five months old

Iris was five months old yesterday. To celebrate, Colorado is having historic rainstorms and flash flooding.  She seems to have some red in her hair and sucks only her left thumb. She also doesn't make much noise in the morning when she wakes up so I don't always know that she's awake. But when we go in to see her she is all smiles. On Monday we go to the genetics department to arrange for further testing.

Iris at five months

I heard an NPR interview with the author of a new children's book, Wonder, which made me want to read the book straight away. And to have the future Iris read the book. It was inspired by the author's personal experience of not knowing how to help her son behave around another small child who had a facial deformation. I take it that the gist of the book is to emphasize the importance of kindness and that one of the main takeaways is: "When given the choice between being right, or being kind, choose kind." I probably don't think that this should be acted out all the time -- there are some times when being right is really, really important -- but too many people [maybe myself included?] think being right is always the most important thing no matter what.

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A lot has happened recently. For one, we moved. The house is still in shambles but we're in a house! Soon we [Evan] will install the kitchen cabinets and by next Friday I hope that the contractor we hired will have the counter top finished. Evan is planning to install all the doors and the baseboard very soon, too. As soon as that is complete we can actually move the big furniture in and decide what to do with all the books. 

My dad, Nelson, and brother, Miguel, helped us move last weekend in intense heat. There is no way we could have done it without them. They worked very hard and even had time to do some tree trimming.

Miguel in a tree. Dad in background [little blue speck].

When Evan is not working on the house he is working at his job. He left yesterday for a business trip to Ann Arbor and from what he reports back, the trip is going very well. He returns tomorrow and has pledged not to work over the weekend. I have reserved Saturday morning for a family outing. We are going to attempt to take Iris out to breakfast in a cute neighborhood I used to frequent.

I said long ago that one of my goals was to run a 1/2 marathon in October. Well, I have sorely failed at preparing for that goal. I am running, which I'm happy about, but it's been difficult to carve out the time. And I still haven't started running with Iris in the running stroller, even tough that's what it's for. The idea of running with the oxygen tank makes me a little nervous though it shouldn't.

My main goal should be to actually do work on my dissertation. This has still not happened. We have a sitter starting tomorrow who has been hired explicitly to help me get work done on the dissertation. May I actually use that time for the said purpose.