthday party this weekend for the sister of the boy (Peter) that Stanley spends his days with. The party was at the rec center where Halima takes the boys during the day. We had never seen the inside of this place. There is a great big room with LOTS of toys strewn about for the little kids to play with. The kids there seemed to be having quite a good time running around and screaming. Now we know where Stanley and Peter spend their days when it is too wet outside to play on the swings.

Weekend Hike

On Saturday Julia, Stanley and I went on a hike up through Glen Canyon to get some exercise before the rain started. The weather was nice and we had a great time.

Favorite Toys

Right now they are a paper cup and the back end of one of our spoons. Eat you heart out Sophie.

Swing Time!

Halima takes Stanley and Peter to the park and they get to ride in the swings together. She says they love it and laugh and laugh the whole time. Today we stopped by the park and gave Stanley a little hit of swinging. He seemed to enjoy it. Soon he will be strong enough to swing more vigorously, but for now it is just gentle swaying.

I can feed myself!!

I recieved this email from Steve and Stanley. I wanted to share.

Well, sort of. Dad still has to heat the stuff up and get it in the bottle...

Going back home

I'm on my way back home from Taiwan. For sure leaving a 5 month old baby for 5 days was going to be hard. Before I left, I was very curious of the emotions that I would have leaving little Stanley. I was expecting to miss him very much and to be annoyed pumping. Both ended up being very true, but thanks to technology, (pictures, email and amazing pumps) they all were reasonable. Probably the main emotion I had being gone was 'Poor Steve'. I cannot wait to be back and save my dear husband who has had a teething cranky boy on his hands for 5 days. Sounds like Steve had no sleep while I was gone.

Poor tired Steve!!

Strangely for me after a 5 day trip Asia, I feel more rested than normal. Below are some photos of my trip.

Studious Stanley

Trying to catch up to uncle Flounder, I guess...

Getting ready to crawl

Stanley is practicing for some self propelled locomotion soon. Hopefully he waits until Julia gets back from Taiwan.

Happy as a clam

Stanley sure loves sitting in his stroller even if it is in the garage while we are doing chores.

Fun Guy

Stanley has been a pretty fun guy lately.  He is quick to flash a smile when we get home and he first sees us and has been a lot more interactive with his play recently.  He will often just look at each of us and stare us down until we start smiling and then break out in a huge, wide open mouth smile once we lock onto him. 

He's also grabbing things more securely these days.  This is both good and bad.  On the one hand, he doesn't drop the thing he is playing with nearly as frequently.  On the other hand, he will grab onto a toy and swing it about wildly with his arms.  It used to be that the toy would stay on the ground when the arms decided to see how fast they could go up and down, but now the toy goes along for the ride and ends up acting like a small, blunt weapon if you don't get out of the way.  Julia and I can both attest that this stings if you catch it wrong. 

At any rate, we seem to be keeping our heads above water with the sleeping (for the time being) and are really enjoying Stanley's developing personality. 

Oh, and I liked this picture from the other day.