Category — Parenting

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.

We’ve done just about everything we need to do to welcome our little guy to the world. Dan has successfully put the strollers, pac’n play, and crib together (at least twice). The car seats are installed. I have officially stopped working, thanks
to the wonderful laws of California. Today we checked
off a final item, picking the pediatrician. The nursery is ready and each day
brings us closer together waiting with anticipation. The only one not ready, is
Belle, our cat

It’s hard to believe that just a short eight months ago, I bawled in fear after watching the birth scene in “Knocked Up”, or complained that my belly wasn’t “pregnant enough”. The journey that Dan and I have embarked upon has been a true learning experience for us both. We have had to examine our true selves, identify where we are going and figure out how to achieve our goals. We aren’t at the end of our journey, in fact, it has really just begun. We’re about to become parents….for life! We talk during our morning and evening walks about what kind of parents we want to be, how we hope he likes baseball, but we’ll be enthusiastic if he decides to play water polo (it’s really big out here!). We talk about hypothetical situations where we can test our parenting skills. And who doesn’t look at other parents and say “we would handle that completely different”? Yes, we are in final stages of preparation to start our next journey.

Best of all, we’re pretty calm. I’ve never done this before, but I feel so well prepared by our family and friends stories, birth class, doctor advice, and prenatal yoga mamas that when I had my first false labor pain, I got just as excited as Christmas Eve! Every time I touch my stomach, Dan asks if it’s time and looks a little sad when I say that his new buddy isn’t ready yet. So I know that when it is time, we’ll be super excited and very ready.

As our due date gets ever closer, Dan and I sat down last weekend to figure out “what do we really need”. So our list looked something like: clothes, diapers, bassinet, carseat and stroller….that’s when we found out how long a list that can turn into.

Did you know that you have to have a car seat to take a baby home from the hospital? We did actually know this tidbit, thanks to birthing class and the hospital tour, and had picked out a nice one for our registry. However, upon closer inspection, we noticed that the one we picked doesn’t hold infants (I thought that was the purpose for all of them, but apparently not). No sweat, we’ll pick one that holds infants right? Well, those typically only go up to 21 pounds, then you have to buy another car seat for your toddler. Ok, fine we’ll play this game, so on to the stroller. So then we find out that the jogging stroller we want doesn’t hold an infant either, but for extra $$ you can buy an additional piece to place your infant car seat/carrier in, but there are only four compatable ones listed and the one we just picked above isn’t one of them. So we scratch the lovely car seat we just decided on, pick one that now is for infants and fits in the stroller accessory, done right? We sure hope so, this process took hours of searches, reading reviews and debating about what is best for our little guy!

It looks like before we are all said and done, we will be the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy and the proud owners of 2 car seats, 1 stroller with multiple accessories, and who knows how many other multiple purchases down the road!

I’m currently on a flight back from Chicago to LA and as we took off and I looked out the window, I realized that I completely forgot what city I had just left! Its been a long 9 or 10 days since I left Los Angeles sometime last week. I remember boarding an early flight from LAX to Midway (Chicago) to Cleveland – that’s right it was Mother’s Day! (Bonus points for me with my mother!!!) The trip was to accomplish many things but mainly get my investment house in Akron back on track and to get our condo in Chicago ready for a moving company and rental.

While in Akron, my parents were wonderful enough to drop me off each morning at my property and always returned back later that evening to pick me up! Thus far with this house I’ve learned an enormous amount of lessons – most of which have transferability to life and raising a child.

First Lesson – “Plumbing.” Some times, despite how well you think you can sweat pipe because you saw two episodes of DIY and have an amazing hi-tech gadget that makes the torch irrelevant, its still easier to spend $4 more and buy the ’sharkbites’ that make welding a thing of the past! Parenting Translation – if you buy cheep diapers you will be cleaning up two messes.

Second Lesson – “Ladder Placement.” Just because you put a cinderblock under one leg of a ladder and it feels sturdy from the second step, it doesn’t mean by the time you climb up and get to the second story window that it won’t tip over forcing you to jump off. Parenting Translation – Stable ground is always a bias viewpoint and varies greatly depending on where you are standing. Take a chance but be prepared because sometimes you need to fall down before you realize how quickly common sense can leave your decision-making skills when you develop tunnel-vision.

Third Lesson – “You Get What You Paid For.” If you choose to use free labor and you neither of you are ‘professionals,’ don’t be upset when you get burned because you didn’t properly evaluate your role in the task. No real parenting lesson here but just don’t be the dummy who agrees to hang on to the bottom of a copper pipe that is being welded from the top.

Fourth Lesson – “Laugh.” Part of owning your own business means determining who you want to work with (the other part is dictated because of your budget!). When you make that choice, embrace it and make sure you mindfully embrace every moment and remember that you could be clocking back in on a 9 to 5 gig! I’m lucky enough to be working with my father and its been the best mess we’ve every created. I haven’t laughed this much at myself or him while working our tails off – I hope everyone takes a chance like this and just really learns to embrace it. Parenting Translation – He’s a tough act to follow but all I can do is ensure I’m just as supportive for my child!

And that’s where I stand, the house is not quite finished but its a lot closer than it was when I first got there. I’m sure that this will not be the last one that I flip (I’ll be paying someone to paint on the next ones – but I really like demolition day!!!). Once we get finished, I’ll post some pix – its been an amazing transformation and not just for the house. At the end of this trip, I’m exhausted and really miss my wife and Boo (AND CONSISTENT 70 DEGREE WEATHER WHERE IT DOESN’T RAIN EVERY FREAKING DAY!). My big lesson on this trip has been the value of incremental progress – always moving forward and building off the successes and failures from the previous day. With the support of my wife, parents, and close friends/advisors, I finally feel like I’ve hit my stride. Thanks to all (especially my parents!) – I’m forever grateful.

Just a taste of the progress…

Before:

After:

Just a quick post to show all the wonderful advise and guidance that parents receive in this world. Christine and I took a stroll around Springfield (Oh) Mall this morning as we are back in her hometown for a wedding. While there, I noticed the blue shopping carts that other mall-goers were using to carry children and packages. Upon further inspection, I noticed this helpful sign on the back of it to help new parents figure out the proper use of this device:

You’ll notice the sign clearly lets you know ‘Do Not Put Child In Bag’ – and knowing is half the battle!

There you have it – a great parenting tip from Springfield’s Upper Valley Mall!