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.

Can't sleep. Baby will eat me.

Hey guys, remember when Iris was born and she was that skinny little slice of a baby? Remember how we all commented that she seemed to be a reasonable weight, but she was just so tall that there would be no way to fatten her up? Har. Iris weighs 13lbs. 15oz. That's somewhere in the 73rd percentile for weight. And lest you think her height has tapered off, she's now 25 inches long. That would be the 87th percentile right there. So she's grown three (THREE!) inches since she was born, and gained six pounds.

Make adorable baby: check. Plump to Dom DeLuise proportions ASAP: checkitty check. Must be all that cake we're feeding her. No, but seriously? Similac has to be like iron-fortified liquid cake for babies, because she was plenty big when she was exclusively breast-fed, but the ankle/wrist/knee/mid-arm/everywhere fat rolls didn't really present themselves till formula started comprising half of her diet.

I almost feel bad for Iris. She's doomed to be the biggest kid in class, and I'm sure she'll always be mistaken for a kid much older than her actual years. It already happens a bit now with me, and I'm pretty sure I know when she was born. She looks like a toddler with severely stunted gross-motor skills. Hey, why can't that two-year-old walk or sit up or even crawl yet? Oh. Because she's not quite four months.

In other, moderately related news, Kelly ripped up her beast of an iris patch in her front yard and donated a good 50 bulbs or so to us. I'd been meaning to get some irises in the ground for a while now, for obvious reasons, but hadn't really gotten around to it. Kelly's so helpful. Anyway, I was going to work them into the existing beds here and there around the house, but I figured - what the hey, might as well give them their own space. They spread so quickly that I'd hate to see them take over an area and then just have to be moved again in a year. So they are now lining the East side of our house and I couldn't be more tickled with them. I did the little jumpy clappy dance when I was done planting them because I couldn't help but picture Iris sitting amongst them in the springtime and all of the ridiculous captions those pictures would foster. Can. Not. Wait.

I took a bunch of pictures this morning, but then Iris went to sleep in the room with the little upload cord thingy, so you'll have to wait for those. She's recently fallen in love with any and all stuffed animals that sing songs (curse you, Fisher Price), but one in particular makes her go all squealy like the Beatles showed up. It's this little white bunny, wearing pink jammies, and her name is Hettie. Uh, Iris picked the name. Anyway, the point is I took a bunch of pictures of Iris and Hettie this morning and they're delicious. I'll get them up soon.

More pictures, then I swear a post with actual words is coming.

They came out small again! Not sure what's going on with that. Anyway, clearly these were taken by Kelly (again), but I'll start taking my own or get Kyle to get some while I'm at work, because Kelly can't always be around to take pictures of the baby and trim her nails because I'm afraid of breaking her. If you don't have access to facebook then these are new to you, if you do & they're not, wait a couple of days and I'll post new stuff after Iris' three-month checkup on Thursday.