Am I behind, why yes I am. But, I decided to do a (sorta) quick recap of the year for my kids before we dive into the next season. Not all of these pictures are in chronological order, but mostly I just want to capture a bit of this year of Trey's life.
This sweet thumb sucking baby is Trey, nearly a year ago to the day. He has been a fantastic sleeper from the beginning. Aside from the first few months of gas pains in the night, I feel like I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to get up in the night for this guy. This year he spent all 12 months on a delightful schedule of 12-13 hours a night and two 2 hour naps in the day. In fact, just this last week he is letting go of that morning nap for good. It has been a treat.
The most distinctive thing about Trey is his smile. He has charmed many with this grin that stretches from ear to ear, making his eyes squint and nose crinkle. It is the kind of smile that forces a smile in return, you literally cannot stop yourself.
Trey is fairly easy going with others, and the least of a 'momma's baby' of all of my kids. He loves his time with me, and certainly prefers when I am the one to put him to bed (one night Everett and Daniela watched the kids for us and Trey cried for 2 hours when they tried to put him to bed), but during awake time he is pretty happy to take the attention of anyone who will give it. He still hates the nursery at church and cries like heck every Sunday, but it is getting to be a shorter and shorter amount of crying time and when we come to get him he is so happy that it is almost worth it to hear the screeching in order to see the rejoicing :)
In addition to this face engulfing smile, he has a raspy, breathy laugh...the kind of laugh that you have when you are laughing so hard that you aren't making any noise...but he has it all the time. It is so consuming that it makes him bend at the waist in effort. When Jordan comes home from work, Trey sees him, gets into a sumo wrestling kind of stance, and smiles his huge smile with this low kind of growl...then he attacks him. When Jordan picks him up he has to push himself away from his chest to see his face and smile and do his laugh. It is the most hysterical thing to watch and makes Jordan's home coming even more exciting for the rest of us...it was already hard to beat.
It is also fun to see the relationship between Silas and Trey. There is an inherent connection between the boys and he is naturally drawn to all that Silas is doing. Trucks, digging, guns, and legos. If Silas is walking, Trey has a fit about being in the stroller. If Silas needs a bandaid, Trey must also have a bandaid. If Silas is in the back yard, rain or shine Trey wants to be out there, too. Silas claims that Trey says his name when we aren't around. I actually wouldn't be surprised if that was true. One of their favorite things is for Silas to go to Trey's room when he wakes up to keep him happy in his bed while I am making my way up to set him free. Over the monitor there are great squeals of laughter and on more than one occasion I have found Silas IN the crib.
Trey sees Jewel as a dangerous threat and treats her as such. He knows of her whereabouts at all times and is quick to sound his screeching alarm if she approaches or gets too close. In his defense, he is justified in this conclusion. Jewel is like Jordan in that sometimes her terms of endearment are a bit smothering. In her defense, she truly does it out of love. He is learning to accept her help when he needs it and to find entertainment of the game of chase and escape. Some of his greatest laughs are with her in pursuit.
Having older siblings makes Trey the daredevil of the world. He refuses to accept that he is small or perhaps not capable of their activities. This has led to incredible achievements on his part, and brutal failures on his part. At 14 months he was having a tough time eating at meals. After trying multiple things, I gave him a fork. Happily, he observed other kids used their utensils and he copied along as though he'd been doing it his whole life. How could I have been forcing him to be so babyish and eat his finger foods with his fingers?? He is no longer content to sit in his highchair when the rest of us are at the table. If we hold our ground and make him stay there, he screams in anger and reaches for the table during ALL of dinner. Releasing him from his restraint leads to him climbing up on the benches next to one of us and eating our food, spilling our drinks and inevitably falling off the bench and whacking his head. He is not deterred by this, after a good cry he is back at it, crackin' jokes and throwing bits of food to make everyone laugh. We once tried to take the tray off of his highchair and scoot it up to the table with us to see if that would help him feel more included. In protest to our weak attempts at pacifying him, he pushed himself back to arms length, put his feet up against the side of the table and shoved with all his leg muscles...and sent the chair straight back and flat on the ground. Needless to say, dinner times are not quiet and enjoyable right now.
Having older siblings has also made him into a straight up bully of younger kids. It is bound to happen I suppose, the backlash to this kind of relationship has to be expressed somewhere. It's a domino effect. I am working on it, we are practicing gentle and nice and soft. But, Jordan may be slightly proud of his little brut of a man. The grunting, growling and pushing is just such a raw product of his inner man.
