LOVE me!

It's kind of hard to tell (actually impossible to tell) in this photo, but Iris' jammies actually say, "LOVE me." I find that to be hilarious. As if we need a written reminder, stamped right there on the baby's chest. Just in case you forgot, folks, you are supposed to LOVE me! LOVE ME! AAAAAHHHHH! I dunno, maybe some kids really are so awful that a helpful reminder is always in good taste. I suppose that should make me feel better about Iris. She may suck your will to live at three in the morning, but she never sucked my will to love her! Ooookay, that might be a teensy bit morbid. Moving on.



Kelly once again proves her awesomeness by not only having her christmas decorations already in place (we're getting there with ours. we just have a lengthy and in-depth planning process that we like to call "disaster-preparedness," but which you might refer to as "procrastination." Semantics, really.), but she has also taken all manner of adorable christmas photos of my kid in front of her tree. I am totally going to mail out these photos and claim the background as my own. Pretend you didn't read this when you get the pictures, okay?



Anyhoodle. Please to click here to see the entire album.

The Forgotten Photos

Grandma Kelley pointed out to me recently that I've been slacking in the whole uploading photos to Picasa thing, so I've added a new album, quite originally titled "Dec 3, 2009," which contains all the most recent pics that you've seen here & there on the blog or Facebook. Enjoy!

I Am Died.

A conciliatory gift to compensate for my previous whininess on this fine fake-friday/pre-thanksgiving day.

Night Time Mothering....

... is starting to look like this:

I'm pretty sure I'm over it. It's been nine months, and I'm almost positive that the only thing my continued breastfeeding provides is pacification. They make pacifiers for this very reason. Not that Princess Gag-Barf would ever actually use one, but I still think I'm taking my girls and going home, because this party is o-ver.

Picture Pages!

Chillin.


Still Chillin.

Still Chillin.


You know....

ATTACK.

(kelly might be sporting a teensy little bald spot on the back of her head now. kid has a powerful grip)

Sunday Morning Coming Down (okay, not actually, but it is technically sunday morning and I kind of had to go there)

Ahem. It is somewhere around the one o'clock hour on this fine November 15th. Let's not get into the details of why I'm awake just at the moment, or why I'm keyed up enough to be writing here, rather than doing something crazy like sleeping or something.

Iris has been asleep for a couple of hours now. A few minutes ago, she started letting out some rather sad little bleating yelps through the monitor. I made my way upstairs to find her completely asleep, sprawled over her blanket in a rather uncomfortable looking pose. As I moved to right her limbs in to some sort of less pretzeled arrangement, she started crying and wiggling around again. I took the opportunity to rearrange her, cover her up a bit, and generally try to help her calm down.

She never woke up, really. She didn't open her eyes. I pressed my palm into the back of her head and tried to make contact with as much of her back as my weirdly angled forearm could muster. She flinched a few more times, but eventually stilled enough to seem genuinely asleep again. After I pulled my hand away I sat back and watched her for a few minutes. Part of me was waiting to make sure she wouldn't wake up again, but after a bit I realized that I was also trying to study her.

She is growing so fast. I looked at my baby tonight and saw her dream a big kid dream. In the low glow of the little glass turtle lamp who guards the changing table, I wanted to take a picture of her. She was so expressive. It felt like eavesdropping because she's such an active sleeper. She looked like she was upset or angry, or like she was giving someone a very serious dressing-down. Is it possible for a baby to look smugly confident while having a bad dream? If it is, that's exactly what she was doing.

I gave her a mental high-five when she very half-heartedly kicked at the air one last time before finally crashing in earnest. She's already so interesting, I honestly can't imagine what we're going to do when she starts talking. We'll have to find a way to record everything she says, because I can pretty much guarantee you that it will either be the funniest thing you've ever heard, or a really awesome name for a band, so either way, we'll not want to miss it.

(sorry guys. blogger wasn't working when I first attempted this post. thought you'd like it eventually, at the very least.)

Surly Monkey

Hi, my name's Iris, I like carrots and pickles and biting and freaking out and not sleeping. I'm proficient in the arts of fit-throwing and melt-downing (subtle differences, but I assure you, they're distinct). I can say "MAmamamamamamama," "DAdadadaDADAdaDAdadadad," and "Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!" That last one means "cat." I can hold my bottle, but I won't actually ever do it. I can crawl, but that would require you to stop holding me, so again, not gonna happen. I could probably walk, but see above re: put me down and you shall know pain.

Last week I totally punched Kelly in the face for not being Mama. Pretty much every night I try to install my foot into Mama's bellybutton for not being awake at omfg-shoot-me-now-o'clock. I have successfully removed about 25% of the cats' fur, yet for some reason they keep coming over to hang out with me.

Iris is really a joy to be around. She's a pretty happy baby in general, very smiley and ticklish. She's totally interested in everything around her, loves to sing songs and hear music everywhere we go. She wants to touch everything, but somehow skipped the part where she puts said everything in her mouth. Genius baby. Anyway, she's just sorta high maintenance, but I'm thinking "baby" is synonymous with "high maintenance," so I'm not exactly surprised/concerned. She's happy and incredibly demanding and maybe the demon in her soul is just a tiny little innocuous one, one who doesn't necessarily want to harm you, just really freak you out a lot. Hard to tell.

Ok, here's a good example. Everyone here seen The Incredibles? No? Great Pixar flick. You should totally go watch it right now. For those of you who haven't, allow me to explain the baby Jack Jack phenomenon. This movie features a family of super heroes who are doing their best to hide in plain sight, not reveal their superpowers & live as normal folks, etc, etc. Both parents and the two older kids have identifiable powers, but the baby (Jack Jack!) has always been known as the one "normal" person in the family. Cut to the end of the movie, most of the family is off saving the world, and some bad guy is trying to run off with the baby who has been left home with a sitter. This is also, quite helpfully, when Jack Jack comes into his super power.

Let us just say that Iris and Jack Jack have much in common.

