fifteen months old

The summer is flying by so quickly. There was a heat wave recently that made sleep extremely difficult. Evan got a portable air conditioner for the upstairs. Luckily cooler weather means that I'm getting more sleep, as long as I don't have any caffeine during the day.

Iris and her juice

I took Iris to the Mordecai Children's Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens on Monday. There is a man-made creek to wade in that she loved. She also met another 15-month old girl named Iris! The mothers were amazed. 

Iris and her juice, again.

Iris is adding new words to her vocabulary every day. So far she says, "Mama" and "Dada," obviously, but her most recent additions are "on" and "up!" She's a little confused about "on" and "open" so she just says "on" when she wants something opened. And, well, she says "up" when she wants down. Her other words are a little hard to understand for the uninitiated. "Gaga" means car or dog; "gugu" means cookie; "dudu" means juice; "nana" means banana, or Nonna (Evan's mom); "baba" is anything starting with a b, mostly bear, or ball.

Her sign language is also pretty good. She uses the signs for "more"; "help"; "all done"; "milk"; "Daddy"; "owie" (or "it hurts"); "birdie"; and "book." And, of course, she points and grunts at things she wants.

Iris and her juice, again.

 Perhaps most surprisingly, she has figured out how to say "I don't know" and also it's appropriate usage. As in, "Iris, where's your bear?" To which she responds, "I don't know," if she actually doesn't know. I had taught her the sign for "I don't know" so she also uses that, but mostly just for fun.

A few days ago I had been out for a bit and when I got home I found this baby, below. Everything looks fine, right? Well if you look closer, you'll see her diaper is on backwards. Evan claims not to have noticed that he put her diaper on backwards.

What's wrong with this picture?

As for other happenings, Evan and I went on a double date with some friends last weekend and had dinner at a French restaurant after exploring Hudson Gardens in Littleton. We also had our first visitor from Pennsylvania. A friend of mine from my PhD program was making the cross-country trip to start a new job in California and he stayed with us a night. It was so good to catch up with him and it got me very motivated to keep working on my dissertation.

july fun

Evan's birthday falls very close to Independence Day, so the first weekend in July was full of fun, in spite of Evan's recent claim that, "We never have any fun, ever." This may be true, but I don't think it's for lack of trying. It may also be true that we have trouble prioritizing fun in our family. In any case, I sought to right the funlessness, if just for an afternoon. Evan did his part by eating enough to have extra energy for the outing, and even took extra B vitamins.

Our nanny watched Iris so Evan and I could go out (I haven't mentioned the new nanny yet, right? I'll say more later). We loaded up our bikes and went to South Pearl Street to have a meditative foot bath at the drop-in meditation center and then we rode bikes through Wash Park on our way to dinner. We were both fully relaxed and happy to be out in the summer weather together.


For the Fourth of July, we went to our neighbor's house for a cookout and had a good time being in a new place, and meeting new people. Iris had a bit of a meltdown early in the evening so we went home and made sure she ate and drank well. She still hasn't seen fireworks in her lifetime, this may be a parenting fail.

The weather has been terribly hot and we've all been suffering from the lack of air conditioning in the house. Our rooms are upstairs in the hottest part of the house. Thankfully, Evan installed a portable air conditioner that is doing wonders for us all. Our first night with it wasn't spectacular, however. Iris was up needing milk a couple times and then got cold early in the morning. Hope springs eternal, though. Maybe tonight she'll sleep better.

I hired a nanny about a month ago so that I could actually make progress on my dissertation. She is in massage therapy school and has a daughter of her own. She is great with Iris and is teaching Iris more sign language. I usually work from our home office but lately the work has been more related to dealing with health insurance and oxygen issues, rather than my own dissertation work. I absolutely need the free time to deal with the pile of bills.

pacific northwest trip

At the end of June we took a trip to Washington to see Evan's cousin get married and to Oregon to visit some friends with a new baby. Iris had lots of fun meeting the extended family and was off of oxygen the entire time we were at sea level. Evan and I did a poor job of chronicling the trip in photographs, but we did manage to take some video clips. See below.

 

 

Iris got to meet her great-grandmother and great-grandfather for the first time, which was a special treat. (For some reason Blogger is not letting me post the four-generation photo, so I will try to post it later.)

Traveling with Iris is exhausting, there's no denying it. She has tons of gear. She also didn't sleep well in a foreign crib so we all ended up sleep deprived. She was very happy and energetic, otherwise. Evan is responsible for hauling our big suitcases and the car seat when we travel and he still manages to outpace me as we walk through the airport.