Iris's Allergies

Iris went to the allergist for the first time and poor little girl had to get poked 20 times with diffeent substances. Then they come back 15 minutes later & measure the size of the welts produced and use the sizes to determine what she's allergic to.

First the good news. Iris is not allergic to:
Wheat (phew--we were worried about that one)
Salmon (living in Seattle this is very good news)
Hazelnuts
Walnuts
Pecans
Dust mites

Now the not so good. Iris is allergic to:
Cow's Milk (we already knew this--it was her strongest reaction)
Eggs (we knew this one too)
Tuna (slight reaction so she might still be able to eat)
Almonds
Brazil Nuts
Cashews
Sesame
Peanuts
Soybeans (Dr. thinks this may be a false positive due to her reaction to peanuts & said we can try her on a bit of soymilk to see how she takes it)
Cat dander (not too bad on this one so Freddy's still safe)
Dog dander (stronger reaction than to the cat dander)

I guess that explains why her skin was so red & irritated the whole time we were in Texas over July 4th--we stayed at my sister's house with her 2 longhaired cats & big fluffy dog. We blamed it on the heat & humidity but maybe it was the pet dander.

There's not much we can do about it for now other than avoid the things she's allergic to and have her re-tested in 6 months or a year and see if there's been any changes. Kind of a bummer that there's no better treatment available right now.

This is Irene giving her 2 cents: Mom was working today so it was only Dad who got to see the torture of Iris. I can't believe she has these allergies. I nursed her exclusively for her first 6 months, and have continued nursing her even now that she's 1 year old. I can't imagine what her allergies or skin condition would be like if I didn't bother. :(

Congrats Dad!

My dad won his Fantasy Football League this year (unlike me, who's never finished higher than 2nd). Here's a shot of the trophy awarding ceremony: Congratulations Dad!

Iris's first successful use of a straw

Mmmmmmm. Yummy apple juice!

Here's what Iris thinks of the snow

Hmmm...not really sure about this "sled" thing, but I'm willing to give it a try
OK- I've decided. I DON'T like it! Isn't this sled really just one of Fred's old litter boxes? YUCK! Get me out of here!

I guess this is OK as long as you don't put me down in that white stuff

I said DON'T put me down!!!

Seriously! Get me out of this stuff!

On another snow related note, I've been giving Irene crap for the past 8 years about the shovel she made us buy the first time it snowed at our new house. All this time, I've shoveled the driveway unlike our neighbors, who trusted that the snow would melt in the next day or two, and it pretty much always did.

Well, that shovel has gotten lots of use this week by us and a some of those shovel-less neighbors. I pledged to never bust her chops about that shovel again (or the 20-pound bag of salt she also made us buy--that's all used up now).

Trekking in the snow

Dressed for Scandinavian Christmas

Our back deck

I am officially sick of snow

Seattle = Winter Wonderland

Snowing today

I stayed home w/Iris and my sister Denise yesterday because it was supposed to snow but we didn't see a flake. To make up for that, I drove in this morning with Irene even though it's snowing pretty good: Iris's daycare is closed again today so she's home with Aunty Geeg & enjoying snack timeIs it too soon to start telling her to chew with her mouth closed?

Absolute Final Moustache Post

My sister Geegy arrived last night and shortly after getting home from the airport I shaved off my stache. And you know what, I kinda miss it. It may make a return appearance sometime soon.

moustacheno moustacheBig thanks again to everyone who donated. My moustache raised $445 to help in the fight against prostate cancer.

(note: these pics were taken with Geegy's iphone. Mine is still not back from the iphone hospital, which I am pretty PO'd about)

Thanksgiving in Oregon

One Year Check-up

Iris had her 1-year check up yesterday and toughed out a series of five shots--that's the most she's ever gotten and she was not so happy about it and didn't sleep through the night last night either.

Just as as we heard at her 9 month check up, she's developing well and everything looks good. I don't have any recent photos to post (my iphone is still in hospital) but we'll try to get some new ones posted this weekend.

