Iris's First Cold

Should we consider ourselves lucky to have gone this long, or does the consequence outweigh, that her immune system is now less likely to fend off an illness than another baby's who started this whole 'getting colds' thing months ago?

Two days after her 3rd day of "Mother's Day Out" (see Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes post), Iris came down with the sniffles. Waking up from a nap, she sniffled her nose and made a gurgily sound, followed shortly by a very productive sneeze. "Oh boy". But she managed a good humor and happily got up to play with her toys and continue sneezing.

It wasn't really until that night when we could hear her sleep that we got concerned. A cycle began with her breathing loudly through one available nostril, breathing nasally out of her mouth, then waking up to shift around and clear things out. Rinse and repeat.

We made some calls, acquired and administered some 'drugs', and called a night.

Sunday was not better- although she slept well the rest of the night, she skipped her afternoon despite how tired she was leading up to the time... Her demeanor was pleasant, but mummified. A sun-baked mummy, she was, for her temperature rose sharply. A sun-baked walking mummy, as she took a good percentage of her first steps today, too!

We made some calls, administered some 'drugs', and hoped for the best.

By bedtime her temperature had dropped off and she ate OK. She had a good night with little ado and woke up like a Spring Daisy this morning, all smiles and I could hear her laughing at Baggie as they went outside for the morning biscuits...

We got lucky this time, for all day today she's seemed much better, with no fever and basically no congestion. I'm sure we won't always be this lucky, but this is the kind of thing we're willing to take in small 'doses' (I kill myself!).

HAPPY 11th MONTH BIRTHDAY, LITTLE BEAR!!!

First Day of School

With all this heat, it's hard to believe that another school year is beginning. I remember when school began in the fall, you know, the real fall! But alas it is on, so a very busy time indeed.

Actually the weeks leading up to today have seen their fair share of action, too. First, Mama D realized the gravity of her new school situation shortly after returning from vacation up north. The cool part was that the visual arts department (her and 2 others) had their own building, but the real part was that it was going to take hours and hours of work to get the building ready for school.

You see, Mama D and another newbie arrived to this building on the tail coats of two 20+ year-career teachers. The departed obviously were wonderful and successful teachers, with a big reputation to live up to, however they shared a common feature among art teachers: they couldn't throw anything away. There were a thousand storage cabinets filled with a million objects, arranged in no logical order what-so-ever (picture shows the clean-up process mid-term). There were many kilns yet none that fired properly due to a voltage mis-match within the building. There were looms hanging from the walls, equipped by a whole caged-off area's worth of stuff, that had barely been touched in over a decade!

Three weeks of muscle, at least a half-dozen filled dumpsters, and several hefty "permanent loans" later, the building finally started to feel navigable, if not homey! Mama D spent a ton of nights and weekend days trying to figure out where everything would go (we basically freed-up a whole 30'x80' area to use as a classroom that had previously served as a broom closet). naM would go on other nights when there was a pre-arranged list of tasks that generally required tools or the lifting of objects over 25 lbs. All was good, for he got to know Mama D's new coworkers, who were also quite busy there, in the meantime.. And then there were nights we hired a babysitter so we could both work! Romance!

But things are looking good- Mama D is ready to begin a new year in a new place and is already feeling the energy after a single Open House session, Iris is taking her two new places in stride, and naM is going "wee wee wee" all the way home!

Mother's Day Trout

Tonight was the orientation for Iris's Mother's Day Out program, which I mentioned in yesterday's post. Had this been a normal event, I probably would have let this one fly undocumented..

But I digress- I acted as the sole ambassador for Iris- Mama D was up at the school preparing for tomorrow night's first Open House.. Dave, the father of Iris's two new pals, also came along.

The evening began innocently enough, with all of the parents assembled together- I felt like I was in church but perhaps that was because I was in a church (albeit a basement) and there was a prayer led by the church's minister...

The program coordinator (a woman, mind you) then spoke, introducing the program as an opportunity for "mothers to get a break from watching their little ones and go shopping or clean around the home and do laundry or cook dinner". I seriously thought 'were stay-at-home fathers eligible for this?' After some general comments and a terribly long stream-of-conscious concluding prayer, we broke out into groups.

Everyone went to their kids' classroom-to-be, where the two 'teachers' were waiting with big smiles and showing off the cubbies-to-be with each baby's name already affixed. It was genuinely cute and it was easy to imagine little Iris trucking around the square room, pulling up on the baskets and bookshelves.. Each class, it seems, consists of about 10-12 kids within the same approximate age range, although Iris got bumped up one grouping because her's was filled at the time of registration. This means that Iris will be the youngest among babies as much as 8 months older- and one of two kids that cannot yet walk..

