One Singular Sensational YEAR!

Aug ...Sept...Oct...Nov!!

We have a ONE year old! Well….. we now have a 14 month old! Obviously time has escaped us as we kept trying to get updates out each month and then got sucked into many other priorities such as… caring for one Miss Iris Grace!

I’ll back track to late August (remember summer??) as IG has hit several milestones that we want to share about along the way.

As a full year of Iris Grace’s life is now gathered up in incredible memories of our first year of parenthood, we are still blown away by how INCREDIBLE it has been! It’s true, she did not come with any instructions other than she would keep us abreast of her many cues for comfort, all we had to do was listen!

Between late August & November many milestones/events occurred.

Here are some highlights:

AUGUST-       we took a family vacation with the Rasera’s to Delmar for 4 days at the beach. It was fantastic and Iris was such a little trooper. Our “surfer girl” went into the ocean for the first time and loved playing with her many sand toys. It was special to be at the beach where Alisa’s family has been going since 1979. During that trip Iris started to have what appeared to be a tooth cutting through. It finally did and brought a friend along with it. Her two bottom ones became visible and two uppers were next.

SEPTEMBER-      About two weeks before her bday. She decided enough with the crawling, she was ready for steps. So she took some beyond her furniture cruising and within a couple of days was fluently walking across the room. This is a huge climax for her first year of development. She also likes to go up the many steps in our home. While we are always right behind her, she finds this to be an exciting adventure.

  She got her first shoes. Grammy Jo Jo and  Maria our nanny insisted she have some little shoes for outdoors when at the park. She likes them and can identify them in english and spanish.

  One year check up went great. On 9/23 she  weighed 16 lbs. 8 oz and was 28 ¼ in long. Her development is spot on . and she is a petite little girl!  Since then she has grown of course and when weighed a couple of weeks ago she was 17lbs. 11 oz.

     She had her first birthday celebration. She was surrounded by tons of love from family and friends in our backyard which included some dancing, story telling, craft making, piñata swiping, blessing and singing to the bday princess. We were all exhausted by the end but grateful to the many hands that helped make our celebration of year #1 memorable . Grammy Jo Jo also made a beautiful wall of photos to commemorate Iris’ first year. On her actual birthdate, Grammy Jo Jo and mama took Iris to the Oakland Zoo and that night when her Grandma Jean arrived, we sang and she had vanilla rice dream, ice cream for the first time!

 OCTOBER- We began with a new family for our nanny share. This was a hard but       necessary transition as our former family was unable to continue do to economic circumstances and we were so sad to lose Rina and her family in that capacity! However we were blessed to begin a new with another local family with an 11 month old named Lucas. Since then, Iris and Lucas have become pals and Iris LOVES to stroke Lucas’ hair ( fascinating for her as she still has very little!)

During the month we spent  a Sat. with our dear neighbors the Johnson's at the Livermore pumpkin patch. Iris was quite selective on which pumpkin she wanted! For Halloween Iris was a ladybug. Of course, dressing up is tons of fun so she had a few other costumes to celebrate the weekend with. For her bday, Grandma Jean made her a cute little cowboy sweetheart outfit, with sequence boot covers and all!! You will see the pictures of her winning hearts over at a social event at our church. She also wore a tinkerbell fairy costume to Lucas’ 1^st bday party.

NOVEMBER-  arrived which marked the one year anniversary since Iris’ baptism. We honored the day by bringing her baptismal candle to church for a blessing. IG takes occasional trips with mama to pilates and they take long walks everyday after work. The three of us spent a special Thanksgiving together alone in our home complete with tofurky and pumpkin pie. (Iris LOVES tofurky !)It was a precious 4 days of laying low, sleeping in and playing lots!

Finally… in addition to saying mama, poppa, da  (dog) and probably words in Spanish that we are not recognizing yet….but the other day Iris said BABY!! Some of her favorite books these days are “Daddy Hugs”, “Barnyard Dance”, “Pat the Bunny,” “Goodnight Moon” ,“Goodnight California” and “My Dog.” She loves to open and close everything, pull and push, and play peek a boo. She and Soleil are  having fun interacting more and she loves other children.