Here are her stats:

1 year
Length 28.5" (25th percentile - 2 inches taller than 3 months ago - yay!)
Weight 18 lbs, 9.5 ozs. (10-25th - maybe down a little from being sick last week)
Cranium 48 cm (95th+) yep.

9 months
Length 26.5" (between 10th-25th percentile)
Weight 16 lbs, 15.5 ozs. (10-25th)
Cranium 47.5 cm (95th+)

Our baby girl is still among the league leaders in cranium size.

6 months
Length 24.75" (between 10th-25th percentile)
Weight 14 lbs, 12.5 ozs. (25th-50th)
Cranium 45.25 cm (95th+)

4 months
Length 23.75" (between 25th-50th percentile)
Weight 12 lbs, 5.5 ozs. (25th)
Cranium 42.75cm (90-95th)

2 months
Length 22.25" (50th percentile)
Weight 10 lbs, 8 ozs. (25th-50th)

Birth 11/21/2007 6:51 AM
Length 19.5" (50th percentile)
Weight 6 lbs, 15.4 ozs. (25th)

103 degrees

Now that Iris is finally 1, she's been transitioning out of the infant room to the young toddler room at her daycare. Being around other kids where she's the youngest has exposed her to all sorts of new things including more virulent crud. Iris has been sick with a fever, usually peaking at 102 degrees, since early Tuesday morning. Luckily Tylenol and Motrin work wonders for fevers. We hear that a few kids at the daycare have had this and it lasts 3-5 days.

Jim and I have been scrambling to figure out who gets to stay home with her. It's been tough. Fortunately there's a daycare at one of the hospitals in town that'll take moderately sick kids. It's been hard to get her in because a child as young as Iris limits the number of kids they can take for the day due to the lower adult to child ratio.

She's been good spirits overall but she gets fussy when it's time for her next dose of drugs. She hasn't been sleeping well either so she looks tired all time. The poor girl :(

Moustache Wrap Up

Movember is over but I'll be keeping the stache until at least December 15 when my sister Denise arrives in Seattle for her Christmas visit. She made that a condition of her donation to the cause, and I'm OK with it. maybe I'll keep it forever!

Unfortunately, I can't provide an up to date photo because I dropped my iphone the other day & it's on the way to the iphone hospital in Kansas to get looked at. Hopefuly they won't need to transfer it to the iphone morgue--I should know in a couple days how serious it is & have it back by the end of the week if it's not too bad (fingers crossed). Since I can't put a photo of my own awesome stache, here are some more of my moustache role models, from the movie Tombstone

How freakin' awesome are those moustaches??!!

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Donations will be accepted thru December 9. Thanks!

Addendum: I found this site today - check out those crazy award winning moustaches and beards. I'm not quite ready for the big time yet.

Birthday Videos

Here are some videos we took of Iris's birthday festivities last weekend

Here's our girl enjoying the cake we had with my dad on Friday night



and here's her birthday cake on Saturday night with the Baltazars from Portland & Irene's sister Sheila from New York:

and check out her first steps! (if not the actual first steps, they're close)

I'm kinda busy now

One of Iris's favorite presents for her 1st birthday was a purse filled with pretend credit card, lipstick, cell phone, and mirror. She loves it! I just love this picture of her on the phone, holding her purse.

Big Girl's Lunch; WaMu update

As I've mentioned, Iris is transitioning to the toddler room at her day care, and now eats her lunch at a table like the big kids. Check out our big girl:

We still think she may be a lefty, since she eats with that hand more than half of the time, but not all the time, so we're still not sure.

In other news, I got my official written 60-day notice from WaMu yesterday. They're eliminating the jobs of all 17 people on my team (plus 3 or 4000 other wamu jobs). I'll be on the payroll until the end of January & then get about 2 months severance pay plus my '08 bonus, which with unemployment should be enough to keep us afloat for a while. It's not like I didn't see it coming so I'm not all that upset about it, but it still kinda sucked to hear it when we had our team meeting last week with the Chase hatchet man

Birthday Photos

Here are a bunch of photos from last weekend--Iris's birthday was on Friday and my dad was here from NH. I especially like the one where it looks like she's sending a text message on the toy phone her Memere got for her, and has her purse over her arm too. Thanks to everyone who came to her birthday celebration at Snoose Junction Pizzeria in Ballard- I think everyone had a great time!

