The Kiss

Iris now has all the elements of kissing - an open mouth placed against someone else's face accompanied by a lip-smacking noise - down. But the elements don't always come together. Sometimes it's just an alarmingly wide open mouth, pressed against your nose or eyeball. Other times, when a kiss is requested, she comes over to simply tap your cheek with her index finger, as if to indicate she knows where the kisses go, but is too busy to actually give you one. And recently, if she's occupied with some other important task, like finding just the right book to read or grunting at the darkened television, she sometimes just tosses the smacking noise in your direction. Many kisses, however, are lavished upon her favorites in her book of cat breeds (a rather wild-eyed British shorthair and an orange "exotic shorthair" that is not, in our opinion, the least bit attractive), as well as on the baby in the mirror.

Discover the magic

Iris visited her ancestral homeland for the first time over Christmas, which required her taking off her size 3 shoes for airport security. Thank goodness someone is battling the infant menace.

The Ontario snows were mighty until the day before we arrived, but enough was left for Iris to enjoy her new sled:



This healthy outdoor activity was countered by Iris's complete inertia in the face of one of her other Christmas presents, dvds of classic Sesame Street:


Except when she tried to kiss Bert through the screen:


In the week that these dvds have been in her life, she has already learned to pick up the remote, point it at the TV, and grunt. Her new favorite activity is to sit on one of our laps, watch Sesame Street, *and* read a book.

Two little monkeys, jumping on the bed

Don't worry, no one fell off and bumped her head.
Iris and Leda at Thanksgiving:

Fuzzhead

It's hard to capture in pictures the fine, fluffy, yet wiry quality of Iris's hair. It's easily molded by naps, hats, and others of life's adventures into strange peaks and valleys.





Note the beginnings of a really fine rat's-nest in the back. Also note the utensils, which Iris now insists on using BY HERSELF.

Baths, a historical perspective

Christmas 2006, at Auntie Sue's:



Thanksgiving 2007, at Mimi's:


And demonstrating the fake cough Mimi taught her:

First snow

In Michigan, at Thansgiving:

Nerds beget nerds

More in the "Iris reading" series.






And while not technically reading, here she is climbing into her box of books: