Cooking with mommy

Washing mushrooms and the eating them. Who needs to wait for the cooked food.

Boots

We bought Stanley some rain boots so that he could walk around in and after it rains and in the snow and not get his feet sopping wet.  He normally wears soft soled shoes during the day, but those things soak up water like a sponge if he walks through a puddle.  At any rate, the first few times we put the boots on him he HATED them.  He just looked down at his feet and screamed at them.  Most of the problem is that the boots are pretty stiff and heavy, while his normal shoes are really flexible and light.  Hmmmmm.

While we were in Tahoe we worked on a solution.  When we went out on walks around the little neighborhood where we were staying we brought the boots with us.  Julia and I wore our boots on the walk as well.  When we got to some snow, or a puddle or mud, we both went over and walked through it.  Stanley wanted to join in, but we told him he had to wear his boots to go through the dirty/wet stuff.  At first he didn't tolerate the boots well and we just took him back to the road and put his shoes back on.  After a while, though, he figured out that he could go in the cool stuff if he just wore those boot things and that he could, in fact, walk in them on his own.  I think the snow/puddles/mud outweighed the horribleness of the boots, because he started asking to put them on so he could walk around in the snow.  I guess it worked -- for now.  Take a look.

Tahoe Trip

We took a mini vacation up to Lake Tahoe last weekend. We went up Saturday morning and stayed until Tuesday, so it was enough time to really start decompressing. It was a nice trip and we stayed in a family friend's house on the east shore of the lake.

It was a lot of fun to spend so much time with Stanley. We went sledding (not his favorite), cross country skiing (better, see the other post), and generally just hung out. It was all very relaxing until the last day when I came down with a ferocious cold, we had to drive all the way home, Julia lost her blackberry (helped by Stanley), we forgot to lock the garage when we got home (no incident, but startled us when the alarm went off from the wind opening the door), and were all exhausted.

Here are some fun pictures from the trip.

We were all tired after the drive home, but only Stanley was sitting on a pile of food.

Posing in the sunshine.

Sledding near the house.  Notice the box of Lever2000 soap in Stanley's hand.  He carried that until bedtime that day.

Cross country skiing

In Tahoe we went on a cross country ski trip. Stanley hung out in a sled that we towed behind us. At first he hated it, but after we opened up the plastic cover so that he could look around, he relaxed and even fell asleep.

Holding on

Stanley just loves to have something in his hand as a comfort item. The strange thing is that it changes each day and often they are pretty random items. Think clothes pins, lever2000, remote controls, pacifiers, toy trains, cars, paper cups.

Soap box.

Train car.

Water bottle, I think.

Walking moves

Right knee up.  He has other moves, but we haven't caught them on camera yet...

Bed Marching

I use to love to jump on beds when I was little. Stanley has yet to be able to 'jump' with both feet off the floor at one time, but he likes to try. When he is on the floor he makes the motion of jumping with his body but the feet just stay in the same place. Since he cannot really jump he enjoyed marching on the bed during our vacation in Tahoe. Take a look at the video.

Always happy little boy...

Happy new years

Lunar New Year, that is.  Stanley got to see some dragon dancing up at Squaw Valley this last weekend.  He wanted to copy them, but boy he did not want to touch those dragons.  They would lean over so he could pet them, but he would run away scared every time. 

Balance Test

Over Christmas, Lolo noticed that Stanley can pick up a foot and hold it up while someone puts a sock or shoe on it. Lolo was very amazed. Not long after she left, Stanley took to testing our balance. While walking, he will suddenly stop, pick up his foot and hold it there. He wants you to pick up your foot too. Granted we are holding his hand, but often times, he'll hold his foot up far past when we have put ours down out of tiredness or needing to put our foot down for balance. He usually does it with his right foot in the air, but once in a blue moon he tries with his left leg. 

We haven't been able to get a picture of this yet, but we will post once we can catch him in action.

Don't be ridiculous...

I don't look ANYTHING like my dad...

Friends

Stanley and Peter are quite good friends. If Peter drops his toy, Stanley will often pick t up and give it back to him.

Yesterday when picking up Stanley, I put on Stanley's jacket and I was getting on mine when I looked over and found Peter trying to help Stanley zip his jacket. They were not very successful, but it was mighty cute.

Copy cat

Stanley has developed so much in the past month plus. Over Christmas my parents were amazed at what Stanley understood. Granted he does not really speak many English words, but he does understands what we are staying and he manages to get his point across pretty easily.

For example, if I say, "Stanley can I see your car", Stanley will show me a little toy car. Same goes for lots of other items etc. Steve and I really need to watch what we say.

He also copies what we do very closely. I normally do not wear a hear band, but one evening I was wearing a hair band. About 2 days later, Stanley saw it, here he is trying to put it on his head. Just after one time of seeing it in my hair, he remembered.

 Stanley will also copy what we do in the kitchen. We sometimes have him prep veggies with us. This involves him standing on a chair and using his plastic knives to push around the veggies and then taste a bit of each one. He is not a fan of raw eggplant nor onion, but he sure does love to peel the paper off the onion.

Stanley hanging the recipe card

He also really enjoys cooking in his new kitchen while we cook in our kitchen. The kitchen has been a life saver for everyone.  When I was cooking the other day, he took a plastic knife and was 'cutting' his toy veggies. Then with a very deliberate manner, he took his lettuce, walked over, opened the trash cabinet, threw out the lettuce and walked back to cut his carrots. He then proceeded to throw out the carrots too. I realized that he watches us cut our veggies and then watches as we throw out the little odds and end scraps. He wanted to do the same. I was quite impressed, though if he was a good San Fran kid, he would have put them in the compost instead of the trash. We'll let it slide this time Stanley.

Also with the kitchen we have been trying more "pretend" play with him. He is starting to understand and likes it when we all sit down together and pretend to eat the food he makes. It is wonderful to see him develop.

I have tried to capture some photos of other times he copies what we do, most turned into blurs, but here is Stanley ironing. Before this picture, he wondered around the house trying to plug it in. He found the best place to plug it in was on the door frame or into the handle of the iron, which is why the cord looks like it does in the below photo.

Trying to iron the carpet. 

Science museum 2

We went to the California Academy of Sciences again this last weekend. Stanley loved it again and was showing us all the fishes and lizards and stuff it was a nice time but he got so tired from missing his nap that he fell asleep on the bike ride home. Oh well.

 

Ice cream

Yum. Finally my own cone!