First Birthday!

Happy Birthday Iris!

I'll post pictures later just wanted to get this post up & let you all know

Moustache at 17 days

Rather than post another photo of my 'looks the same as last week' moustache, I thought I'd share a pic of one of my moustache role models instead:Please make a donation if you can by clicking on the icon below.
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Our little toddler

Iris started transitioning to the young toddler room of our day care this week. Here's her first daily report on how she did yesterday (click to view it larger):to sum up: she's adjusting really well & pretty happy to be out with the big kids where she can crawl all over and explore, rather than in the baby room where most of the other kids aren't crawling yet.

She's progressing better on the transition than mom & dad. We were told that she needs: real shoes (she's been wearing leather soled Robeez, which aren't good for playing outside when the ground is wet), a heavier jacket (she was wearing her Red Sox hoodie yesterday--not weather proof either) and lined nylon play pants, so she can crawl around outside without trashing her clothes (those are loaners she's wearing in the photo below because hers got soaked at playtime)

So there we were, shopping for shoes on the way home from work last night. Poor baby was in her stocking feet when we got to the shoe store. The sales lady was like "Cha-Ching! A sure sale just walked thru my door" Here she is in her new kicks, which she does not like very much--too heavy & stiff for her I guess, but she'll get used to them pretty soon. We hope so anyway because Irene and I both think they're really cute on her.

Moustache 2 weeks

I realized it's a little lopsided when I saw this photo. Who knew that grooming the 'stache would be so challenging? You have to decide where to end it & then also get the 2 sides even.

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King of the Castle, King of the Castle!

Seeing Iris in her new car seat makes me want to quote Borat when he was sitting in the chair in his hotel room in NYC

Moustache day 10

There's no denying it any more:

(not than anyone would want to)

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Jim and Iris

One of my favorite photos of Jim and Iris.

Guess who's not eating dairy

We've been slow to introduce dairy into Iris's diet since we think she may be allergic. This past weekend we gave her some yogurt and monterey jack cheese. Guess what happened?

Photo op at Safeco

FINALLY! Irene gets to meet the Mariner Moose. Iris seems to like the Moose as well. We had a hard time getting her to smile at the camera while we were standing next to the Moose. We didn't a good picture of all of us with the Moose, but here are a few good pics of us.

Pumpkin Patch

Sorry we're slow to post these photos when we went to a pumpkin patch before Halloween.

moustache at 1 week

It's pretty noticeable. One of my co-workers predicted I'd have a full blown Earl by the end of the monthPlease make a donation if you can by clicking on the icon below.
My registration number is 2002551. Thanks!

Angela & Fred

Screenshot from this week's episode of The Office

Don't get her mad

It was hard getting a good photo of Iris in her Halloween costume. This is as good as it gets.

She wore her baby Hulk costume briefly in the morning to show the ladies at day care then again when we met friends in downtown Ballard that night. For most of the day she was in her pumpkin costume, accessorized with custom-fitted stem hat made by our friend Kris Chick:

Thanks Chicky!

Like my new coat?; November Moustache

In other news, I am growing a moustache all this month to raise money for Prostate Cancer research.

Here's the site with the details: http://us.movember.com/
(Movember = Moustache November--it's an annual event)

I'll post photos as it grows in. Let me know if you'd like to make a donation. You can also click on the icon to donate. The registration number is 2002551.


here's me with 3 days worth of moustache - not very impressive so far, I know, but I shaved on Monday the 3rd to give the less hirsute a head start

President-elect Obama!

Congratulations to Barack! We are all very excited and relieved that the election turned out the way we voted, for a change! (By "we" I mean Irene and me and Iris too- yes, she's an Obama baby. Some member(s) of my family may not be quite as excited.) Good article here about why the Obama campaign was successful.

Here are a couple of today's specials on Amazon - a bargain at 44% off! This must mean that this seemingly endless election cycle really has come to a close: