"I'm really brave."

There's nothing that makes you feel like a worse parent than watching your child fall down stairs, fully expecting that you will have been there to catch her.

Iris and I had a miscommunication on our stairs, due to my lack of full attention on her.

I did my best not to panic as I picked her up by her left thigh (I did catch her, but not before she hit the stairs chin-first). When I try not to panic I do the same thing: "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God... Okay, Okay, Okay...." and try to assess how much of an emergency it is (do I call 911? do we go to the emergency room?). When I saw her face her mouth was starting to bleed but I didn't see any other bumps on her head. I had the words of our neurologist (or cardiologist?) going through my mind: The threshold of taking her to the emergency room is lower than for other children because her blood vessels are more fragile. Bumps on the head should be taken especially seriously because she is at higher risk for hemorrhage.

As I tried to calm her down and explain to her that we might need to go on a car ride, she settled down surprisingly quickly. She really wanted her daddy who, unfortunately for all of us, had just left for two nights on a business trip. I gave her some Tylenol through the undamaged side of her mouth and was able to see that she didn't seem to have hit her head. The only visible damage was to her lip and her lip was the only place she said hurt. All her teeth were in tact and no damage to her tongue or sides of the mouth. She did seem mad at me, that's for sure, but she wasn't acting differently (aside from being in pain). I tried calling Evan (several times) and finally got through. He was calm about it (and not at all mad at me for letting Iris fall down the stairs), and we decided that she probably didn't need to go to the emergency room.

It was getting close to bedtime so I got her a bottle and we went upstairs to sleep. After she spent some time looking at her lip in the mirror, she went to sleep. The night started off quietly but didn't stay that way. She cried for a long time for her daddy and seemed to be in some kind of gut pain, maybe from the lentils I gave her for dinner (?). But after a while she fell asleep again.

I stayed home from work and she stayed home from school on Monday so I could keep an eye on her. I quickly realized that she wasn't going to let anything near her mouth, except a bottle. After a while I decided that I was going to have to try to reason with her instead of reward her with prizes for letting me put stuff in her mouth.

I explained to her that I wanted to touch the undamaged side of her mouth and she let me do that. I asked if it hurt? "No," she said. Then I touched some puffy snacks to the side of my mouth and told her that I wanted to try it on her. She let me, and again, it didn't hurt. She happily ate a lot of puffy snacks, which have basically zero calories, but at least she ate something. That was the extent of her eating until the late afternoon (despite several other attempts), when I was able to get her to eat some buttered pasta and take some Tylenol, with the help of "Bubble Guppies."

This photo doesn't do it justice.

Thankfully, mouth wounds heal quickly so I'm hoping that today will be better than yesterday. I'm still not ready to send her back to school since she's not really eating or drinking without extra convincing.

Lessons learned: I'm glad that I was the negligent parent in this situation because I think I would have had a very hard time forgiving Evan for such a gaffe. The truth is that I'm not having the easiest time forgiving myself, either, but I've had a good reminder that accidents happen to everyone and kids are very, very resilient.

Iris has been saying, "I'm really brave," and she is, even if it's because we force her to be because of our medical treatments or our mistakes that turn into boo-boos. She's also one of the least risk-averse people I know.

early thanksgiving

Evan's family came in to town last weekend for an early Thanksgiving. We managed to keep Teresa and Montie from doing much work on the house. I enjoyed having the house so full -- we had Garrett in the guest room, Katherine and Jeremy's kids in the living room and Katherine and Jeremy upstairs in the meditation room. Montie & Teresa stayed at a hotel nearby.

Nonna Teresa with her three grandkids

Iris had tons of people to play with and things to watch. She loved meeting her cousins and aunt and uncles.

David, Iris, and Emma reading books

David, Iris, and Emma

It did take her a while to warm up to Garrett. His big beard really terrified her but after a day or two she was having fun with him -- especially when he sang to her. It was fun to see Garrett with a baby, it's a more tender side of him I don't often see. He was very good at trying to calm her down and keep her happy.

Iris, Uncle Garrett and Iris's favorite toy -- the star

On Saturday, we took the whole gang up to Mt. Falcon park, which is the closest mountain area to our house. Sunday was our Thanksgiving meal, Monday we went to a local playground and then to the Museum of Nature & Science.

The girls -- Sarah, Teresa, Iris, Katherine, Emma

The boys - Montie, Garrett, Jeremy, Evan, David

On Tuesday everyone had taken off except for Garrett. We took him to the Colorado History museum (a bit of a disappointment) and then for lunch at City O' City. Evan suggested that we take him there because it was close to the museum. We forgot that it was a vegetarian restaurant. Taking Garrett to a vegetarian restaurant is like taking him to church. He suffered through it. Luckily, we went to Root Down for dinner, which was a smashing success. We also dropped in to the Wynkoop Brewing Company, which was started by John Hickenlooper, Colorado's current governor and Denver's former mayor.

We had Iris with us all day on Tuesday, meaning she was out of the house for 7 hours. She did really well although getting her to breastfeed in the car was a bit of a hassle. She has been extending the time between nursing sessions and it has been making me nervous. I don't like her going 4 hours without nursing. I weighed Iris earlier this week -- she is 15lbs 7oz. She still hasn't doubled her birth weight, but is keeping on her 25th percentile growth curve.

Garrett asked me whether motherhood was all I had hoped and dreamed it would be. I had a hard time answering that question because I don't remember what I had thought it would be, except that I thought it would be way easier. From what I can recollect of what I thought motherhood would be, it is way better than expected. Even with all the things that we've had to deal with, everything that Iris does is that much more special considering the immense challenges we've had to go through. I'll always worry that I'm not doing enough or that I'm doing something wrong, and it seems very likely that she'll end up just fine. I am not sure what Evan would say about fatherhood and whether is has been what he expected. He adores Iris and loves to make her laugh. I can say for certain that even before all of Iris's medical issues were discovered, Evan decided he wanted never to have a newborn baby in the house again -- too much sleep deprivation. I am hopeful that Iris and I will be able to change his mind in the coming years.

Katherine asked us about what we wanted to steer Iris towards/away. There are many things we want to steer her toward and away from but one of the more important ideas for me is that she should have an understanding of how she can influence the world around her. I want her to volunteer and see how she might be a positive force in society. She'll likely grow up not eating much meat -- neither of us will prepare it for her at home, anyway. We want to teach her to meditate, do yoga -- things that I actually have to start doing again. I suppose my overarching goal for her is to learn what it means to be healthy and to live healthfully and then to do it.