Secret teeth

Today I noticed that stan has two teeth I didn't even know about. There is one on each side, not the pointy teeth, but the ones right behind those. This is great! It will be awesome when he can start chewing things instead of just biting and swallowing whole. He is also growing his fourth tooth on the bottom, completing the bottom middle set. He went so long without any new teeth, and now he has three new ones coming in all at once. this will make a grand total of 10.

I taught Stanley how to use the toilet!

I have been throwing up a lot lately. If I drop everything and run into the bathroom, it scares Stan and he cries. If I manage to walk in at a normal speed and say something like, "mommy needs to throw up now, buddy" he just watches and laughs. In the second scenario, he likes to stand right by the toilet and spit into it when I spit, etc. (I know, I know....but it's better than him standing outside the door listening and being scared and crying!). So the other day Scott was in the bathroom shaving and stan went right over to the open toilet and leaned over and made a puking sound. The boy knows how to use the toilet!

dippin'

I taught Stan how to dip graham crackers in his soy milk, which he loves to do. But he also dips everything else into whatever drink he has now. At the end of the meal, the drink is just sludge. It's really gross. Peanut butter sandwiches in water, Wheat thins in water, tomatoes and mushrooms in milk...whatever it happens to be, he loves dipping!

No No No!

Stanley says, "No No No!" as he hits things.

He's a fan!

Hey, Stanley, say "B!"
"bah!"

Say "Y!"
"woah!"

Say "U!"
"haha"

Say "Cougars!"
"cookies!"

Q: What does a doggy say?

A: oof oof.

Bitey

Today Stan just decided he really wanted to bite me. He was biting me all day, whenever he got the chance. If my arm brushed against his mouth when I was 'getting' him in a game of Chase Me, he'd bite. if I was sitting on the couch, he'd come over and bite my knee, or my toes. He's lull me into a false sense of security by goving me a few kisses, then bite my cheek. He'd carefully bite just my clothes and see what happened. each time he'd get a surprised OUCH! and then a stern NO NO and if he did it a bunch of times in a row, he got some minutes in the crib. I wonder how many days this will last. I also wonder if he'll do it to others or if it's just some kind of aggression against me because I finally stopped nursing him.

Stan Ban, the Granley Fan

well, I'm not writing because I have anything particular to say, but because I haven't posted on here for a long time. Stan is as cute as ever. He's really into peekaboo right now, but the funny thing is that often when he covers his face he'll keep his hands there for a really really long time, like two or three minutes, so the whole time we're saying the "where's Stanley? where's Stanley? Wheeeeeeere's Stanley? Where is he?" then he finally comes out and we're all surprised--"THERE he is!!!!!!!" He loves to ride on Scott's shoulders. He says "bubble" (and he always blows right after he says it, which is awesome!) and "ball." He loves to throw his little football and anything else he has in his hands, and he loves to be chased around the house, especially with the little vacuum/popcorn popper thing. He love "climbing up on top!" of anything he can, and banging on things with other things. If I'm ever laying on the floor, he'll bring things from all over the room and throw them down on my face ("Thank you, buddy, but it hurts mommy when you throw thing on her face, ok? ow! Stan! Stop it!"). He also is getting really great at eating with a spoon. When we can't find him, he's usually in his bottom dresser drawer, sitting in the pants. He loves to go in closets. Last time I took him to the doctor ( a few weeks ago), he was 3% in weight and 5% in height, still with a 75% head circumference. Those stats should be able to substitute for a paternity test in any court of law :) Anyway, that's the latest news about Stan.

some things about stan

1. He loves to be outside. If he's going nuts and won't stop crying and doesnt' want me to put him down, but also doesn't want me to hold him, as soon as I take him outside, he's fine. I take him over to the park and let him run around while I read a cookbook, and he has a great time and I have a great time. He never runs out of things to do at the park.
2. This week he discovered the joy of climbing into the laundry basket and getting pushed around in it. It works well with our wood floor in the living room that goes right into the kitchen. I usually push Teacups style, with a lot of spinning around as we move in a circuit.
3. Stan will find something and carry it around all day. It's not uncommon to find the thing he was holding in the afternoon in his little fist when we're changing him for bed.
4. when i shampoo him in the bath, he puts his hands behind his head and rubs like he's shampooing. He also always rubs brushes and combs on his head and put socks and shoes against his feet.
5. He has finally learned how to turn around and go down stairs backwards. phew!
6. Stanley still loves diving into soft things. Today I put our pillows and our down comforter in a big fluffy pile on the floor, and he must have plunged into it 20 times.
7. The worst times of the day for stan are right before the morning nap, and right after he wakes up from it. He does just fine at night, even if we have to keep him up way past his bedtime.
8. Stan used to bring me books 15 times a day and sit in my lap and listen to them (these were 5 page board books with one 3-word sentence on each page, so don't be too impressed), but now he brings them to me, stands beside me while I read 1 or 2 pages, then grabs the book back and runs off. He still does that cute way of reading them himself, though, where he sits on the floor and turns the pages and just babbles away.
9. He just loved the 4th of July fireworks. He watched the whole show and a few times he said, "ooooh!" and clapped his little hands.
10. Stan loves Scott so much. he gets so excited when he hears him after work. As soon as he knows Scott is home, he puts his hands in the air, starts panting excitedly, and running to find him. He is always rewarded with some rowdy playtime.

No No!

These are seasoned bread crumbs. This is a sample of the mischevious things stan did today.

Music Time

Stanley saw me listening to music, and was inspired by what he saw.

He wants to know how it's done.

He watched carefully, it turns out.

He's even changing the music to suit his mood.

The illusion breaks down as he returns to normal form.  

blocks on top, blocks on top...

after weeks of knocking my towers over, stan has finally started building little two story towers of his own. watch out, donald trump!

When life hands you lemons

Stan fished the lemon out of Scott's water



it's surprisingly tasty. He would have eaten the whole thing, but we took it after a few minutes.

walk like a man

Stan really started walking today! Before he would walk to Scott or me if we were there with our arms out saying "come here, buddy! come here! come to mommy!" And up until yesterday he would mostly hold onto furnature still and walk if he wanted to get some specific place that he woudl have to let go of the furnature to do. But today he has just been walking all around just for fun--wandering around with no particular place to go.

Baby Stan 

How Stan Was Born

I woke up at 5:30 in the morning because I was having contractions and they hurt. I went out into the kitchen to have a snack and while I was in there I started timing the contractions by the clock on the oven. They were 5 minutes apart, almost exactly. I sat there for probably an hour and a half, just watching the clock and thinking, oh my gosh, I bet I'm going to have the baby today! I finally went back to bed, but of course I couldn't sleep, so I just laid there and waited for Scott to wake up. As soon as he opened his eyes, I said, "Scott, I think I'm going to have the baby today!" He woke right up and said, "Are you serious?!?" By that time my contractions were back to eight or nine minutes apart and irregular, so we went to church. This was Sunday, May 9. Stan was due May 16th. During sunday school and sacrament meeting I borrowed Scott's watch and was writing down the times of the contractions on the back of a receipt I had in my day planner. After church we took a nap until it was time to get ready to go to the mother's day party at the Wessman's. I was having second thoughts about going, so we decided to go by the hospital and see whether it would be ok to go up to salt lake. When i got there they hooked me up to this machine that measured my contractions and checked to see how far I was dialated. I wasn't far enough to be admitted to the hospital, but they said to stay and walk around for half and hour and come back, so after half an hour they checked me again. I had gone from a three to a five and a half, so they admitted me and took me to my room. While we were settling in and waiting for my epidural Scott and I watched the finale of Survivor, where Rob proposed to Amber. Stan wasnt' moving much, so they gave me an oxygen mask--they didnt' know that he hardly ever moved normally, I guess. After I got the epidural (one of the best things that's ever happened to me :) I just dozed in the bed until a nurse came in about five minutes before midnight and told me I was ready and I could start pushing. Dr. Baxter came in and 20 short minutes later Stanley was born. He was tiny and limp and purple. And now he can walk and play and babble and laugh and clap his hands. His feet stick out past the end of his car seat. He has six teeth. He thinks it's funny when we do silly things. He insists on feeding himself. He dances when we play music or sing a song. It's pretty amazing. Happy birthday, Stan!

