I'll start this post trying to describe some personality traits of Iris to make more concrete those things that I've neglected to write. If you were to come upon Iris out in public, you might get the impression that she is a very serious little girl who never makes noise or acts silly. She has quite the serious face and uses it almost exclusively when we're out at stores or at church. An old man came up to us at the grocery store after receiving one of Iris's glares thinking that he could win her over and get a smile out of her. Nope. Sorry old man. Iris did not want to smile at you and she is not changing her mind.
Don't get me wrong. Iris isn't rude. She's just discerning. There is only a finite number of smiles to share each day and she just wants to make sure she has enough left for Daddy. Because Daddy always gets a smile. The last month or so she's been doing that adorable baby wave with the pudgy hand grasp and release that is so adorable that sometimes even Iris is drawn into its power. Every time that Karl comes into the room she turns on the charm and that cutesy wave. Every time he leave the room or for that matter, turns his back on her, Iris cries. She's working on wrapping Karl around her little finger early. And it is working. Iris often accompanies Karl on his morning walk with Nova now that the weather has issued us some reprieve.
So in public, Iris is discerning, but at home, Iris is entertained. Everything is funny, especially Ruben. No matter how inappropriate his behavior (i.e. tackling Iris, spitting water at Iris, tickling her face, etc), Iris thinks he is hilarious. He's even funnier from the safety of Mom's arms but even up close I'm surprised at her toughness. Give her a few more months and she'll be tackling him. June and Iris have a wonderful relationship too, but I often catch June treating Iris as more an extra large doll and Iris not playing along quite as well as she might.
Iris's favorite activities include opening the kitchen cabinets and searching for spillable boxes, crawling into Ruben's room and finding pennies to eat, finding any piece of fabric (particularly June's underwear) and pulling it over her head, and playing with markers (lids on of course). She gets in surprisingly little trouble and is rarely injured but I have definitely fished more out of her mouth than I did with either Ruben or June. She avoids the stairs like a pro (lots of warnings from mom and the kids), but recently has discovered she can crawl up on things like couch cushions, people lying on the floor, and step stools. It is only a matter of time. The outside world is a virtually unexplored space that we've recently tackled. So far, Iris is a fan of swinging but not so sure of this stuff called grass.
So last Saturday was Iris's big birthday celebration and while I didn't plan for anything big, it ended up being just a fantastic family filled weekend. Brad and Susan drove over from PA and Nana and Papa flew up from Topeka (a flight from Topeka, wow!). Katie and Jacob came up from Aurora, and Karl and Kory had driven to Kansas for Uncle David's funeral so even Dad drove back for the party. Saturday night we opened presents and had blueberry upside down cake. Iris wasn't sure about the cake at first, but warmed up pretty quickly once she discovered it was edible. Present opening for a one year old is pretty synonymous with older siblings squabbling over gifts while one year old sits there and watches. Iris got a bunch of board books because last month we realized most of our baby books were destroyed in one of the floods last spring and summer. Does that tell you how often we've sat down to read with Iris? I'm sure she's scarred for life.
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