So we all sat there, discussing the "rules" and what to bring, a typical day, label everything, etc., and all seemed peachy. It wasn't until the concluding moments open for questions that a european couple decided to make things interesting (as though just having accents alone didn't blow the socks off most of the people there). The euro father started talking (not asking) about being 'really disturbed about the prospect of having their child subjected to 15 minutes of Barney videos while the two 'teachers' cleaned up from lunch'. One of the teachers immediately back-peddled, 'we hardly ever get the TV since there's only one to share for 4 classrooms'. The euro wife counter-back-peddled, 'maybe its because we're european, but..' (they never specified which country after ~10 references), and back and forth.

For 10 minutes I observed some of the most beautifully uncomfortable dialogue I'd heard in a long time, where other parents would suddenly chime in, making some vapid comment about TV or their child without making eye contact with a single person.. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to blurt out one of the best non-sequitors ever that I learned from my college roommate Ryan- 'I have a room to rent', but I held it back..

The whole sequence came to an eerie halt when the euros admitted that the root of their concern was that their 5-yr-old watched TV all the time. Hmm! And that this same child had been involved with the program last year. Hmmm! I was rolling! The one teacher said that this was the first time anyone had complaned about this in her 20+ years and then everyone just stopped talking altogether. After 30 seconds of silence (that felt like eons), we all got up and walked out without saying thanks or goodbye..

None of this should be a problem for the kids though, since they don't possess the linguistic ability to wind themselves up in such a mess..

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

With the new school year just around the corner, many changes are afoot!

Iris is going to be spending days with our friends Dave and Audrey, with Audrey staying home to watch Iris and her own two daughters, Sophie (8 months older) and Samantha (8 months younger). Look for pictures of them together in the upcoming photo galleries... We are very grateful to have them helping us out- their house is just a few minutes away and basically en route to work for both of us, so the arrangement couldn't be more convenient (other than a Nanny Carole situation!).

In addition to this new environment, Iris will also be attending a Mother's Day Out program along with Sophie and Samantha at the nearby First Baptist Walma- I mean Church- on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 4 hours. Tomorrow night is the orientation, so I'll know more then..

Just as at Audrey's, Iris will be exposed to myriad new social situations (and germs) here while getting to observe her "peers" do "grown-up" things like walk and run and talk! This is going to be a big year for our little bear!

Mama D is also gearing up for the new teaching gig. We've been spending a lot of time at the school cleaning out closets and loading trucks with garbage on top of drafting art supply budgets and lesson plans- it's only a week until the students show up for class! Last week she went to the county orientation seminars and this week there are four teacher prep days with two evening Open House sessions planned..

naM is gearing up for a busy end-of-year schedule at work as well, with 4 major installations taking place before Christmas... There will be some travelling involved and several disjointed weeks of back-shift/weekend coverage.. On the bright side, this may be an opportunity to update this blog! But it is exciting since these jobs will be the culmination of several months of preparation and planning..

There are also changes amongst our friends as well- in-town friends moving out-of-town, and out-of-town friends moving out-of-state! Just days before we headed off on our MI trip, our friends Craig, Ellen, and Grace (see State of Grace) moved to Macon, GA, after Dr. Craig landed a tenure-track position at Mercer University- we wish them good luck! And then within a matter of weeks all three former college roommates of naM's that had been living in Athens departed for Michigan, Michigan, and Virginia, respectively. Now we have nowhere to stay when a cool concert blows through town! Not that we can do those kinds of things easily anymore..

But that takes us pretty current on where we're at and where we're going. As usual, stay tuned for more updates- I don't see myself taking another 3-month haitus anytime soon..

Mothman Prophecy

A moth I found at work today:

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I have been sadly late in posting this, but trying to find ways to work all of the news in with other news such that it all reads as a story is not always easy.

We're far enough overdue to show you two beatiful movies that the story aspect need not apply:

Here's a double whammy- something Iris is doing now and her doing it with her favorite toy de jour:


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She's pretty much like this all the time...

And here's another thing Iris is doing now:

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Lots of bumps and bruises these days as Iris crawls and pulls herself up on just about anything she can, regardless of stability. I must say that she falls with grace, though!

It can't be long until she's walking on her own! Or can it, please?