On 1 May 2009, we welcomed Agabus Pacini into our little family. Well, that was his name for the first week of his life before we started calling him Met, short for Aaron Metcalfe Pacini II. He was 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 inches long. But what's really important is what a wonderful baby he was! He's now 13 months old, wobbling everywhere, quietly observing others, then making us laugh with his mischievous antics. And besides being 15 pounds heavier and 10 inches longer, he looks exactly the same. Most babies change as they grow older. Christopher looked different each month. But Met has a handsome face that's hardly changed during the last long, eventful year. Met was blessed at the Charlottesville 1st Ward on 24 May 2009, and the next day, Aaron left for his summer internship at O'Melveny & Myers in New York City. My parents took me and the boys down to Atlanta for the summer where Topher discovered dinosaurs and fishing and golfing and bowling. As much as we missed have Daddy around, we got to see him almost every night on Skype, and I appreciated all the extra help from my family. We learned that Met loved swimming while Topher was terrified of the pool. Met quickly adopted a good schedule, so he demanded far less attention than his older brother. Poor Topher managed fairly well for a two year old who got terribly sick the night his mom went to the hospital, then met his new brother, then lost his dad, then moved from his home for two months to live with older people and no kids. For such a difficult time of transition, I was proud of my boys and their resilience. We spent the last two weeks of the summer in New York with Aaron, and the adventure led to many happy memories: Central Park, Riverside Park, the Circus at Coney Island, "Wicked," a ferry ride around Manhattan, and Times Square.
Aaron's last year of law school passed with all the notable moments: Halloween (Topher was a T-Rex, Met was Santa Claus), Thanksgiving (we hosted Aaron's family), Christmas (we flew to Utah for a month), and Graduation (which we missed because we were flying back to Utah after a long and exhausting week packing up our lives). One of the highlights was Spring Break in Disneyworld where we ran from the Peter Pan ride to Pirates of the Caribbean to Splash Mountain again and again. Topher and Met were mesmerized by the Magic Kingdom, and my parents were a huge help coordinating the vacation. By the end of May 2010, we were ready to leave Charlottesville and move on to the next stage of our family's life: Aaron's federal district clerkship in Salt Lake.
Christopher still prays each night that we can go back to "our home." Met, on the other hand, is fascinated by all the places to explore at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Aaron's busy studying for the California Bar and I'm still busy being a wife, a mom, and the interpreter scheduler for the SSA. We're living out of the suitcases and boxes for the moment, but we're grateful for all the good in our lives.