Year #2 has begun and just gets better every day! We are blessed.

As usual you can see her latest photos on her website by clicking here 

Iris ...11 months!

Iris has had a month full of firsts. Actually one of them was last month when we were in Texas. Iris said "dada". Granted it was a string of sounds that she didn't associate with anything but it was cool anyway. It was especially poignant that she did it in front of my dad and brother. She  finally says "mama" and possibly knows who that is!! She has not really spoken her "1st word". She makes sounds that she associates to objects or people but no words yet.  She has a sound for Soleil and gets very excited around her and other dogs. Her cruising has progressed to high speed. She can stand for more than 20 seconds and that first solo step is just about to happen! She is madly trying to cut two little bottom teeth. The tooth fairy is awaiting her official visit to say welcome first teeth!

She has learned to clap. Up until now she would tap on things to music but had not put her hands together.  She also has an upper body dance that she does to ANY music including cell phone tones! She loves to feed herself finger foods but can not handle a spoon yet.

Although we didn't travel this month she has had some visitors from So Cal. One of her Godmothers,Danielle, brought her twin 8 year old boys to meet Iris. It was a fun and very busy weekend. She loved watching them on their scooters!
2 weeks later Cari, ( friend of Alisa's from HS)brought her very social 6 year old girl to meet Iris. She had a lot of fun with Iris and gave us a glimpse of what is in store for us. With both visitors Iris went to the Oakland Zoo....we are now official members!!We are an animal loving family after all!

We both continue to be busy at our jobs.
Since we are late on posting this, stay tuned for our beach vacation blog from Aug 23-27..... Iris' 1st trip to the beach!

As always you can see Iris' pictures here

Iris' beach vacation with pictures

I am learning to use iPhone for blog. Here are some photos.

Iris' beach vacation

This month is a bonus blog. Regular scheduled blog will be up when we get home. Right now we are in Del Mar and loving it. Iris got her 1st dip in the ocean. She loves the water but the waves were a bit scary. She likes playing in the sand and although she didn't build any sand castles she really enjoyed destroying the ones I made. The biggest challenge is getting her the right amount of shade. Covering her with sunblock is not easy but between Alisa and I we managed. We have one more day at the beach and it looks like a great one.

Iris Grace has arrived in her 10th month of life!

Ladies and gentlemen, this month's blog brought to you by the mother of Iris, Alisa.

Iris Grace has arrived at  her 10th month of life! Everyday we not only marvel at her steady development, growth &  ability to explore the world around her, but our own strength to juggle the many balls we constantly have twirling in the air, her being the most important and most wonderful! In this last month, IG took her first plane ride to visit the Holden family in Texas. She was a rockstar on the flight! Happily entertained by pulling the window shade up and down, she was a total jetsetter and if it was any indication of her future travel skills then we should be going to far away lands… SOON!

We had a lovely visit in TX . Iris FINALLY met her 1st cousins (3 of the 4)Kelsey(turned 18 the day we arrived), Tori (13) and Max(12). Not present was Josh (21) who is a marine stationed in Hawaii. Iris played with “Lucky,” who is Gramma & Grandpa Holden’s cute pooch as well as got lots of love from her doting Aunts & Uncles . She also had her first encounter with the newest family member “Quincy” the horse and got to meet some special friends of Wally's from high school & college. It was so very special to have them all meet her.

Upon our return home, Miss Soleil returned from her doggie vacation at her awesome petsitters house and we all spent a nice 4^thof July weekend at home. We did our annual celebrations in Alameda on the 4^thand Iris was decked to the nines in her festive attire. In spite of still slipping into size "6 months," she is GROWING! She loves tasting new veggie foods and is starting to pick up food to feed herself (she actually prefers it!) Some foods she likes to pick up (and they DO actually get into her mouth)are: tofu, blueberries  and organic puffs (the earth crunchy version of cheerios). While she is developmentally going through the "throwing most things to the floor" stage, she hasn't tossed any food (YET!)

