Night night

Ever since learning the sign for "sleep" (hands as if in prayer against the side of one's face) Iris has been quite adamant about bedtime. When she's tired, she determinedly marches off to the bedroom, slapping the side of her head and dragging a grown-up book or magazine (for the adult to read while she falls asleep) behind her. Erin is sufficiently generous of spirit/nimble to get into the crib with the child for the bedtime ritual, and then slyly extricate herself. On those (all too rare) evenings when Erin is out on the town, Ian, for want of nimbleness, can only put Tiny to sleep by joining her, and remaining there, pinned. (Fortunately he is fond of napping.)

Grey Cat Alliance!

Portrait of the Artist as a Toddler

Iris was recently introduced to the joy of markers at the public library. Most of her drawings consist of little dots as she taps taps taps the marker against the paper (which is actually an activity she enjoys whether or not the cap has been removed from the marker). This also feeds into her long-standing love of cards, as most of her drawings are on index cards that she sorts, organizes, reviews, and archives in a little bucket.

A Hunting We Will Go

For Cyrus's mother, who gave Iris this book, a picture of her enjoying it. Iris has an intense love for this book; in this picture she's interrupted Ian from cooking dinner to read it to her in the kitchen. She even acts out the words....Tickle a giraffe and make him laugh, hee hee, har har, ho ho!

Tiny Dancer

Dancing with her maraca. She chose this outfit herself.

Little Mama

The modern baby, off to work.


Iris is known as "Mama Iris" at daycare because of her great interest in the babies in the infant room and her dedicated, if not always tender, care of her baby doll. (She is also known as "Two Breakfasts" McL, as she never turns down the breakfast they serve despite having eaten at least one breakfast at home, proving she is her mother's daughter.) Her interest in babies extends to her toy animals; many tears were shed earlier this week when we could find the mama sheep but not her baby. (The family has since been reunited.) (Go Cowgirls!)

End of an Era

Iris is off to daycare this week, which means the end of her time with Madi and Miriam. Although I think Iris will enjoy daycare, parting with Madi and Miriam was very sad. (For me; Iris obviously doesn't understand this yet.)

A small tribute to Madi:



We don't have any good pictures of Miriam, but we hope she will stay in Iris's life on a regular basis.