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.