Wally took a quick 2 day jaunt to Hawaii for work a few weeks ago (yes I was jealous!) and we had some 4am fun  when the Alameda police stopped by to let  me know that Wally's 19 year old Honda was once again broken into! I mention it because naturally it was my first time alone for two nights with IG from start to finish and OF COURSE the doorbell rings at 4am! It was all fine and really had the car been stolen (again!), I am not sure I would have cared!

Iris has hung out a few times this month with her little buddy Ethan (just about 12 months) and her very special "boy next door, " Matthew ( 4 yr)! We have enjoyed bbq's with our dear neighbors on Sundays complete with firepit for warmth on our foggy East bay evenings!  Now we do have a smattering of "warm" days too and therefore HAD to get IG her first lil pool and YES in looks like a bumble bee! she kinda digs it:)

This month she even attended her first bridal shower too! She also goes on the swings at the park with our nanny, Maria, and apparently really likes it! 

I had a very busy teaching month so Iris spent some extra time with Maria but was a real trooper! 

Iris came to Luna with me yesterday to watch our teen dance camp performance and she was quite entranced watching the dancers leap , turn, skip, shake and whirl on by her. I LOVED watching her watch them and take in a new experience that I am so close to.

I am going to be reworking a duet that I choreographed 2 years ago and performing it  for a special event for 9/11. I look forward to wearing my "dancer/choreographer hat" while knowing that I am a momma to such an amazing little lady!

And as always you can see photos on her site here

Iris is 9 months

It is hard to believe that Iris Grace  has now been outside of the womb longer than she was in it.
This month has been a busy one with lots of changes. Iris has started crawling for real now. No more belly crawl. She is up on all fours and moving with great purpose . As a result , I installed our 1st baby gate. Iris is already standing and takes every opportunity to pull herself up using whatever she can get a hold of. Her appetite continues to grow so she is eating 3 meals a day and her latest favorite is Lima beans. She has liked most foods and we love making them for her. We did discover that she might have an intolerance or reaction to sweet potatoes. It is uncertain that the sweet potato was the cause (though Alisa was convinced it was tainted!) but after eating, Iris had her 1st real sickness. Lots of vomiting for hours and then developing a fever. It was the 1st time we had seen her so lethargic. It was awful & yet another example of how having children is really like having your heart walking around outside your body. Since she developed a fever over the night it is unlikely that the sweet potato caused the vomiting but we didn't take any chances:) We did take her to see her doctor and she had a full recovery by the next day.
As you all know this month was also my 1st Father's Day as a father and I have to say it was pretty awesome. We didn't do a lot but we did enough. Alisa was very generous with her time so I got a great balance of time for myself and time with her and Iris. (Green Lantern isn't as good as Thor but it was still good for a comic book movie.)



As usual you can see the photos from the month on her site by clicking here.

Iris passes 8 months

When we last left the Rasera-Holden family they had just enjoyed their 1st Easter with Iris. Although it was an amazing experience it was just one of many adventures. We started off the month with a trip to Bishop's Ranch with Christ Church. Although Alisa had to work as youth minister part of the weekend it was still supposed to be relaxing. That unfortunately went out the window when I woke up sick on Sat. morning.
I was supposed to watch Iris for the morning while Alisa led the kids activities. Since I proceeded to vomit all day we were lucky to have a great community of people to help watch her. Since I spent all day Saturday sick Alisa had Iris the whole time so neither of us got to relax much. By the end of the weekend I was much better and we prepared for the Luna Gala (the company where Alisa works) which was the following weekend.  I served my Iris Pale Ale and Alisa sold raffle tickets as a penny candy girl on roller skates. (Yes there is a photo on Iris' site) The day after the Gala was Mother's Day and Alisa was greeted with a real Mother's Day present. She got horribly sick and spent all day in bed. Once Alisa recovered from that we were in the clear for a few weeks. However in the midst of it all Iris got her first sniffle (which stressed out her momma a lot!) but her mighty immune system allowed her to bounce back quickly. It is one of those moments in early parenting when you think, "what did we do wrong?" Nothing. We cared for her as per usual and  life went on .

Most of our days consist of  work and taking care of our sweet Iris.  I ended the month by getting very close to sick again. But I was able to hold it off with help of acupuncture and lots of rest. (God bless Alisa for letting me sleep those few days). I needed to be healthy for the massive show I just finished. And what great timing because that means we actually have a 3 day weekend off. Woo-Hoo!

