Trent, you are such a big boy now!

Dear Trent,

Life got a little more hectic when you came along and the blogs were quickly abandoned, but now that you're almost 2 I'm sitting still a minute and want to update your story.

In all honesty, your first year was anything but pleasant. Your first 3 months you cried all of the time. Literally. Around the clock crying all hours of the day. I'll spare you the details of our repeated trips to the doctor and attempts to calm you and just say it was eventually solved with a reflux medicine. Wow! Prevacid was your miracle drug. You were cured within hours. Very similar to the time we cured your brother's 3 month battle with diarrhea in a matter of hours with a probiotic. Anyway, just when you were getting to be a happy baby, we're talking a night and day change, I found you not breathing in you crib. That began a 5 month journey with apnea, specialists, monitors and wires. We discontinued your monitor at 10 months because you were getting tangled in your wires and setting off the alarm. To this day my heart stops when I hear alarms beeping or a strange sound on your monitor. In addition to all of your medical chaos those first 10 months, your dad also went to work in Canada for 4 months. It was meant to be a 3 week trip which at the time seemed terribly daunting with a 5 month old on an apnea monitor and a 2 1/2 year old to take care of on my own. Three weeks turned into 4 months that I still block out much of the time. All I can tell you is that we survived! Now when your daddy travels for 2 or 3 days it's a piece of cake for us. It helps that we have made some very special friends this year!

For your first birthday we had an owl party with all of your family there. We were so thrilled to have made it through that first year! Going through your second year has been great. You are a ton or trouble and everything you get into you do with a smile on your face. You are the very opposite of your brother. You have more words than we can count as your 2nd birthday approaches. You are afraid of nothing! Absolutely nothing. However, you are just entering a shy phase around strangers or people you don't see often. Generally though, you are outgoing and an instigator. You have a best friend named Emmerson. She is 5 weeks older than you. Yall have a love hate relationship. You're sad when she isn't around but you fight when she is. Her mom and I are anxious to see how yall do in the same class at school this fall.

You climb and jump and slide and anything and more than your brother will do. You love your big brother and 90% of the time you play really well together. He seems to understand you most of the time and likes to help keep you out of trouble. Sometimes you do things to make him mad on purpose and he knows it. It doesn't help that you do it with a smirk on your face. :) You say his name like "Keese." Yall sleep in a twin bed together. I think you moved into a big boy bed around 11 months. You eat everything. You definitely like food. You have beautiful dark curls and a precious little grin. You already roll your eyes and I know you are going to give me fits as a teenager. You have your Daddy's laid back attitude whereas your brother is a little high strung like me. It's ok. We will all balance out.

You love Clue Clue's and Little Einsteins. By the way, I think Little Einsteins is a little annoying. You like juice and chicken and french fries but you will eat almost anything. You like swinging from things. You need monkey bars when we move to a new house. You really like cats and cows. You like playing cars and trains with your brother. You are starting to follow simple directions and I'm impressed with the things you understand and do on your own. Tonight you picked up a dirty diaper and put it in the trash yourself. You like to help do anything your brother does so I started letting you help put laundry away too. You love it for now. You say "thank you" fairly often unprompted. Oh and you LOVE ball balls.

Throwing is your favorite past time. It did get you into some trouble last month when you threw a train at you Dad's 50" plasma tv and broke it. That was a sad day.

Oh Trent Daniel, we love you so much. You make us laugh and smile and want to pull our hair out simultaneously. You have such a precious precious easy-going spirit that we love.

We'll see what happens when we enter the terrible 2's next month. I hope your MDO teacher is young, energetic and patient.

Mommy loves you sweet boy.