Blue Steel

Behold, Her Pudgesty, Iris Luella:

Not much new happening over here, but Kelly took some more pictures, so I thought I'd share. I've now witnessed Kelly's photography stylee a couple of times, and I take back everything I ever said about the embarrassing noises/faces that I make while trying to take photos, because Kelly is way more adorkable than I'll ever be. Woman can do things with her eyebrows that would make even the most determinedly morose of the sulky emo kids crack up.

As you can see, Iris has become much more expressive of late.
I call this one her "I am learning that information for the first time ever!" face. Doesn't she just look so mock-surprised? Like, "oh, that is quite the dramatic turn of events! How shall I arrange my face to portray the most possible alarm?"

And this one, of course is all, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, you are not SERIOUS?!!!1!??" Like you can see the "nuh-UH" about to roll off her tongue.

So, I don't even know how to talk about this (slaps face in shame) but Iris really likes My Little Ponies. PUHLEEZ for the love of all that is good and Holy, do not start adding "My Little Pony Paraphernalia & Small Parts On Which To Choke" to any sort of Christmas/B-Day present list that you may be keeping for Iris (lookin' at you, Grandmas). Iris has plenty of good quality time with the Ponies five days a week, and I do NOT need them taking over my house. ANYway, Iris really likes them. She whips them around by their manes and bangs them on the floor, and carries them around in her backwards-crawling escapades.

Look! With the standing! and the precious! and that awesomesauce outfit! I actually specifically requested that Kelly take pictures this day because I was so enamored with Iris' outfit. I actually want this in grown up size for myself.

And this one is just so gratuitously cute I threw up in my mouth a little. Just kidding. But it is ridiculously cute, no?

Hey, Iris just woke up! cc tb kkkkkkvg cv7gy fvgfrb. That was her stellar keyboarding skills right there, roughly translated, I think it means "Hi." Anyway, with the elfin one awake, now is the time when we snuggle on the couch and watch bad movies till she passes out. I'll try to get these pictures and the rest from the set up on Picasa soon.

Because

I'm fully aware that I sound like the bad guy when I describe Iris with words like "Angry Demon Elf," or "Satan's Razornails Freedom Hater," and that everyone wanted to believe that I was joking when I warned that she doesn't take smack from anyone, and that you should watch your soft parts because she's out to maul you. But just look at that face. That is the face of one twisted puppy. She's gonna mess. you. up.

Just joshin. I think she just really wanted some pancakes. She tends to make that face when she's feeling silly and/or really wants to lick your face. Which is always, so.... ya. She makes that face a lot.

P.S. Shamelessly ripped off this pic from Sarah's FB. Thanks dude.

On Epiphanies, and Bad Words

You guys. I don't know if I have the energy to be interesting today, but it's been awhile, so I figured I should post something. Iris is now like (omfg! gagsputterkaaaack) seven months old. I do believe that some months ago - and please feel free to dig through the archives to remind yourselves of just how long ago it was - that I mentioned that Iris was just "going through a Thing," and certainly this Thing was not the new normal. sigh.

Ok. Fine. Do you see the white flags flapping out of my ears? It's the new normal. This is, Iris is, normal.

There is this woman I work with who is, I am sure, some kind of stereotypical something. She is overweight and talks about it constantly. She wears blue eyeshadow and frosts her hair (no, not highlights, frosts), and she recently burnt her bangs off to a crispy 1/4 inch long with some heated hairstyling instrument or another. She's a close talker and a mouth breather, and she can't sit still for longer than 20 minutes at a stretch. She spends most of her time leaning over her coworkers, cornering them into their cubicles and giving no hope of escape, asking these banal questions with bizarrely rapt attention and glassy eyes.

Her favorite question to ask me is, "Soooooo, how's little Miss Iiiiiiiris? How's she sleeeeping?" She has a problem with vowels. Anyway, my response is always the same. She sleeps when she sleeps. Sometimes she doesn't. It's not predictable, and honestly I don't even think about it anymore. So when she asked me that same question, again, not two days after the last time she asked it, I finally just looked at her and said, "you should probably just stop asking the question, because she's never going to sleep through the night, there will just finally come a day when I don't have to care that she's awake." I realized right then that I wasn't just trying to pound some sort of social awareness into her brain with my curt response, I also actually believed the statement to be true.

I spent a while longer, absently nodding while she explained that her one friend just puts her baby in the crib, and eventually she stops crying and goes to sleep, because she knows that no one is coming, so she just gives up! Her hands fly up in the air and her eyebrows disappear into her squnchy forehead, grinning and smug, as if she's just solved all my problems. As if I have never even heard of the concept of "crying it out." Sigh. She just stands there looking at me, like I need to give her a prize or something, when I level her with yet another accidental truth in my paltry efforts to get her to just. go. away. "Really, I don't care if she sleeps through the night. She's not going to. Ever. I've accepted it. Don't worry about it."

She is never going to sleep through the night. And I don't care.

It feels so much better to just live in reality than constantly wait for that which will never come. It's such a relief! Never! Hah! I've known all along, and I didn't even realize it! My eyelid is always going to twitch if I close my eyes for longer than a blink. I'm always going to drink coffee all day, then grab a glass of wine to shut off the coffee before I go to bed (not to sleep! hah! just bed). This isn't even a pity party, it's an epiphany.

Someday she'll wake up in the night and she won't cry. Maybe she'll be able to read by then, or maybe she'll be younger. She will wake up, look around herself, perhaps find a toy or an interesting tag on a blanket, and she will blessedly entertain herself. Till then, I can just enjoy her charming, quirky babyness and hope that I'm not being too bad of an influence on those nights when I forget about my epiphany and drop an f-bomb or seven in her presence.

Luella Fun Fact

She talks in her sleep.

I came home from work today to relieve Kyle so he could run out the door to tutor. He told me she'd only been asleep for like ten minutes before I arrived, so I figured I had at least another 20-30 before she woke up. Not five minutes later, I hear her talking. Like, regular, baby is chatting it up, slapping your face and licking your mouth, talking. Sounded perfectly awake. So, because I'm brilliant, I pound up the stairs to go get her, making a bu-hunch of noise on the way, only to see her lying there peacefully talking in her sleep!

This could get interesting ...

If You're Not Down With The Brevity

And here I thought it had just been soo long since I'd posted anything, but look! It's only been three days! I'm not completely sure if a few sentences outlining my lameness count, but for my sake I plan to pretend they do. Ah, ok - just checked back to see when the last time I posted something of any length was, and it was definitely still August. Woopsie daisy. Moving on, then.


Iris would like for the internets to know that she is a big kid, and big kids do not lie down, nor do they willingly succumb to sleep. Big kids eat a bunch, and they shout. They don't take smack and they really like feet.

Is that pie? I'll be taking that, thanks.

I am totally serious about the staunch anti-recline position that Iris has taken lately. She won't even lean her head back a little to eat. When she falls asleep we have to resort to the utmost in trickery to convince her that she does not, nor will she ever, exist in anything other than a fully upright position. It was this behavior coupled with a few days of extreme sadness and a teensy mild fever, which convinced me that she had an ear infection. I sort of knew that she didn't, but I was feeling paranoid so I just went with it. Of course it turns out that she is infection free, maybe had a mild reaction to a virus or something. But! This means that she had to be weighed!

Check your socks, they're about to be knocked.

19 lbs, 14 oz.

!!! !!!!!! ! !

Well, I think it's a big deal. It's so funny when I watch others try to hold Iris for any length of time. I like to time how long it takes them to start sagging. Best time goes to Uncle Craig, but I think he just hides it well. The kid is a chunk.

Exhibit A:

You tell ME which one looks bigger, and then which one is almost three. years. old.

Crawling seems pretty imminent these days. I propped Iris' knees up underneath her while she was having some tummy time just to see if anything would click for her and it sort of did. It at least gave her a new perspective for long enough to stop thoroughly hating the situation. She lost the pose after a few seconds, but the idea is there. She's almost more interested in standing than trying to figure out crawling though, and I think she fully mastered sitting up alone just a few days ago. Her second (bottom) tooth came in yesterday-ish as well, but for some reason the drooling has ramped up, rather than taper off as I'd expected. She was crying quite a bit on the car ride home today, and one of the few things that seemed to quiet her was pressure on her top gums. It never ends, does it? I shall strive to imagine a word evil enough to encompass my feelings about teething.

Did you bring the baby tylenol? Cuz if not, the sharks are waitin'.

We went to the KC area this weekend for a Kelley wedding. The weather was beautiful and we got to spend some good times with the fam, even though Grandma K. was under the weather (boo.), and we woke up at 6:30 after sleeping in 45 minute increments all night (thanks, teeth!) Last night Uncle Chris was waving to Iris, who was being unusually unresponsive to the gesture (normally it's totally enthralling for her), because she was too engaged with my foot. All babies seem to love their own feet, but we recently discovered that she really likes mine too. I can't decide if it's only my feet or I'm the most frequently barefoot person she knows or what. So I had her sitting on my knee facing away from me, and she caught sight of my toes. The only way for me to get her to even notice Chris was by lifting my leg straight and swinging it across the room to point directly at him. By the time she noticed him everyone was laughing, and I think she was just confused as to what was happening (duh - your mother is pointing her legs at people again.) Good times.

Mom. Why do you have to be so embarrassing?

I've put these, and all the other photos that I absconded from Kelly's Facebook up on Picasa. Unfortunately, no photos yet of Iris standing (working on it) or of me gesticulating with my lower extremities (don't hold your breath), but I do happen to know someone who could give you an excellent tutorial on the Flying Superman Punch, speaking of leg gesticulation (Steudle).

Laming Out

Hey All. Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten that I have a blog or anything, just lacking motivation at the moment. I'm going to post something really soon. It will be full of intrigue and romance and violence and hilarity. Promise. Soon.

Here - Distract yourselves with this while I think of something intelligent to say:

Oh Dear.

How to ensure total embarrassment for the child in t-minus eleven years: give Mug waaay too much time and a romper from the 70's. Throw in a baggie of ridiculous baby hair bows, & shazzam!

I am so putting you in a home, woman.

Minutiae

I opened this new post window with the idea that perhaps I could start with one random piece of information and sort of stretch it into something worth reading. I mean, I do hold a degree in English Literature (i.e. take a small concept that can be covered in your standard five-paragraph essay, write till your fingers bleed and submit twenty pages of brilliance, thank you very much Professor Poosty-Pants). Not tonight friends. I can seriously only think of maybe one really cool new thing that Iris has done in the past few days: she uses a walker.

Of course now my mind goes straight to your standard, geriatric tennis-balls-for-wheels style walker (happens every time I tell someone about Iris in the walker), but I'm pretty sure everyone knows that I mean a baby walker. Is that what people call it? I've heard jumparoo or something, but I think that's the wheel-less alternative for folks with dangerous stairwells. ANYway, Lola's old walker has been recently exhumed, and I got to see Iris like, walking... in the walker. Her little socks were actually sort of grungy on the bottom from walking around today! What kind of person's feet get dirty on the bottom side? Oh yeah that's right, the sort of person who WALKS (ish).

Oh excellent, I just remembered something else! Iris is thisclose to being able to hold her own bottle. From almost exactly the time that she started staying home with Kyle during the summer she has enjoyed bottles with intense aplomb. There is always a bunch of bouncing and panting, and just wanting to get the bottle to her mouth so badly that she gets all worked up and can't eat. These little fits of love for the bottle have always included this crazy thwacking at her face for the first few minutes of bottle time. I always thought she was just really super stoked to be eating, but as the motor skills develop, I can see that she did have ulterior motives in mind. She's been doing it for so long I didn't catch on as fast as I might have, but she's been honing her ability to actually grab the bottle with her hands and hold it up. She's aaaalmost got it, and it's so cute.

On the honing of the motor skills note, Kelly and I watched Iris nearly pick up a bottle off of the table and bring it to her mouth. She was sitting in the bumbo seat (it's that little molded foam/plastic thing that looks like it's made out of roller coaster ride parts) on the kitchen table, and the half-empty bottle was sitting directly next to her. She reached down with her left hand and grasped it by the nipple, then hoisted it up off of the table just high enough to grab the body of the bottle with her right hand. Then she struggled for a few minutes to actually lift it higher than three inches off the table because it was a glass bottle, and full of liquid, and we can really only expect so much of the muscles of an infant. Still pretty cool to watch though.