But enough about us. You want to know about Iris. She is doing great. In addition to breastmilk, she is eating  fruits & veggies a couple times of day now and each time is a new adventure. You can see in the video she really likes peas. She is so close to crawling... it is scary. We look around and realize that it would just be easier to live in an empty house!She can pull herself across the floor now so she is already getting into things. She MAY have even snuck in a cross crawl move last night! I have started baby proofing and we are shopping for baby gates because we will need them any day now. She is thriving in our nanny share with Maria and baby Rina & it is a joy to see them interact! Iris notices EVERYTHING , esp when her momma leaves the room:( But she is friendly and laughs a ton & if you haven't met her yet, you should, cuz she is quite the little charmer:)

As always you can see pictures on her site by clicking here .

Iris' 1st Easter and more

Since Iris turned 7 months on April 22 I actually started on the blog on April 18 thinking I was ahead. That would have worked if it were not holy week. Besides the many events we attended, Holy Week ends with Easter. Holy photo opportunity! I limited the photos uploaded to 60 because there are way too many to put them all up.

Iris is growing fast and is developing a personality. We are very thankful that in general she is very happy. In addition to breast milk she has started solid foods this month which has been a whole new adventure. Her favorite so far seems to be carrots.  She has not started crawling but is starting to inch along on her belly backwards. (You can see it in the video below) She is very aware and interested in Soleil. (Soleil is less interested in her but wants her attention. )




We are in the 3rd week of our nanny share and Iris is having healthy attachment to Maria.  She is also enjoying her new friend from the other family. They may not be able to speak but they communicate.
We are very fortunate to have found an arrangement that works so well for all of us. 
We have missed having the Grandmas here but were lucky enough to have visits from Godfather Tommy and Grandpa Lou. We continue to adjust to being parents and learn from Iris every day.

As usual you can see photos of Iris on her site here http://irisgrace.shutterfly.com/pictures.

Iris is 6 months old!

Note: This was started before Iris turned 6 months and now she is almost 6.5 months. I think that is the way things will continue to be . . . .

I don't know how it happened. I turned around and Iris was 6 months old. Iris is changing at an alarming rate now. She is fully alert and making all kinds of sounds now. She has a good grip with both hands and most things she puts her hands on go in her mouth. That apparently has much to do with her teething. She is feeling them come into her jaws for sure now.  (But still a ways before we see them) She has gotten a little fussy and prefers softer things to chew on. She is rolling both directions now and pushes herself up into "cobra" position often. 

We have been blessed with Grammy JoJo for almost a month now. Iris and Grammy JoJo have been having a great time together.


It has been a challenging few weeks for us with our whirlwind lives. I was gone for 8 days working out of town for the 1st time since Iris was born. It was harder than I ever thought it would be. I don't know how Alisa would have dealt if her mom wasn't with Iris and her. Now that I am back we are dealing with the inevitable. Grammy JoJo will return to her life in So Cal and we have to find child care for Iris. Its hard to find someone "good enough" for your child.
Note about the video. There is no audio because *%*^* youtube strips out the audio if you use commercially available music.

 While it is hard to find someone "good enough" for your child, we believe we have found our "Mary Poppins."  Actually, her name is Maria! We are a part of what is called a "nanny share." For those of you who have no idea what that means (we didn't at first!), it is a cadre of families who share one nanny . We are lucky to live in a an area where not only are there many resources to seek out child care (Berkeley Parents Network, Alameda Parents Network, Bananas referrals in Oakland & of course, word of mouth) but there are many working families in similar predicaments. It is another transition for our little family  but we believe it will be a positive one and we are MOST thankful that we could have family be with Iris in her first 6 months of life! The family we will be sharing with has a darling 4 month old and we are looking forward to Iris hanging with her new friend.

Iris had her first bites of organic whole grain rice cereal  mixed with breastmilk this week. This was a VERY big deal and we are easing very slowly into this new territory. She is almost able to sit up on her own but still needs some propping . She is a great sleeper but definitely likes to be a part of the party!

You can see pictures on her site by clicking here

Iris turns 5

Grandma Jean arrived on Jan 29 to spend 1 month with Iris. Just in time for me to go back to work. Having my Mom here to take care of Iris had made it easier for us both go back to work. As you have noticed the blog updates have gotten a lot less frequent now that I am back at work. The time is flying by. I have been back at work for 3 weeks and it seems like so long ago that I was spending my days with Iris.
Iris is obviously having a great time with Grandma Jean. She is growing and doing new and fun things.
She has learned to turn over! I have not seen her do it yet but Alisa and mom both saw her. We have yet to catch her on video. She is laughing more and using her voice.  She pushes herself way up. (You can see in her photos). She is back on the pacifier instead of sucking her thumb. More like her whole hand now. She has discovered that her hands belong to her and if she gets something she immediately puts it in her mouth. She is just starting to hold onto things. And although it was just for a few seconds when I was holding her yesterday she was holding onto me. I will never be the same :)

We are fast approaching the transition to Grandma Jo Jo this weekend. Iris is blessed to get  a combined 2 full months of Grandma Day care.

No video this time.  You can see her photo from today above. Yes, that is her basically standing on me. Her site has lots of new photos too. Click here to see them.

Daddy goes back to work

Today was my 1st day back at work after 1 month at home as Daddy Day Care. I want to share the last week but it is hard after experiencing my 1st full day away. Iris and I had another great week. We even ventured out to meet friends a few times. She loves riding in the stroller around the neighborhood. We had friends come and visit us at home too. You can see in the video she is making lots of fun noises and she has discovered how to grab things. And just in last few days has decided that everything she grabs needs to go in her mouth.

We were getting into quite the rhythm spending our days together. I am sad to see that time come to an end. We are very blessed to have my Mom start Grandma Day Care and she will be here for the whole month. So although it was difficult leaving this morning I knew Iris would be in great hands. For all those parents who have to leave their child at day care and go off to work,  I feel your pain. We are fortunate that we will be able to delay the start of day care for Iris but it is inevitable. Extending the time Iris is able to stay home is really helping with that eventual transition.
You can see the video below and photos on her site by clicking here

Week flies by

I have been having so much fun that I have not had much time to write. I am still amazed at how much she changes every day. And how amazing it is to have her wake up and smile at me. It is a feeling that no matter how much parents talked about I never got it. Now I get it.
It was a busy week but I will summarize.
With Alisa off on Friday and MLK day we were able to spend the 4 day weekend together. We didn't do much which was great because Iris had just a little cough. She never had a fever and it was gone by the end of the weekend. She has not been sick yet and we are trying to hold it off as long as can. In the last 10 days we have done a lot though. We have been to "Music Together" class twice. It's a parent-child music class. (You can see it in the video) We have made multiple walks to the grocery store (and pet food store for Soleil). The weather has been fantastic so that makes it easier to get out. And lastly Iris had her 4 month exam. It was a little scary because of the 2nd round of vaccines. But Iris is tough and the shots barely fazed her. She is 11 lbs and 11 ounces! (Eleven-Eleven) She is definitely going through a lot of changes. In the past week she has started holding toys and in the past few days started putting them in her mouth. We don't want to jinx her sleeping pattern but starting at Christmas Iris started sleeping around 8 hours a night. I didn't think it would last but so far she has been pretty consistent. 
As I enter the last week of my paternity leave I am struggling to stay present. Letting go of the things that I wanted to accomplish during this time is hard. It is easy to get frustrated at the end of the day and see that I didn't check anything off my list.  And to start thinking about the things that I will have to do when I return to work. It is Alisa that keeps me reminding me that right now there is only one item on my list. She's right. This time won't come again. So I gotta go now!

You can see video below and photos on her site by clicking here

Daddy Day Care survives 1 week

We made it through a whole week and the house didn't burn down and neither Iris or I suffered any permanent damage :)  Thursday was much like the rest of the week. Iris and slept most of the morning. (I had some work that had to be done so I did it very early Thursday morning. I don't know what Iris' excuse was.) The afternoon was spent eating and playing followed by another nap. After an  uneventful evening at home I convinced Alisa that she needed some rest and reluctantly Alisa turned in early. I gave Iris a bottle and for the 1st time Iris went to bed without nursing. Alisa got a much needed night of rest.