All of this toughness is just highlighted by the evidence in his smile. Which brings me to the Tragic Tooth Story of 2012. Jordan was working late one night and I was itching to get the kids out of the house for a while. We were leaving for Arizona in two days and I had a few vacation prep errands to run. I loaded everyone up and we set out for Target. When I got there I took Trey out of his infant seat and buckled him into the front of the cart. It was an old school metal cart, not the fancy new, smooth carts that most Targets now have. I turned around to pick Jewel up and stick her in the back of the cart when I heard Trey scream. I turned around to see blood pouring out of his mouth. I quickly ripped off his shirt and scooped him up in my arms, holding his tshirt in a wad under his chin. He looked at me in a panic and in the next breath opened his mouth for another good cry. His only two teeth, the bottom center two, were sticking straight out toward his bottom lip instead of straight up, hanging on by a thread. We were in the front entrance area, so I helped Silas jump into the back of the cart and then moved the scene to the sidewalk out front. I tried calling his doctor but it was after hours and the nurse assured me it was a dental issue, not a doctor issue. I didn't have a pediatric dentist, so I couldn't get in to an after hours clinic since I wasn't an existing patient. The next 48 hours were awful. Between the Target manager requesting that I fill out accident report forms while I was waiting to hear from my doctor (bloody screaming child on my hip), Jordan coming to our rescue at the Urgent Care, followed by an attempt from my dentist to push Trey's teeth back into place, a night of no nursing or thumbsucking (or sleeping), ending up with an outstanding pediatric dentist who finally pulled the teeth out and then showed me that he had cracked the bone in his lower gums with the force. Then, we got on an airplane and flew 4 hours for vacation.
So, my hypothesis is that he leaned forward and was biting on the metal bar of the cart. There are two bars that are somewhat close to each other. So I think he must have tipped his head just far enough up to get his chin wedged between the two bars and the bar in his mouth behind his teeth. Then he was stuck and scared and yanked back and...well, the rest is history. Except that we won't forget until he is at least 5, because he won't have teeth there until then. Actually I will not forget it ever, but hopefully he won't remember it at all.
In fact, this was probably the kick off of his accident prone little life. He was 6 months when that happened, and since he was walking by 9 months, it never really slowed down. I think he spent pretty much the entire summer and into the fall with some kind of major abrasion on his face.
For his first birthday, Grammy found him this shirt...he has definitely earned it!
Somewhere along the way we started calling him Tito. I have no idea where it came from or how it started, but it has stuck. Sometimes it gets shortened to just plain 'T'. Sometimes Jewel stretches it out and in a scolding voice adds a middle name "Tito Wito".
One of my favorite things is the relationship between Trey and Jordan. I had sole favoritism with Silas and Jewel well into the second year of their life. Trey LOVES his dad. They wrestle and crash and chase, and consequently I feel like they have developed a true relationship earlier than the other two did.
I personally cannot get enough of these bright blue eyes and this blond hair (we are hoping it stays!). When he looks at me and sticks his little thumb in his mouth, I am melting just thinking of it.
We took several trips to the beach this fall, and Trey went full force the entire time. We had to take turns being on watch and keeping him out of the freezing waves. No fear. He was determined to be with Silas and Jordan the whole time, discontent to sit on the beach and play in the sand with Jewel and I.
With all this grit and strength, he is the smallest of all my kids. He typically falls in the 20th percentile for weight and 30th for height. Just this month I finally switched to size 4 diapers, which I still have to overlap the tabs to keep them tight enough.
This makes him the perfect size for scooping up and squeezing and smooching and snuggling (if he will sit still long enough)
All my kids have a little groove when they get in the right mood with the right music. Trey is no exception. As soon as he hears a beat, he gets down into his stance and bounces and claps and when he really gets into it he spins in circles while bouncing and clapping.
The fun that is packed into this little body is outrageous. He will probably be the comedian of our family, he is surely bringing some serious life to this party.
When he was about 4 months, I made him a blanket and bumper for his crib. He has taken to it and made the blanket his special snuggle blanky. At about 6:45 every night, I start thinking about when I will get to take him upstairs, get him cleaned up and in warm jammies, wrap him up in his blanket (which makes him do his raspy laugh when he sees it, and then he immediately puts it over my shoulder and cuddles up), and rock him while I give him his bottle. The only thing we don't do? Sing. If I start singing to this little character, he pulls his thumb or bottle out of his mouth and starts dying of laughter. I have tried and tried and tried, and it just ends up with us both in a fit of giggles. This is not very relaxing before bed, so we sit quietly instead of singing. Sometimes I hum...but that is pushing it.
During the day he is always in search of an adventure, a joke, or a fun playmate.
2012, you rocked it, Trey. You brightened our year. We are so incredibly thankful for you our little warrior, a precious little love.