I'm telling you, tomorrow she's going to ask me for something in a full sentence, perhaps even in another language, and I'm really not going to be that surprised. I'll be sure to let you know when she solves the formula for cold fusion though.

Six Monthiversary

Dear Iris,

You must have had some foresight that today was not going to be an ordinary Wednesday. We began this day together, just you and Mom, alone in the downstairs bedroom reading (me), and trying to shout down the house (you). About 45 minutes into this glorious August 26th, we finally decided that sleep is in fact, not for suckers, and fitfully rested till the sun came up and Dad came downstairs to figure out why he slept so well for the first time in six months.

As I am sure you remember, I wasn't terribly pleased with the fact that we had to get up and have a midnight party. I realize now though that it afforded us the opportunity to spend the first hours of the day alone together, and that I got to see you the first moment that you became a six month old baby. You must have known that I would carry this memory with me forever, like a gift, or why else would you have so vehemently kicked me in the gut for the hour preceding our departure to the downstairs? Good call, kiddo.

When you were very, very small, Dad and I used to walk miles through the house trying to help you to calm down, relax your tired little body, stop fighting long enough to sleep for longer than 20 minutes. One of those days, as I lapped the living room for the 7,083rd time, I caught our reflection in the big mirror and paused. In that brief pause I reminded myself that on that day, you were nearly three weeks old, you weighed eight little pounds and you smelled like the ocean. I felt in that moment more solidly than I ever knew to be possible that you would grow so fast, and someday I'd fuzzily recall our reflection there in the living room mirror and know what it means to watch time slip away without notice.

I saw you at four, seven, fifteen years old. I saw us living in a different house, a different state, you learning - everything- and moving to your own house, making your own choices, making your own mistakes. It should have affected me more, this realization, but then you were so new and it felt at the time as if nothing would ever change. It felt like time was speeding out of control and standing still at once, and I chose to believe that we would always be like that, snuggled together like we were still part of the same body. Even now, after half a year, I can feel you wiggling and nudging me behind my bellybutton. No matter how old you are, I will always look down to see if I can tell which extremity you're poking me with, even as I realize that no, there's no one there. It's heartbreaking for a tiny fraction of a second, but then, you're here:

Time is flying; has flown. You have now entered the second half of the first year of your life. You like carrots and books and bunnies. You have friends and you like to stick your hand in their mouths. Your are known as The Whiz, Jellybean, Lou, I, Luella (Druella/Truella/Cruella), and Baby Iris. You have one tooth and you don't crawl, but you do wiggle backwards in a crawling-esque fashion. You are ticklish everywhere, and from the first day that you found your voice, you have greeted every morning with a laugh and a song and a hearty wiggle session.

So grow if you must, but remember that to your Dad and me, you'll always be our baby, our Iris Luella, and no you may not wear that skirt out of the house.

The baby is big. No, like, BIG.

Welcome to yet another meandering post from your friendly neighborhood blogger over here. I'll get down to the important bits quickly: Iris had her six-month well baby visit yesterday so we got some updated stats.

Height (length?): 26 inches

Head Circumference: 17 inches

Weight: 18 lbs. 1 oz.

Honestly we're not sure on the ounces because she kept thrashing and kicking on the scale. It vacillated between 18 lbs. 1 oz. and 18 lbs. 5 oz. We just sort of guessed after a few minutes of trying. I don't have the print out with me, so I'm not sure on all the percentiles, but I do know that her weight is near the 90th. I'll get back to you on that one. She didn't get her final (for now) round of vaccinations because apparently there is some kind of shortage going on on the medical world, but I'm having Franzia anyway, as it's become somewhat of a ritual at this point, and I am nothing if not a sucker for tradition.

The doctor verified that there is definitely a tooth present, and its mate is soon to make an appearance (aside to Aunt Pittypat: TOLD you so! ok, ok, just joking. But seriously? One bite from that kid will make you a believer). I tried to get pictures, but the best I could do was a nice shiny view of the underside of her tongue. She consistently covers that freaking tooth with either her tongue or her bottom lip whenever we try to expose it.

I asked the doctor about how to get Iris to sleep better, and she sort of lamed out and explained that everybody likes to cuddle, so I should just try to be nice. Or something. I don't know. I mean, I know it's easy enough to peg me as the giant flaming hippie of the family, but if you met this woman, you'd completely reassess that stance, family or no. I mean, I just wanted someone who would understand our desire to practice attachment parenting, not condone nursing till the kid is 13. I do like her. I think she's a better fit than I ever could have asked for, but I guess you can never find the perfect doctor when it comes right down to it. She's just a little more...ah...hand-holdy than I am.

For example: Yesterday our appointment was at 4pm. We arrived about three minutes late, so I'll consider that on time for the sake of our story. There was one other family in the office, a Mom with two sons, aged eight and eleven, approximately. The older one was sort of wandering around the waiting area, chatting with Kyle and me, making faces at Iris, and intermittently checking on his brother, loudly wondering "what was TAKING so long!" We waited for over thirty minutes for some news of when we would be seen. At some point we heard a scream and some insanely frantic crying, followed by sounds of a struggle. Eight year old scurries out from the back with a huge puffy face, bellowing "I DON'T LIKE SHOTS. I DON'T LIKE THEM." We take this to mean that he was just the recipient of a shot, and wait for our turn. But then this kid goes back to the room and dithers around with Mom, Doc and nursing student in-training person for another ten or fifteen minutes while soothing voices and gentle pleading from the adults mumble out of the room. I can only assume they're gearing up for another shot.

A few minutes later, we're taken back, Iris has her check up, we are again reminded of how beautiful and advanced and perfect she is, as I am sure they tell all parents. The visit ends. As we walk back to the waiting area, we hear, "Okay, let's try again for that shot." As in, that kid NEVER GOT A SHOT. He was that freaked out about the prospect of having to get one. They made us wait for over 40 minutes because that kid is afraid of needles. I'm sorry, but that is the time when you hold that kid down, stab him in the arm and move along. I know that my situation was unusual, but at his age I was getting blood draws on a somewhat frequent basis. I might have cried about it, but I sat there and dealt with it.