Friday was a fantastic day. Since Alisa is working 75% at her job she has most Fridays off. This means that right now the whole family can sleep in a little on Fridays. It also means we can go to a wonderful class, Music Together, taught by our friend Lisa Bush. It was Iris' 1st class of any kind and she had a great time. (She didn't do a whole lot but she had fun.) It is great way to expose her to music and dance and interact with us all at the same time.  See pictures by clicking here


With no work for either of us we had time for brunch at home followed by a visit from cousins Jacie and Josie. It was great to see them and we miss having them in Alameda. We ended the day with a nice meal at home with dear friends. All in all it was a great week.

Iris' Sweet 16

Today was Iris' Sweet 16. Only weeks but there are a lot of similarities to the 16 year old.
She doesn't speak to us she just makes some kind of sound.
She likes to sleep a lot and expects us to do everything for her.
She ignores a lot of what we say and pretends to be interested in something else.
Whenever we make plans that she doesn't like she cries until we change.
But Iris is much cuter than a teenager and just as important she doesn't talk back.

Iris celebrated 16 weeks with a long morning nap followed by a bath.  Then we had playtime and read "Peak-a-Who" . Then she took a stroll over to the nearest Peet's coffee and had a Caramel Latte. (OK, that was me but she was there.)

After that it was time to walk back for Iris to eat again and then take the afternoon nap. By the time she woke up Alisa was home and I was off to a martial arts class.

Daddy Day Care-the Beginning

Day 1 of Daddy Day Care was a smashing success. Alisa did a great job of setting up the house and Iris did a great job of sleeping most of the day :)

It was a really nice day. Iris slept almost 4 hours in the morning. (And I even napped for an hour). 

We played, she ate and then napped again. It was just in time for me to make dinner before Alisa got home. 

We didn't go outside or do anything really. It was simple but successful. 

Day 2 was less smashing but still successful. I bragged about how much Iris was sleeping and parents know what that means. 

Today was a whole different schedule. She napped in much shorter chunks (about an hour) and did that 3 times. 

The way the timing worked out I barely had time to make and eat lunch between feeding and playing. 

The upside of Iris being awake more is that we got to play more. The weather was crappy so I decided to stay in again. 

Maybe we will venture out tomorrow. 

Tonight I went to a meeting at church and someone commented on how relaxed I looked. I said this is probably the most relaxed I have ever been. 

It is strange but just spending all day with Iris has relaxed me so much. It is only the 2nd day but I thought I was going to be more nervous and stressed.

But it hasn't been that way at all. With any luck it will continue this way. 

Daddy Day Care goes live

Tomorrow is the big day. Alisa's 1st day back at work. This past week and weekend didn't go as we had planned. My recovery from a sinus infection made it a more difficult transition especially for Alisa. I also had committed to brewing beer for an upcoming fundraiser at our church. Luckily, I was feeling better and was able to get a friend to help. Alisa was home and got to spend some time with Iris. Today Alisa was able to do her job with youth at church and even get in a movie. Iris and I slept a lot.
Getting sick has in a strange way forced me to let go of the list of things I wanted to do and forced me to just focus on Iris. That has made it worth it. With a limited amount of energy I could only take care of her and everything else just fell away. I haven't tried to email while bouncing her in the chair or do the dishes while she slept. I just followed her schedule and that has made me notice more.
I am excited about spending the next few weeks with Iris. It will be a different experience for me I am sure. I know it will be hard for Alisa. I know it was heart breaking for me to go back to work after 10 days off. Alisa has been with Iris full time for 3 months. We are fortunate that I am able to be home with Iris for the rest of the month.

The latest for Iris.
She is smiling more. Seeing Iris smile at me is more amazing than anyone could have told me.
She had her 1st real laugh. (It's infectious. I hope to catch on video the next time.)
She holds her head up.
I will have lots more in the coming weeks. 


Click her to see the latest video.

