I’ve spent the majority of my visit going through toys with Mom. I photograph and catalog them then list them on eBay and deal with customers and sales. She packs them and brings them to the appropriate location for shipment. It’s been fun in a good, cleansing sort-of way. I enjoy talking about all these things with mom and going through stuff and looking at things. I like the teeny, tiny voids created in various locations of the mom’s house. Currently, the voids created in one area have mostly been turned into clutter in other areas, but hopefully low eBay prices and efficient packing skills will solve that quickly.

Mom, packing.

A small amount of clutter surrounds her.

Iris is in charge of Peanut Management.

Dan cooks dinner.

Iris has spent a lot of time convincing Rudy that she is kind and gentle.

I like little pussy

His fur is so warm

And if I don’t mistreat him,

He’ll do me no harm.

So I won’t pull his tail

Or drive him away

And pussy and I

Very gently will play.

—Mother Goose

(one of the many, many rhymes Iris knows)

The outlet in the “master” bedroom appears to be sweating.

This is not condensation;

this is due to the fact that the ice which formed over night is melting in the morning sun.

Note the water stains around the outlet.

The sun has not yet hit the outside wall so hard in Iris’ room, where this outlet is.

You can see little icicles forming at the bottom of the outlet cover.

This is the thickest formation of ice, on the southwest corner behind Iris’ curtain.

You can see a tiny bit of green where the curtain froze to the ice overnight.

During the day, the ice melts and forms puddles on the windowsill.

I try to appreciate the stained-glass effect of ice.

Dan came to visit.

Even though he is done getting bigger and bigger—

and along the way got very big indeed—

he still speaks the language of Child.

Much to her delight, he played with Iris for hours—

on the floor—

where something can be special simply because it’s shiny—

and one thing easily becomes another.

Thank you, Dan.

We love you very much.

I have been working on another doll. With two inches of sewing left to go before the remainder of the doll was to be hand-sewing, the flywheel on my machine seized. Panic! I called Mom, who said it’s come to the point where I obviously need more than one sewing machine around the house. She also said that if it was her, she would just find something to take apart. So I took her advice about taking the machine apart and was able to narrow the issue down to a very small area.

Iris said, “Mommy, why you taked the fryweeoo off?” and threw a tantrum because I would not let her clean my machine which told me (1) she needed a nap and (2) I must spend an awful lot of time sewing lately if my two-year-old is concerned about the flywheel.

Before nap we needed to eat. Unfortunately, I could not for the life of me understand what she was asking for. The word was not coming out right, so she was crying and covering her mouth, which made the whole understanding-bit even more difficult. Eventually we went to the fridge, but no, it was not in there. In the freezer. I opened it. Oh, aspic! She’d been saying aspic! But it was frozen. She had a little, then she had some leftover quiche and I had a burger and some green beans (followed by gobs of peanut butter and dark chocolate, but please pretend I did not mention the “followed by” part.)

Iris is nice and conversational while eating. At dinner, for example, she generally prefers that any conversation between Martin and I be conducted through her. It actually isn’t bad, as she is quite responsive to conversation, nodding and agreeing continually to show she is listening. She took some of my beans. “You put gorgonzola in there?” she asked. She had not seen me put the cheese in, but as a budding cheese-connoisseur, she’s come to enjoy it. I said that yes I did. “And hard cheese,” she added. Which, yes, I had. It was neither parmesan nor reggiano, but rather something more obscure whose hyphenated name even I have trouble pronouncing.

She went back to eating her quiche. “You going to fix your sewing machine?” she asked.

And I said, “Maybe.”

And she said, “—and maybe not.”

…then she continued her temper tantrum because I would not let her clean my machine before she took a nap.