I should be more understanding. I know it's scary. But they couldn't just see us first and then deal with little Mr. Whiney Pants later? Maybe it was the Mom's choice to try to cajole some sort of agreement out of him, but it seems to me that a stern enough presence on the side of the medical professional could have gotten the job done in a much more timely fashion.

Ok, rant over. Let's recap: Baby is huge. I now know that whatever modifiers are used to describe my parenting style, "indulgent" will never be one of them, but was anybody really surprised at that?

OMG, Y'ALL

(please pardon my slip into what can only be described as Britney Spears-ese in the title there. when I get worked up my inner pantsless redneck emerges.)

Iris has a tooth.

It's teeny and white and on the bottom, left-ish side. I don't know how I even saw it in the first place, because she maneuvers her mouth and tongue in every way possible to cover it at all costs. In fact, if I didn't know any better I'd say she was embarrassed of it. Kyle still hasn't even seen it, but I finally convinced him to just stick his finger in there and feel it out. It is definitely there. Finally.

Just Idle Prattle

Didn't the crazy octopus lady in The Little Mermaid sing a song about that? Ursula? Idle Prattle? No? In any event, it's fun to say, and you get the idea. I have things to say. They are not related.

• Haven't taken any more pictures, as I can never tell when The Sleep is coming, and I would really totally stab myself in the eye if I ruined it by screeching "Iiiiiirissss! Iris, look at Mama! Iris! Iris! Over heeeeere!" No wonder she avoids the camera.
• We are having unusually beautiful weather tonight so I thought I'd sit outside to compose this post, but then like eleventy flying beetle things dove down my shirt and attempted to build a nice community inside my bra, behind my armpit or something. It was gross. I retaliated by running inside to strip down and squeal like a little girl and smack at myself till I felt reasonably bug-free. I sincerely hope the cats step up their game on the whole creepy crawly hunting thing. Bring their A-Game, you know what I mean?
• I recently regaled my Mom with Iris' new anti-sleep strategy: Let's postpone afternoon nap juuuust late enough that it can't be called afternoon anymore, but it can't really be called bedtime either, then sleep for a couple of hours and wake up at 8pm all bright and effing bushy!

Mom: You were always a bad sleeper. It's just your personality.

Me: Huh. Yeah, I guess I was a bad sleeper. I remember being like ten

and still having trouble falling asleep.

Mom: No Meg, you are a bad sleeper. Think about it.

Me: Oh.

Me: ...

Me: oh.

(insert foul-mouthed rant here)

• So Iris inherited my awesomely hexagon-shaped toes, and the sleep skills of a ferret on trucker speed. Neat.
• Kyle goes back to work next week, which means Iris goes back to Kelly's house next week. Interesting caveat of that scenario is that I'll have to pick Iris up twice a week from the gym where Kelly works, since our schedules overlap a bit. The only way for Iris to attend the gym's play center, even with Kelly there, is if I am also a member of this gym. So you know where this is going. Now I have to work out and stuff. Let's all close our eyes and picture a reality wherein Megan works out on purpose. I'll give you a moment to compose yourselves.
• I think I'm finally going to cut off my superlong pregnancy hair. It was pretty when it wasn't shedding all over the place, but I've now lost so much of it to daily brushing that it's starting to resemble a poorly managed rat tail. Long hair, I barely knew ye...
• I still feel like there are bugs on me.

Okay, I'm off to bed. Speaking of bed though, have I told you guys about my rampant pregnancy dreams? Just to be clear here NO I AM NOT CURRENTLY PREGNANT IN ANY WAY. NOT EVEN A LITTE. But these dreams, guys. They are so realistic. Normally I can tell when I'm dreaming, but these are just eerie. In the last one, I was eight months along (Iris was still only six months old though. That probably should have tipped me off), and I hadn't told anyone in the family about the pregnancy. I also hadn't been to the doctor for any sort of prenatal care. I woke up in a panic that the baby would be taken from us because of my total negligence. Gah. It's got me thinking though: can I get some input on baby spacing? What are your thoughts here? Is it better to get all the diapering and not sleeping and ramming your head into a brick wall out of the way all at once, or is it better to give yourself a couple of years to recover before jumping back in? I'm very curious to hear your responses.

Now I really must scour my body for stowaway creepy demon beetle things and tuck myself in. Night All.

Crazed Baby Shuns Sleep, Attacks At Random

Iris went to bed at 4:30 tonight, and stayed asleep (intermittently) for like three hours. Then she woke up, attempted to remove Kyle's eyelids with her fingernails, then kicked me in the gut. What's neat is that she can do that while actively sleeping as well. Always knew we had a multi-tasker on our hands. We probably could have shushed and bounced and begged her back to sleep, but I didn't really want to find out what kind of morning wake up time follows a mid-afternoon sack time, so I didn't push it. Of course, now it's almost 9:00 and she's not really showing signs of slowing down. Please to enjoy our attempts at distracting her with Photo Booth (seriously, how did we live before the Mac?)

Heyyyyy! It's a Baybeee! I should grab it...

Crud. I missed. But SQUEEE! It's MY FOOT!

I see you over there old man. I'll cut you.

AAAHahahahaha! Wait. What's funny?

I'm looking at you, MacNevin.

I guess we could say this is Claire's fault. I'm pretty sure she's the reason the first book showed up at my house, so she definitely started this monstrosity of literary obsession in me. But Kelly. Kelly finished it (the jerk brought the remaining three books over when we got to a tie reading that trashy vampire smut).

I read the Twilight series in four days.

Onward & Upward

I don't suppose any of you know how to teach a baby to crawl/walk/fly? Because Iris would really appreciate some instruction. She spends her days now desperately trying to climb our faces and launch into the great beyond, if you count the free fall from the height of a fully grown adult 'the great beyond.' She's like a tiny dictator with pointy fingernails, and she's not afraid to use them. I walked into the room yesterday and noticed that Kyle had a big gash across is nose that he hadn't noticed at all, he was receiving such a harsh beating from the wee one. If you'd like to spend any time with Iris, all I'm saying is this: watch your soft parts. She can smell weakness.

So, ah. Please excuse my crappy picture taking skills/lack thereof. I was never that girl at the party with the camera, demanding that everyone huddle in and look engaging. Just not my style. I was the one rolling her eyes at the aforementioned girl. I hear there are actually some people who take photos, print them out on this fancy glossy paper, then like, put them in books, behind little sheets of plastic. This thing, this book with photographs and plastic, I believe is called a photo album? Fancy. Don't even get me started on scrapbooking. The fact that people have created scrapbooks for long enough for the word to become verbified (shut up. it's a word.) is beyond me. I salute your patience and dedication, scrapbookers of the world. Consider this (spreads arms in grand, sweeping fashion across all of blogdom) the closest thing to scrapbooking you'll ever see me create:

Why is Mom leering over my shoulder like I did something wrong? Man she looks pale...

A wild Kelley tends to avoid water in its natural habitat, but can be fooled by realistic-looking tree trunks and faux stone facades into treading the murky waters of the Stonycreek Inn pool.

More pictures up on Picasa - and an earnest request: Those who would seek to print every photo as it becomes available on Picasa, please remember that pictures of Mug in her swimming suit don't just hurt Mug herself, they hurt the world. Be kind to the world. Don't. Print. Them.

Reinhards? Let me know when you have pics from your camera available for upload! Thanks!

Monastic

We introduced carrots into Iris' repertoire of foods, thereby doubling the number of things she eats, if you don't count her fingers in that list. She seemed...bemused. Definitely made a face like she was eating earwax, but every time I went for a new spoonful she dove at the thing like she'd never tasted anything so exquisite in her life. So I'm counting the experience in the plus column. I took a bunch of pictures of the carrot adventure, but I didn't post them. You'll have to trust me when I tell you that the following picture was the best of the bunch, which you'll see shortly is not saying much.

Put the camera down and make with the carrots, woman.

For the past, oh I don't know, like two or three nights in a row, we've agreed to do something as a family in the evening, then helplessly watched as Iris passed out well before dark. She's sort of reverted back to her 6:00-6:30 bedtime, only to wake up every 15-60 minutes (really) to be bounced back to sleep. I've tried to just go with it and consider her officially awake, but she always falls back into a pretty solid sleep within minutes of waking up. Just wanted to know we were still there or something, I guess. Tonight we were supposed to go out to dinner with friends, so I decided to get Iris all cleaned up and in her jammies so that we could just eat, come home, and toss the baby in bed. Nobody at Ruby Tuesday is going to complain about anyone showing up to dinner in their PJ's, especially if that person is 5 months old. Everything happened as planned as long as you leave out the eating and coming home bits, because she didn't make it more than 15 minutes past bath time before totally sacking out. So yet again, I sent Kyle on without me, instructed him not to return without something containing bacon and cheese, and went back to my trashy vampire romance novel (no, not Twilight. Way worse. Embarrassingly worse. But soooo good). Don't judge.

As I wrapped Iris up in her post-bath ducky towel tonight, I remembered being a little kid, no telling how old, and my Dad giving me a bath. I always wanted two towels, because getting out of the tub is so cold, and you need one around your body and over your head if you're doing it right. Every night as the towel went over my head, I'd be all grumped out that I had to get out of the tub and that bed time was inevitable, and probably sometime during the bath, soap had been within 50 yards of my face so clearly it got in my eyes (rolls eyes dramatically). Then Dad would say, "It's Sister Mary Megan!" You can't really argue with the fact that habits look like fancy polyester towels, and neither could my four-year-old self, so I'd always grudgingly laugh in spite of myself. If I'd been articulate in any way, I would have explained to him that he's not allowed to be funny when I'm trying so hard to stay pissed off, but he'd had a good point.

It's Sister Mary Iris, of the order of the yellow duckies.

Shakira Is Spanish For Funny (aka the linky love post)

I took some more pictures of The Whiz recently but (say it with me now) the upload cord thingie is in the room where she's sleeping! Nice work. Must stop this nasty habit of leaving important items near The Sleep. Oh well, it just means that I have to post again really soon, and since I bagged out on that whole 'posting every day for a month' thing, it's good to have some incentive. But seriously? I feel like we could talk or not talk for hours and still have things to not talk about. Now everybody go out and watch Best In Show.

So the moral of the story is that things are still same, same, same around here. Iris is in some sort of transition, but mainly only because I refuse to believe that what we're experiencing is the new normal. Though I did express that exact thought to Kyle yesterday. Huh. No, let's not think about that for now. What is happening is that she is teething and growing, which is what babies do, and which are also by their very nature transitional states, so what we have here is definitely a phase or two. Babies don't really need all that much sleep anyway, do they? Hah! Ha ha ha! Ah, crap.

*****************

I was reminded today of the Showbiz Pizza Band. Referring to it as anything else (I'm looking at you, Chuck E. Cheese) shall be forever understood to be blasphemous around these parts. Anyway, I found out that those awesome animatronic buddies are quite versatile. It has nothing to do with anything, but I found this discovery to be so amusing that I simply could not keep it to myself. I'm giving like that. Enjoy.

busted.

I know I didn't post yesterday. Like I said, nothing doing over here. So it was kind of intentional, and kind of like I forgot. And you know what? I'm not really even posting now, I've just come back to tell you I'm not here. Sort of like that one Paul Simon song, but far, far less depressing.

Anyway, catch you later dudes. Super busy + teething baby = ACK.

Yahtzee!

The title really has nothing to do with anything, but I'm running out of ideas and I have always enjoyed that word. Yahtzee! Canasta! Oooh, canasta is fun too. Huh.

One of the major pitfalls of posting every day is that you're forced to stare your mundanity in the face. We just aren't that interesting. Iris is pretty cute, and there is a certain level of audience captivation she can muster, but really only for so long. And how much do you guys really want me to tell you that omg she chewed on her hand again! Then she giggled and smacked me in the face and farted. Then! She chewed on both her hands at the same time! Enthralling, I know. She is pretty fun in person though, and baby farts do have a certain charm to them, if ever the passing of gas were going to be charming. But good blog fodder it is not.

It could be that I'm losing my drive here. I need an assignment. I'm getting boring in general. Listen, I told Iris that I liked her little gums and that stylish thing she was doing with her hair today, and this is what she said to me:

"Bla-gaaaglelaaaaa."

Indeed. When you start boring the baby, you know it's time to do something about it. I shall strive to bring you actual content tomorrow (er. soon. ish. we'll see), but in the meantime, as always, enjoy the new photos (I'm posting from our desktop, so I think I'll be able to get this next bunch to picasa, but if not, check back tomorrow).

Fussy is the new black.

I have come to the conclusion that Iris is going through A Thing. I realized that I've been rationalizing her recent fussiness with vaccinations and teething, but what's really happening is that thing that babies do right before they process a growth spurt. Which I guess is also one of the things I use to rationalize fussiness, but I think I'm right here.

Have I mentioned the crunches here before? I know I've told the story in person a million times to various folks, but just to be sure I'll recap quickly: every time Iris is laying on her back, she curls up and picks her feet up and sits in this perfect death-to-abs-style crunch. It is like her big red flag that says "hey I'm about to figure something out soon." Last time it happened she started grunting and talking and trying to intone like an actual conversation was happening, when she had been the silent inquisitive baby the day before. It is her standard position now, but every time something like the big chattiness burst happens, the crunches really ramp up and become somewhat of a hindrance. They are worse when she's tired, or overly hungry and speaking of overly hungry, did anyone else know that babies go on hunger strikes because the world is just too interesting?

(awesome aside time: Kyle just mentioned that Iris has been watching a lot of the 30 Day Shred, so that might explain her drive to crunch it up.)

Anyway - what's happening is that Iris is usually a bit hungrier than she should be*, and it's harder for her to sleep because of that and the crunches, and everything being so mind bogglingly interesting. I have seen her go from dead asleep to cinching up like a fish out of water for no identifiable reason at all. Which is neat because it's always followed by her turning to glare at me for obviously forcing her to do that sit-up just then. Gah. It will pass soon though, and then I'll be able to tell you that Iris is not only three feet taller than me, but she speaks German and just wrote an ode to rice cereal in iambic pentameter.

*Trust me. She eats. She just doesn't do it in a timely fashion, and then she's super death hungry and consumes like half a day's feedings in an hour.

In which Iris divulges the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything...

...and then she whipped out her towel to chew on it for a bit, and really delve into the core of the issue, pontificating, some might even say masticating at length on what the answer could be. That is, until she fell over, found a fresh diaper and headed off for her nap.

And when I say nap, I do mean in her crib. Her crib that is in her room. Someone get me a stretcher because that fact continues to knock me out cold every time I think of it. Iris in her crib? does...not...compute...? crazy.

I'm gonna wrap this up here because I really don't have much else for you, but I wanted to assure you that she finally stopped being so sad sometime around bedtime yesterday, and now this miracle crib sleeping thing is happening.

It's not you, it's me.

*This post was saved from late yesterday. The internet is still being fickle and it decided that this is the number of photos I get to post, and that's final. Fine then. I still can't tell if it's my connection or Blogger or what. So just replace every instance of "today" with "yesterday" and it will remain a fairly accurate post.*

Oh Friends, Iris Luella had a sad day today. She really wanted to be cheerful; she certainly wanted to be distracted as much as possible. To put it mildly, she is very uncomfortable right now. Her shot yesterday left her today with a very mild fever and no appetite. Plus, her gums seem to hurt her so badly that she is almost frantic in her attempts to keep her hand or just something in her mouth at all times. She slept on and off all day, mostly alternating one hour asleep to an hour an a half awake since 7:30 this morning.

We were going to take her to a local baseball game, then to see her friend Gus's Dad play some tunes at Cooper's Landing. Once we realized that following those original plans would result in a well-cooked baby and very little time at home, we revised a bit. I sorted through all of the baby clothes in our house (it's ridiculous), and Iris napped at will. I managed to sort of document the most convivial moments of her day. Mind you, there wasn't much good humor available to Iris today, so you'll have to be impressed that she is not actively scowling in the following pictures.

The rest of the photos did actually make it to Picasa, so that's nice. Iris is still on some sort of hunger/happiness strike. It's pitiful. There is a massive storm going on outside, so we couldn't take her anywhere even if she was being cooperative. Sadness all around. Boo. I feel like there were other things I wanted to tell you, but the encompassing sound of baby misery has overthrown my thought process to the point of complete distraction. It is remarkable how pervasive that sound is. Must be some sort of biological caveman thing. I'm off.

this is tricky

Hey guys! Our internet connection is being wonky so I am actually posting this from my phone. Bet you thought I wouldn't squeeze in an update today! I'm very resourceful.

I have a real post all typed up and ready to go, so hopefully that happens tomorrow. I think some photos might have managed to load to picasa before the signal crapped out,so check there if you're so inclined.

Hopefully more soon...

The Future

Well, the great beast that is the pediarix vaccine 2.0 has knocked Iris out again. She fell immediately to sleep at 3:20 when the shot was administered, and as far as I know, is still passed out. So guess what happens tomorrow then? That's right, it's Franzia time. Maybe it won't be, you never can tell with these things. Maybe her age difference between then and now will allow for her to bounce back a little better from this round. But it could happen. So I'm prepared if it does, you understand. Anyway.

Being that the child is asleep, pictures are obviously a no-go at this point, but I'll entertain you with statistics. Sometime I'll have to figure out how to get a little illustrated growth chart up here, but for now, I give you bullets:

• Length: 25.5 inches (82.14 %tile)
• Head Circumference: 16.5 inches (67.1%tile)
• Weight: 16lbs. 2oz. (87.03%tile)

I don't know about you, but I think it is one of the coolest things ever that she's so big. It means she interacts like a little bit older baby and does a bunch of fun stuff like squeal and giggle, and...lick her shirt. It's awesome. Plus everybody knows chubby babies are way more fun to chew on. So bring on the big sleep, big baby! Dom knows what's up.

foooood.