"say, why don' tI have a birthday more often?"

a cake in the hand is worth two on a plate!

this was at the family birthday party on May 1 

Stanley and the Dream of Horses

this morning stan was in our bed (that has a way of happening when he wakes up before 7...) while Scott and I were getting ready for the day. I was watching Stanley sleep and he started smiling a great big smile. He went back to his normal straight face for a second, then he smiled again. He's such a great boy.

fun and funner

Things Stanley thinks are fun:
going outside
climbing into the garden
pulling the petals off tulips
hiding behing curtains
playing peek-a-boo
seeing mom put tupperware on her head
shaking spice bottles
flushing the toilet
looking out wondows
rolling a ball
taking a drive
flopping onto a cushion
playing with dad
emptying mom's makeup drawer
looking in the dishwasher
taking a ride in the stroller
eating dirt
taking a bath

We had a picnick tonight. Here is Stan enjoying two fistfuls of bread.

Scott and Stan

Julie and Stan. 

Stan loves feeding himself



whenever Stan comes across something soft, like a pillow or a couch cushion, he squeals and rubs his face on it. Sometimes throwing a pillow onto the floor by him is enough to keep him from pulling the books off the shelf. 

stats

we took stan to the doctor yesterday, and here's how big (read "small") he is:

weight: 18 pounds, 7 ounces (the good news about this for me and scott is that our home scale is about a pound high)

height: 27 7/8 inches

this puts his weight in the 5% and his height in the 10%. his head circumference, though, is in the 70%.

spring is in the air.

Up until recently, stan has been afraid of the grass. it's easy for me to take him outside on a warm day like yesterday or today and put him on a blanket with a few toys while I pull some weeds. He won't crawl off the blanket. Yesterday I was weeding and I looked over toward stan and found that he had crawled across maybe 5 feet of lawn to the railroad ties that frame the garden in the back. Good job, stan! I went back to what I was doing and soon I heard stan shrieking in delight over and over again. What could he be up to? I looked up again and saw that he was back on the blanket, laying on his face, wiggling his arms and legs and rubbing his face on the blanket, just screaming and laughing like it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Stan's favorite food is beans. These are some we pulled out of our minestrone, but he loves all kinds, especially refried beans mixed with baby rice...yum! 

a little mischief 

putting stan's pajamas on is not as easy as it used to be...

he starts out in his daytime clothes

once his diaper is off he escapes

I put the pajamas over his head

now for the leg snaps

so far so good

just...a...few...more...to...go...

aaah. mission accomplished.

gettin' the hang of it

Stan is doing much much better at all of his skills (except his bow staff skills...). When he crawls, he uses both knees instead of using one and dragging the other leg behind. And when he stands and inches around on the furnature, he always holds on with one hand, and when he falls, he at least tries to fall on his knees or his nice soft diaper. He's doing better at sleeping, too. Last night we put him to bed at 8 after feeding him bananas, cheerios (actually, toasted oats), and about 3 oz. of a bottle. He slept until 7:30. It was great. He's also getting better at being handsome and loveable!

Stan(d)

Last thursday morning I went into Stan's room saw him completing a pull-up into standing position. The rest of that morning he was crawling from place to place pulling himself up on everything. The funny thing, though, is that as soon as he was standing, he'd let go with both hands and try to balance. I told this to Dawn and she said he'd stop after he fell a few times, so I bottled up all of my motherly instincts and let him fall down a few times.
A week and about 80 falls later (only a slight exaggeration) he's still doing it. Only now he's not just trying to balance. He'll crawl to the thing he wants to stand on, slowly pull himself up, let go with one hand and get his balance (he often waves with the hand which is not holding on, which is totally cute), then he'll turn and step out with one foot and let go with the other hand all at once. He thinks he can walk, but he cant. He tries all day, and all day long I stay within 6 inches of him so that I can catch him. Even so he falls all the time because he's always twisting around when he lets go. He has bruises all over his head. He's not even good at walking when we're holding his hands up or anything, so I don't know why he thinks he can just walk out into the middle of a room by himself. And I'm sure that if we were going to learn by falling, he'd have learned by now.

Showing Off For The Boy

Stanley has mastered the courtesy laugh already; children are obviously more savvy than they were before. Sometimes we play "jump out from behind a corner and say 'boo!' or some other word or loud noise," and he laughs and laughs. Then, in a brief moment, he gets tired of it. Instead of looking away and playing with something, though, he continues to watch, and when I jump out and make a fool of myself for the last time, he sort of smiles and exhales a little. It's the equivalent of a comedian nodding her head at a joke told by someone else, instead of laughing--as if to say, "I appreciate your effort. Your effort is valuable to me."

I guess that is all I'm asking for anyway--to know that Stanley enjoys our time together. He did seem to enjoy last night's dinner, when I got him to laugh numerous times saying (in a somewhat-impolitely loud voice), "Leek tart!" and "I love dill!"

Don't tell me stuff like that isn't funny.

Nursing Rules

When Julie is nursing, Stanley will occasionally test the waters with a bite. Julie has decided to try and institute the rule that if he bites while nursing, she says, "No, no, we don't bite," and then doesn't nurse him for five minutes.

What usually ensues is a good deal of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of tooth. He'll learn, though, or wean trying.

living hand to mouth

If you put stan on the floor with a bunch of his toys, he doesn't last long, but if you put him on the floor with, say, a piece of grass or a tiny rock or a piece of fluff from a quilting project, he will stay happy for a long time. He's like a little vacuum cleaner, moving from tiny thing to tiny thing. He zeroes in, scoots over to it, picks it up with his thumb and finger, and puts it in his mouth. Unless I take it away first, that is. I went to Scott's elders quorum basketball game on Saturday and sat up on the stage with stan. He had a great time and I came home with a pocket full of tiny things.

a message from stan

niiiiimn v tf jn78 h 5gru 7hnnrt 7 ibf vbghyn nm

Cheerio!

Cheerios Infestation 2005 

things that sometimes make stan stop crying

1. taking him to look in the mirror at himself, especially the medicine cabinet mirrors because I can angle the mirrors to make a whole bunch of him.
2. sitting him on the piano bench and letting him play for a while. He's working on refining a few of his more modern compositions.
3. me playing something for him on the piano
4. turning on some music, especially ragtime, and dancing with him
5. stoping what i'm doing and playing with him :)
6. playing pat-a-cake (i lay him on his back and do it with his feet)
7. playing peek-a-boo. this is best when i'm behind something with more than one side to come out from behind, so that i can surprise him sometimes.
8. stepping outside onto the porch, or walking around the back yard or driveway, or going for a walk in the stroller
9. giving him some cheerios, or a cold carrot stick to chew on (until he gets another tooth and can bite a piece off to choke on)
10. go into a different room, if weve been in the same one for a while
11. put him on my hip and walk back and forth through the house

the new arrival

Stanley cried and cried all morning yesterday. In the afternoon, i put my finger in his mouth for him to chew on, thinking that might help, and lo and belold, i felt a tinly sharp tooth peeking through. It's still pretty small, and it's hard to get a look at, but it's really there! My baby has a tooth! i sat there imagining all these terrible things...I imagined him being 8 years old and playing in the yard by himself, I imagined him being 12 and growing out of his clothes, and passing the sacrament with white socks between his black pants and black shoes... It all became too much when i imagined him as a 17 year old, taller than me, walking in and out of the house like he owned the place...how can this happen? How will he ever grow up? and what if i dont' even notice while he's doing it, and then one day he's moving out? how is it possible that he wont' always be tiny and fat and cuddly and toothless? how could there be a time when he won't just ride around on my hip all day? I wish I had a Tivo for Stan...

bath day

the diaper was such that i used two wipes before i had even taken it off....

dad and boy 

nope, not bothered by it. nope, not at all. 

you may think it's funny, but it's snot. (Stan after a sneeze. gross!) 

ah-choo! these are some pictures of stan on his four week birthday