An Essay for a New Year.

It might be said that this has been the craziest year yet for our family, but don't ask me because I don't know what the hell is going on. I am living moment to moment over here and my memory of 2014 is more of a hazy dream than a factual reminiscence. 

Our family of two has grown to three and with that came more joy, love and exhaustion than I could have imagined. Sometimes I feel like River was sent to me solely to highlight my shortcomings in selfishness, impatience and a whole slew of things that only Freud himself could diagnose. 

Other times I think he was sent to bring us the purest level of happiness and an appreciation for everything in this beautiful world. 

But as he has grown it has clicked in my mind that his life is not about me at all. This may seem pretty obvious but when you have been carried someone for nine months it feels like they are a part of you. 

River is his own human being and not an appendage of me. He has his own soul, not an extension of mine. And he will have relationships and experiences that I have nothing to do with. 

We are just lucky enough to get to be the ones who guide him along the way and screw him up just enough to give him a sense of humor but not enough to make him participate in whatever the male equivalent of "Girl's Gone Wild" is. 

That said, this parenting thing is going to push me in ways that I feel completely unequipped for (it already has) but thank heavens I get to do it with the two best people in the world and we get to have a great time while we do it. 

For the holidays, we were up in Utah with family and beautiful snow. Unfortunately, from the moment we landed in Salt Lake to to the day we left for home, River was sick and not himself.  His eczema had turned into an infection, the medicine to make him better gave him an allergic reaction and boy, did we feel like the worst parents in the world (not that we could have really avoided it). He was covered in raised rashes, not to mention our always-happy kid that normally slept 10 hours straight was fussy all day and waking up every half hour at night. My nerves were raw. I wanted to quit. All seven days linked together while Christmas and Christmas eve came and went almost without recognition and all of our sweet family probably thinks we are the most stressed, insane people on the planet. However, we got through it in one piece and are better for it. (At least I hope so!) River seems to be back to his old smiley, talkative self, his skin looks flawless (as Beyonce would say) and is almost back to his normal sleep pattern...please oh please let it be back! 

^^Visiting River's Great Grandma Pat. 

^^River looked like Randy from "A Christmas Story" in this get-up hehe

^^Shadows from the tree on his skin...not the rashes;)

Photos below: New Year's morning back at home with a healthy boy! 

We are getting back on the road this year with a new (INCREDIBLE) album and a baby in tow. We can't wait to see what comes of 2015 traveling the world and watching this lil' peanut grow.

Our resolution is to be more positive and adventurous (and be better about documenting it;)

Cheers to the end of a great year. 

Let 2015 blow it out of the water! 

River @ 5 months