Happy 20th Anniversary

Call us crazy or adventurous, we took Stanley to the 20th anniversary of Critical Mass on Friday. There were thousands of bikers lining up down Market Street and near the Ferry Building. Stanley found all of the people and their dress quite entertaining. It was a somewhat cold evening, so I'm not so sure how the man not wearing any clothes found the ride, but we bundled up Stanley and ourselves and had a great adventure.

Once we started riding and it was dark, as far as the eye could see down Market Street there were flashing red bike lights. It was a pretty fun scene. And if people in cars were upset at being surrounded by bikes,  when they saw Stanley, their facial expression always changed. Stanley was definitely a big hit. 

Cooking

Tonight Stanley enjoyed stirring the veggies with mom. 

Birthday Boys

This past weekend, we celebrated both Stanley's 1st and Geoff's 30th birthday. Lucky for everyone, all 4 of Stanley's grandparents were able to make the trek out to SF to celebrate along with friends and family. Thanks grandparents for making the long trek out here.

 

In addition,  family and friends came to celebrate. I spent the time talking with people rather than taking pictures. Here are a few pictures from the end of the party

And, then Saturday night, Stanley partook in 2 cupcakes to celebrate his birthday. At first he was apprehensive, but then he seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.

Walking

Last Friday on Geoff's birthday, while Lolo, Papa Doug, Geoffrey, and I were hanging around the house. Stanley decided to walk at 1 year 1 week old. He took about 5 steps and did another round of walking a few minutes later. We have not yet caught it on video. 

Stanley is a very stable crawler, so he is still very timid with his walking. He will only try if he knows that he can do it. And, we have yet to see him make a long adventure. So far it has been from 1 thing to another a few feet apart. 

Friday was an even more special day because it was...Geoff's birthday

 And we got to see the shuttle fly by on a 747...

Number Three

Stanley's third tooth just poked through recently.  We just noticed it this evening when we were putting him down for bed.  It is on the top of his mouth, but not one of the middle ones.  It is the next one over, to the looker's left (skier's right) on his face. 

It also seems like there are a couple more on the top row ready to pop through.  They look pretty swollen and more teeth may slice their way through any day now.  We will keep you posted.  Photos to come soon...

The DJ

If Stanley disappears for any length of time you can probably find him in our room with the radio remote control. He has figured out how to change channels, turn up the volume and get into the setup menu.
So far he had chosen some pretty bad stations- hopefully he will start to develop better taste in music.

Castle Stanley

We had the grandparents use the boxes we got from amazon to build a castle for Stanley and all the other babies that came over for Stanley's birthday party today. It was a huge hit. Stanley loves it and it was filled with kids all day. Very nice execution, I think.

Happy 1st Birthday Stanley

Yesterday Stanley turned 1 years old. It is amazing to think back that just 1 year ago we did not even know this little guy and he did not even have a name. How quickly a year has passed! It is unbelievable to realize how quickly kids develop and it is hard to realize that my little baby is not really a baby anymore.

Over the last few months, he has developed such a fun personality. He just loves to talk with us. He also enjoys telling jokes. Unfortunately, we don't know what he says, but we laugh at the jokes just because it is so wonderful and funny to watch him talk and then break into a ball of laughter.

 

Stanley loves to move! He is also very careful with his movements. I've only twice seen him fall in all of the times he has been crawling/cruising and he goes up and down the stairs all the time without any help. He is very careful to make sure that his feet are well placed before he moves a hand. As you can see in the picture, he is also working on climbing up different items. Stanley believes slides are meant to climb up. He dislikes them for going down because he does not like being out of control. (He will cling to the slide and lower himself down one inch at a time if he has to go down them.)

Stanley also loves to move while nursing.  I always thought nursing would be a wonderful gentile thing with a baby laying in my arms. Not so for Stanley. He loves to stand while nursing, flip over while nursing, read a book while nursing, walk from one side to the other of his mom's lap while nursing. This is all very skilled, but definitely not like the cute nursing baby image I had in my mind.

Three days ago, we saw Stanley take a step and now he will take a step to move form a table to a chair, but he has not started walking. I was sure he was going to wait for his birthday, but he fooled me. He enjoys standing and loves to cruise, but crawling is way more efficient for him than walking.













Stanley has also been very interested putting items in and out or on top/underneath. He enjoys cleaning up his toys into bits or boxes and then taking all of the toys back out. And, if there is a tower or a set of blocks together, Stanley feels that it is his job to instantly knock it down or pull the blocks apart.