Against common practice and in fact, direct doctor's orders, we decided to go ahead and give Iris some "real" food prior to the six month mark. We're rebels in that way. Renegade baby cereal slingers, if you will. She'd been fascinated with watching us eat for weeks, mimicking chewing anytime she saw it. She's been teething for probably almost three months now and there are still no signs of actual teeth, just a really slobbery baby who wants a bite of your pizza.

We figured not much of the stuff would actually get down her throat anyway - it's more of training session, I guess. So for the last week or so she's been happily accepting little bites of cereal, then gleefully opening her mouth and leaning forward so that it drools out in neat little patterns. I can only assume the visual effect is what she was going for. Anyway, yesterday, it finally clicked for her. Each time I brought the spoon to the bowl, she immediately stopped work on all swallowing or chewing (and I do use that word in its loosest sense), to open her mouth for the next bite. I feel a small sense of accomplishment that the bouncy/arms flapping dance she did each time the next bite came around was probably something she learned by watching me. Behold:

Mmmm. Gruel.

A Challenge

Hi! It's good to see you! I was totally going to write you like a billion posts, but then the baby switched bedtimes again, and the cat is still trying to poop on her, and we went out of town like three weekends in a row or something, and then we forgot to pay the gravity bill, but you understand I really tried.

Some items for consideration:

1. Speaking of going out of town, last weekend we went to Kansas City, MO (ok, let's be proper here, we went to Liberty, MO, the home of William Jewell College, and some damn fine cake cookies). Iris got to meet her Dad's side of the family for the very first time, and we totally forgot the camera - omg don't shoot! But! It's okay! Grandma Kelley was on it. Crisis averted. (p.s. Grandma Kelley, wanna throw me some pictures? Thanks!)


2. Funny thing about forgetting the camera is that it was out of batteries anyway, so a fat lot of good it would have done us to bring it. You could say it's the thought that counts, but in this situation, no, not really, it's the taking pictures that counts. What say you look at this to distract yourself? *A Warning: Only click on this link if you are in no way offended by bad words, rude language, and chickens. This link is WILDLY inappropriate for viewing at work or anywhere else you want to maintain the respect of your peers - seriously.* See? I knew you were going to click on it, even though I totally warned you that it would offend! But you're not angry at me for forgetting the camera anymore are you? You're angry because I made you read the f-word like seventy bajillion times. You're welcome.


3. I was reminded last weekend by certain Fans of The Whiz who shall remain unnamed (most of their names start with "Kell" and end with "ey." Rhymes with Jelly. ahem.) that this blog is something that they check every day, waiting for new updates and photos and the like. I realize I have been an infrequent blogger at best, so I propose A Challenge: I will publish a post every day for the next month, perhaps even including photos and everything, but I do ask something in return. I would like to know who reads this thing. Who are ya? There are seven people who "follow" this blog (by actually having clicked on the "follow this blog" button over there on the side), and commenting has dwindled to just the Grandmas (not that I don't love seeing your comments! I need your comments. They make me feel like I'm a good writer and smart and pretty).


4. To sum up: I challenge me to post every day, and I challenge you to leave a comment so that I know who you are. If you'd like, you can even ask a question you'd like to see answered here. A good example: "How did you get your hair to be so shiny?" or "What do you think about koala bears?" (answers: Pert Plus; and they're cute, sorta shifty, but not bears.)
   

Edited to add: Just to be sure, I commented on this post anonymously to make sure that you don't have to sign up for anything to do so, and you don't (that's the deleted comment you see). So. No excuses people.

I just can't not tell you guys about this. ack.

I have been having intermittent eye twitches for the last few weeks. Nothing painful or even very noticeable to others, but annoying for sure. As I sip on my second cup of coffee this morning, I decided to Google "eyelids twitching constantly." Here is what my search returned:

Causes
The most common things that make the muscle in your eyelid twitch are fatigue, stress, and caffeine.

Does anybody see a freaking cause and effect situation here? ANYBODY? gah.

It's So Quiet

I'm in bed right now, playing on the computer. Iris is sleeping in the co-sleeper next to me (it's like a bassinet that straps to the bed. Muy handy). I so want to take a picture of her to share with you because she is so precious I want to eat her. Alas, camera flashes are not conducive to sleep. You'll have to take my word for it. She's perfect.

I have recently realized that now is probably the easiest time we'll ever have as parents. She can't talk (back), she's not mobile yet, she finally sleeps like a mostly normal person, and she doesn't eat food yet, so she can't tell me she doesn't like what I made for dinner then ask to eat a jar of peanut butter. Sometimes when she's sleepy I take her to a quiet room to nurse her to sleep and just when I think she's drifting off, she looks up at me with a huge toothless grin and wide open eyes. She talks all the time, waggling her eyebrows up and down and grabbing your mouth when you respond, fascinated by the sounds - and if you happen to be Kyle, she just grabs your beard and shakes it around. When we read books to her, she swats at the pages with little clumsy fists and tries to turn them herself. She drools so much now that we have to change her outfit sometimes three or four times a day. Nothing makes her happier than having a shirt pulled over her head (seriously! she laughs!). Kyle props her up on a pillow to play guitar for her and she is fascinated. She giggles and squirms when the song changes a bit and her eyes shoot back and forth between his hands, trying to figure out where the sound came from.

She's my favorite baby.

Iris + Hettie = BFF

We discovered this other little plush toy that plays the same song as Hettie, but for some reason he's not nearly as cool, even though he has wings that make awesome crinkly noises. This was our attempt to see if she liked them equally, but it's really just the bunny or nothing. Kid knows what she wants.

Hettie is the awesome

Happy!

Iris & Gus lounging at the park

Well baby check-up: The Aftermath

Crinkle bug wants to come over and play. Elitist Hettie says, "you do what you want, but I hear he's made in china." Iris declines to comment.