Daddy Day Care transition

Jan 5,6,7 
Well, we started off really well with a plan to slowly extend Alisa's time away from Iris so that by the weekend she would have been way for an 8 hour stretch. Alas, life is full of curves and we are learning to adjust. On Wed. morning I woke up with a sinus infection. For better or worse my body doesn't generally "get sick" over a long slow process. I go from healthy to sick on a switch. The upside is that I tend to recover pretty quickly. Needless to say we had to change some of our plans for the week. Although this is a less than ideal situation ,we are lucky for a lot of reasons.
1. It happened this week while Alisa is still off work instead of next week when I would have been alone.
2. Our accupuncturist is nearby and could see me that afternoon.
3. I never had a fever and all signs point to this being a sinus infection rather than something contagious.
Alisa has been an angel. My energy level has been up and down and Alisa has had to do more than we hoped this week. I am feeling better and that is allowing Alisa to get out for a few hours at a time.
Most importantly, Iris has not seemed to notice. Other than an episode of crying this afternoon she seems pretty happy as you can see below.

Daddy Day care

This week we have begun the transition from Alisa being home to me being Mr. mom for the month of January.  Thankfully Alisa doesn't go back to work for another week so it gives us a little overlap.
Mon. January 3 we drive to San Rafael for a lovely breakfast with friends. Then we go car shopping with Iris for 3 hours. Iris was a trooper. By the end we were dazed and confused. Although we did drive a few cars we ultimately decided that we didn't find the right car. 

 Jan. 4

it seems that the morning was fine and I was able to do some things done but the afternoon and go quite the way I planned it she just didn't want to take a nap which is fine except that I had planned to do other things. I'm learning that whatever I plan doesn't really matter but it's up to her. This morning was fairly easy because she went down after just a little bit of being fussy and then was able to nap long enough for me to do some things around the house. so I thought that's what it would be like. I'm learning mostly is that there is no normal. No matter how many people tell you there is nothing like personal experience.

Iris' 1st December

Twas the night before my 1st day home from work and all through the house not a creature was stirring but me with the mouse. That's all I got of the poem. The rest is a lot of catching up. It has been a full month for us. Isn't December full for everybody? I somehow managed to light an event every weekend but Christmas. But we also had lots of fun too. There were walks down Thompson Lane to see all the decorations, the annual trip to Zoo lights (which I worked on), fudge making, the annual White Elephant, the PAGEANT PLAY at church and decorating the house and of course seeing family and friends. Alisa's mom, Joann, was the 1st to arrive and was a big help in preparing us for Christmas and other visitors. There was even time to celebrate my birthday and Iris experienced her 1st brewing day :)
(Alisa arranged for a friend to bring over ingredients and help me brew as one of my gifts.)

Iris had quite a Christmas. She started it off by making her acting debut as baby Jesus in the Pageant Play. This, in turn, meant that I was Joseph and Alisa was Mary. Fortunately for us they are small roles. Iris was perfect. She slept through the whole thing:) Alisa insists that this 1st credit go on her resume!Grammy JoJo and Grandpa Lou took Iris after the service allowing me, Godfather Tommy, and Alisa to make our traditional visit to Lucky 13.
Christmas day was an all day affair for us. We started late and went all day. Santa was good to us all especially Iris. We ended the day with a lovely meal. It was a short visit for Tommy and Grandpa Lou but we were blessed to have them make the trip. We had to settle for Skype with the Holden family in Texas.

Iris continues to grow rapidly. For those keeping track she has started sleeping 5-6 hours a night. She has even slept 7 -8 hours once. That is actually a little scary. Parents know what I am talking about. When you wake up in a panic because you thing something must be wrong if the baby slept that long. But then realize everything is fine. She is just learning to sleep more. The latest big news is (and if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't) she has found her thumb!! I was torn about this at first but it makes her very happy. As long as she grows out of it, it will be a way for her to self soothe any time she wants.

The big news in our household is that I am on family leave for the month of January to play Mr. Mom. Woo-hoo! The less exciting news is that Alisa has to return to work next week. But that has been the plan all along. I will be the day care until Feb. and then with the help of the Grandmas we will get a month or 2 further before sending Iris to a new child care. If all goes well she will be 6 months old before she has to go.


Click here to go to Iris' photo and video site.