Hair cut

Steve got a hair cut today. We were curious if Stanley would recognize him. Stanley gave Steve a look of what is wrong with your hair, but did not hesitate at all knowing it was his dad.

The other picture is just to show how tall Stanley is right now. He got to the position all on his own.

Stanwich hold the mayo

Stanley at 7.5 month

So readers, if you hadn't noticed, I missed Stanley's 7 month blog post. It has been nagging on me for about 2 weeks now. I'm hoping Stanley won't be mad when he goes back to read his blog years later and notices this absence. The problem is that life, work, traveling, and hanging out with him really get in the way of posting.

It has been so much fun to spend time with him. He laughs, smiles, crawls, explores, and stands like a pro. He is very inquisitive. He loves to study anything new and different, which at this age is just about everything.

Mom, if Halima were here, I'd be outside.
Please take me out there!

Stanley not noticing the large dog near him.
In fact he didn't seem at all bothered by
Morgan licking his entire face.Yuck!

At 6 months 1 week Stanley started crawling. People had mentioned that once babies start crawling, they start to cling to their parents or people they know. This happened almost as soon as Stanley started to crawl. Now, he will crawl away from us, but turns around to make sure Steve, Halima, or I are around or within sight. It was such a drastic change in a few weeks because before that, he was thrilled to be held by anyone. Also, if he falls or bangs himself, he for sure wants mom, dad or Halima to hold him.

On the move

Stanley's 'talking' has also developed a lot in this month. He started with Ga ga noices. Halima thinks it is because she sings a song "Goosy Goosy, Ga, ga, ga, (russian words) Da, da, da." Stanley says Ga and Peter says Da. But over the last 2 weeks Stanley has also been developing more sounds. Some of these sounds are quite peircing to my old ears. But, Stanley is very happy exercising his vocal cords and making these crazy high pitch sounds.

Playing with Dad's toys from when he was little

Stanley's attention span has drastically increased. He can play with one toy for quite a while. He loves wood toys ( anything wood even mixing spoons) and carts them around everywhere.

Studying the flowers and of course the dirt

He will hang onto a toy and climb the stairs with it and then take it over to his room or diaper change and then we find it 10-15 minutes later. Steve gave him a napkin on the plane home from Denver last weekend and it was still in his hand when we put him to bed at our house. (That lasted through the plane, airport, parking shuttle, car, carry home, and diaper change)

Stanley bolding hanging onto a table
and a gate that is not attached

With all of his movement, Stanley is able to explore so much. It really seems like he has become a toddler and not a baby anymore. However, with this exploration, he has had his fair share of bumps. He is getting a bit over confident about his abilities--though as a proud mom, I'm pretty impressed. He can reach well up to items that are far above his head. At the beginning, he had to lean a large amount, but now he can stand quite upright with just one hand on something. Yesterday, he was standing up easily holding onto a toy and with his other hand stablize himself by holding onto the 'stand-up toy' that moves in circles. He seemed just fine. Also, starting when he was 7 months, he can now easily get down from different things--he puts one hand down and then plops onto his bottom.

Going down the stairs will be our next big project. Yesterday I caught him falling off a stair. At least my reaction speed was fast enough to catch him before any body part hit the stair, though I was not fast enough to see him climbing the stairs in the first place. He is quite good about going up the stairs, but when he gets to the top of the third stair he likes to look back at his feat and he sits down usually too close to the edge of the top step. Yikes!

Also, Stanley is quite the flipper. Steve says he has a PhD in flipping. This makes diaper changes particularly difficult!! Usually there are 4-5 flips within 1 diaper change and that is after he has studied a toy.

About 7 months + 1 week, Stanley started to figure out that his tounge in his mouth can help him get food down his throat. It was amazing. Now he loves to eat cheerios and other food as long as no one helps him to eat. I think we have a confident but stubborn little boy on our hands. (For those of you that know his mom, I wonder where he gets it from.)






Stanley loves:
- Standing up. Always standing up!
- Wood toys
- Eating Cheerios
- Avacado
- Pulling himself up
- Being outside
- Nursing
- Being naked
- Flipping over (he mainly goes to his left side)
- Anything electric that he cannot have
- Making noise and banging things on hard surfaces to really make loud noises


Stanley dislikes:
- Sitting down
- Being hungry
- Being tired
- Sleeping in the crib in our room


Stanley can:
- crawl up stairs
- crawl around a large room very easily
- pull up on almost anything
- stand and hold on with only one hand
- eat food (finally!)
- Crawl over something/someone (Even my suitcase)
- reach about 5 inches farther than we expect to get something he wants
- Grab the top of a glass of water and tip it over in all of 0.5 seconds
- talking random sounds particularly Ga Ga Ga

Stanley out of character--he is sitting.
He hasn't quite figured out what
 to do with his sunglasses. They are for
eyes not the mouth.

Giggles

We are figuring out some surefire ways to get Stanley to laugh or giggle.  One is the classic throwing-the-baby-up-in-the-air bit and it works almost every time.  He loves being hoisted in the air by either of us, so we oblige because we love to hear him laughing.  Fun times.

Lele's pantry

While in Denver, Stanley really enjoyed exploring Lele and Grandpa Tom's house. There was lots of flat area where he could crawl. And there were lots of new tables with which Stanley could pull himself up to standing. With his explorations, he found many new 'toys' such as baskets, spice racks, and magazines. He particularly liked Lele's pantry which she had to child proof. Stanley loved playing with the red hot candy glass jar; he would bang it on different things and even crawl around with it in his hand. He was not very sneaky clumping a glass bottle on the wood floor when he crawled.
He also decided to rearrange some of the stuff in her pantry--apparently the organization she did last year didn't quite pass Stanley's criteria

It has also been impressive to me how quickly Stanley is developing his standing abilities. He now can easily stand and stablize himself with only one hand. He can also crawl around and take the same toy from our living room to the dining room (up 3 stairs) and then even take it up to the top of a chair while he is standing. It seems impressive to me. 

Cheap Tickets

For our (really great) trip to Colorado last weekend we decided to take the cheap flights.  When we bought the tickets it didn't sound like such a horrible idea to book a flight that LEFT the airport at 5:35am, or one that got us BACK around 11:45pm on Sunday night.  However, the night before we left for Denver the prospect of getting up at 3:15am seemed a little ridiculous while we were finishing up the packing at 11pm.  At least we got a nice nap during the day on Friday at my parents house.  In the same vein, heading to bed at 1am on Sunday night didn't seem like such a grand idea, especially when we were getting up at 6am to head to work on Monday.  This all makes me think of the Seinfeld bit about "Night Guy vs Morning Guy". 

I guess we were Morning Guy on this trip.  I'll have to stop letting Night Guy book the tickets...

Colorado Trip

We were in Colorado this last weekend to have Stanley baptized in my parents' back yard.  Our family friend Bob did the ceremony and it was absolutely beautiful (Bob also did the ceremony when Julia and I got married in 2008).  We were surrounded by family and dear friends, the ceremony was wonderful and the weather was sunny and warm. 

If you couldn't tell, the sun is pretty bright in Colorado!

Stanley wore the gown Julia wore when she was baptized.  We tried to put him in the one I wore as well, but there was no way he would fit into that.  Guess I was a little younger.

Get ready, Stanley!

Stanley was a champ and let Bob hold him and didn't even scream when the water went on his head.  Pretty impressive. 

The cast after our matinee performance

Hanging out after the commotion

In addition to the baptism, we got to see some good friends while we were in Colorado.  My good friend Misti from college whom I hadn't seen in several years came to the baptism with her two children.  We also got to see our friends Pete and Sarah and their new baby Felix. 

Stanley, Julia, Sarah and Felix