Stanley is not a great eater, but does enjoy sitting at the table for dinner talking with us  while he nibbles. Here is a list of his favorite foods:
- Hummus
- Cheerios
- did I mention hummus!!
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Carrots
- A whole piece of french bread that he can gnaw on for a while
- Puff cake
- Nursing

 

Likes
- Carbohydrates--any and all type.
- Puff cakes from Rochester
- Following people around
- Nursing (anytime day or night, he loves to nurse)
- Doing arobics while nursing.
- Standing
-Walking holding on to people's hands
- His mom and dad.
- Halima and Peter
- Driving
- Spending time with his uncle and grandparents
- Exploring new places and things
- Boxes
- Pushing around things on the floor when they make crazy high pitch noises
- Naps when he is tired.
- Going to bed with Ben Solee
- His sleep sack (love hate relationship, he always wimpers, but it makes him rub his eyes and go to sleep)
- Biking!
- Things with wheels--cars, fire trucks, and being pushing around in carts
- Banging and pulling on things to make sure they are strong--he really puts his body into it to make sure things are well build. Turns out our guest bed wood frame is just fine, but he enjoys testing it daily.


Dislikes
- His bib: he has learned to pull them off
- Getting his feet dirty/sandy/wet: Stanley is a city boy, if he is wearing shorts or has bare feet, he will walk very carefully using his hands to avoid putting his knees down on the grass. We think a better solution would just be to walk, but that will come with time
- Being alone--when I say' alone', it is somewhat of an understatement since we can be a few feet away, but technically in another room and Stanley will start to cry.
- Sleeping more than 6 hours in a row
-His helmet and hats


Stanley can:
- Crawl really quickly
- Easily crawl up and down stairs
- Eat french bread with his lonely 2 bottom teeth
- Talk to people
- Pick up little peas/cheerios etc with his forefinger and thumb and put them in his mouth
- Know when he doesn't like an item and toss it off the table or out of the stroller
- Push items around
- Put things in and out of things
- Get people's attention
- Knows the Russian word for 'no'
- Go to bed and take naps quickly easily
- Be cute so his mom spoils him
- Turn on and off light switches

Big shipment

I had an odd sort of realization the other day. We got our recent Amazon shipment in the mail and there were lots of BIG boxes in the house. Suddenly, I realized that all these boxes and their contents were for taking care of Stanley's butt. Not sure what this means, but there it is.

Chatty

Stanley has a lot to say lately. He loves to have conversations with people. Most people don't seem to understand much of the conversation, but each person seems to enjoy talking at the other.

Stanley had a lot to tell Lolo and Geoff while they were here. Geoff captured this video:

Mom at work

Lolo and Geoff are taking care of Stanley for two days. They had a great time yesterday.

Today they came to visit me at the conference where I am working.

Stanley was happy to be walking around with all three of us. For the last few days he doesn't want to crawl very much but instead he puts his hands up and waits to hold your hand so that he can walk.

Baby storage

I think the cereal boxes worked well there, but Stanley seems to think it works better for storing babies. We didn't shut him in there, though I WAS tempted.

Big fan

Stanley has taken after Steve and loves watermelon...loves it!
If you listen closely you can hear him biting into the slice.

Go faster Lolo

Need I say more

Meera's Wedding

This is a long overdue blog post. About 2.5 weeks ago, Stanley and I headed by ourselves to Meera beautiful wedding in the Smoky Mountains of NC. We had a fantastic time. We started out at 4:30am finding out that our flight was canceled, but after going standby on a different airline, everything seemed to work out well.

The wedding was just beautiful...the weather perfect, the place idyllic, the company wonderful, and the ceremony amazing. Congrats Meera.

Stanley got to meet lots of new friends while on the trip. It was his second time meeting Michael, Maureen, Paul, and Clyde (though Stanley was only a few weeks old when he met all of them) and his first time meeting Danielle, Casey, Meera, and Sarah. Here are some photos of our trip.

We also made a trip to the National Park for a little walk. It was beautiful. 

Steve, the father's missed you. 

The college roommates (minus the bride Meera) and
our babies. Things have changed for all of us since college.

Maureen and Clyde

Stanley showing his driving skills to Michael.

Casey relaxing in a trunk with her Sophie. 

Do I have something on my face? (Part II)

Stanley really loves black beans and he got a little over zealous eating them the other night.  I'm beginning to see a trend here.  I think he needs to work on his aim a little.

Ice Cream

Tonight, we all went to Dolores Park for a nice walk after we got home after a long drive back from our weekend camping trip (more to come on that).  We had a great time sitting in the grass playing and watching all the San Francisco people sunbathing in the sunny September weather and then going to play on the playground.

After our time at the park we decided that we weren't really hungry for a real dinner (we had a late large lunch) and we went to get ice cream cones for dinner.  Stanley had his first taste of ice cream there tonight, and he was a pro from the get-go.  He dove right in with his mouth wide open and was even getting the hang of licking the ice cream on top of the cone.  Then, as we got down further where the cone was, he started taking bites from the cone too!  Oh, and if you were wondering, his first ice cream flavor?  Salted caramel...  A true San Francisco kid.  Goes well with his first food being avocado, I think.