Trent "Awesome" Bauman

The "A" is for "Awesome".
Today I'm going to bore you by bragging about my kid. I always got so annoyed by those parents who felt it necessary to share every little detail of their kid's development with me. Like "little Jimmy drank out of a big boy cup today!". I never quite got the significance of those tiny accomplishments, passing them off as "big fricking deal, my cat can do that". Having lived with Trent now for almost 16 months, I can really appreciate this type of cheer leading for your kid. Aside from the wailing episode from the recent haircut, Trent is the most amazing, sweet kid I've ever met. Ok, granted, I'm biased, but every day I'm just blown away by something he does.

Recently he has been so cooperative when he's getting dressed/undressed. He used to struggle and fight but now he actually assists.
He is now really good at eating with a fork/spoon. Almost always gets the food into his mouth. When he comes home from school, he immediately goes over to his chair and indicates that he'd like you to help him get in it.
He can drink from a regular cup now without spilling it all down the front of him, and he will put the cup down without knocking it over. While I always thought this was no big deal, it actually is because so many times he's tipped the cup too far and ended up wearing the contents. They also go through a throwing phase with cups, where when they're done, they just let go or toss it. You can't do that with a regular cup.
Then there's all the words he's saying - he's repeating a lot of the things we say. He's using his sign language consistently, and he's sounding out the letters of the alphabet when I use the flash cards with him. It's so cute when he hears Brian in a different room, and he says "dada!" and does the sign, then goes to find him.
Over the weekend he actually took a nap without fighting me, largely thanks to Grandma, who simply put him in his crib and walked away. He doesn't try to push Grandma's buttons like he does me. But following her lead the next day I put him down for his nap and walked away. Presto! the kid rolled over and slept!
The last several nights he's signed that he's tired and gestured to get into his crib! Usually, when we put him in his crib, he'd have a little fuss for a few seconds, but now he's just rolling over, hugging his night-night bear, and going to sleep.

Every day I'm so impressed by how smart he is. Lately he's been learning to put the shapes into the shape sorter. He consistently goes for the circle or square and knows which holes they go through. The other shapes he's working on, and with just a little pointing from me, he wrestles them into the right holes. He's also doing really well with the stacking cups. He now builds towers all on his own using the cups in the right size order, and then he nests them, experimenting with the different sizes till the right one fits. He seems to have a very logical mind, which I think he must get from Brian. For that I'm very thankful.

Every evening after dinner, we go up to his play room and spend an hour playing before bed. And every evening he does something that makes me so proud of him, whether it's sorting blocks, building towers, gathering toys and putting them away in their bins, or simply curling up on my lap for a story. I sure do love my little guy. He's so cool right now that I want to freeze time and keep him like this forever. But I know even cooler times are ahead.

Brian and I can totally see now why people have more than one kid. Not that we have any plans for more right now, so you can all let out that breath you just sucked in and held for a split second longer than normal breathing ;-) I'm just saying that with how awesome Trent is these days, we wouldn't be opposed to having another one just like him. And the liklihood of having another one just like him is quite remote... so that's just a silly pipe dream.