Change

As we usher in a new year, it seems as though a healthy dose of ‘change’ is running afoot. From a macro-level, we are about to see history made with the swearing in of the ‘Buddy Christ’ President and the ‘America Wow’ campaign. (Reference Check – Dogma) And while that may be impressive and certainly deserves the media’s attention, its most important to remember that words have meaning and, when it comes to leadership (also read as ‘parenting’), are not meant merely to be structured poetically. All that aside, we are much more focused on the little things.

Things that we could very easily look over as just yet another moment but when evaluated as a collective piece in the ‘History of Reily’ are so much more. Admittedly, it has been some time since our last post. And in that time, we’ve seen him grow so much and want to share a few of those moments with all of you.

• Reily met his baby cousin, Jonah William, who blessed the family with an early arrival – born 3 weeks ahead of schedule but healthy as can be. Jonah and family are doing great and we wish them the best as they too are figuring out all the joys of parenting!
• Reily received the ‘greatest Christmas gift ever’ – The ‘Exersaucer’ which has been renamed in our household to the ‘Neglect-o-Center’. This damn gift from G-ma and Poohbah came in about 500 different pieces complete with springs and million tiny screws that needed to go into locations that Reily’s hand couldn’t even fit in. After a long battle, I was finally victorious and Reily was able to really get this thing going.
• Our New Year’s was incredibly uneventful; which seems to be a reoccurring theme that we are actually welcoming as of late! We hung out as a family, watching movies, and anxiously awaited for the ball in New York to drop. When the magical moment was quickly approaching, we flipped the channel only to be flabbergasted that the west coast apparently doesn’t televise the event live given that it occurs at 9pm here. In utter disbelief, we quickly scoured the internet to find a web-broadcast of the event. And with 35 seconds until Reily ushered in his first New Year, we realized that we needed to wake him up for the event. So with a drowsy baby and a laptop in hand, we ushered in 2009!
• We did quite a bit of traveling over the past month. The first trip was a long drive from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, NM – an 800 mile drive lasting 15 hours that brought us through a few deserts and even more indian reservations. Those two details are important as it indicates that there is virtually no radio stations and even few opportunities for cellphone reception! So we listened to what was given to us and enjoyed the view nonetheless. The second trip was Reily’s first trip to Chicago. For this one, we flew, another first for Reily – LAX to ORD. The trip was laden with firsts for Reily – first time meeting his Godfather (which Reily screamed every time he picked him up – apparently he’s not a fan of Marquette soccer!), first time seeing snow (and I mean snow – 12 inches in total feel during our brief trip there), first trip to O’Leary’s Public House to meet the old gang, first time riding in a cab, first time riding the ‘L’. Reily proved again to be a fantastic traveler – on the flight, we fed him for the first 15 minutes during take off and the last 15 minutes landing. The rest of the time he slept!
• Reily was also cleared for solid foods by his doctor. And this represented a whole new chapter in his life. So last night was the first experience for Reily with real food – I am not sure how rice cereal is classified as either a solid or real food but it was certainly entertaining nevertheless:

Change – its more than just a word! For us, its constant and we are learning to really embrace it. We can only capture the moments and cherish them for what they are and not for what they aren’t. We are embracing 2009 and back to running with scissors! Hope all is well in your lives and that you can take a few moments out of each day and embrace them for tomorrow it will be different. And if your a parent, you realize how quickly things happen and in flash those moments are gone. So burn them into your memory and share them often! God bless!

We have some other information that we are extremely excited about as well but that will have to wait for another post. Until that time, please enjoy the photos and check back soon as we are starting to get back into a groove which will allow for some more frequent posts and photos to be shared.