All right, now that my rants on resolutions are over, let’s get back to simplicity and what most of you care the most about.  Trey.  It’ s one of the hardest things for us to realize and/or remember and that is that most of you don’t have any clue what he is like on a day to day basis.  We drink Trey in from the fire hydrant of life that he is and forget that most of you would love just a sip of seeing who is.  I will try to give you a wide picture of life with Trey.

1.  He is fine physically and not displaying any “symptomatic” traits or characteristics.

2.  His diagnosis has not changed.  It is not if but when the cancer will grow and/or spread which will inhibit and eventually take his life.

3.  He is an instigator.  For example, he loves to go into Bella’s (his prime target) room and announce “Bella!  I’m in your room!”  He has escalated a late day antagonism.  During our prayer time Trey leads off (we go youngest to oldest).  Originally he would pray and end it with, “…Beela” (letting Bella know that she was next but mispronouncing her name which drives her nuts).  He mixes it up and make it worse, “Leela.”  He also has memorized Bella’s prayer (it’s pretty much the same thing every night) and recites it every night either with or usually as his own prayer.  This drives her through the roof.  Lately, he has also memorized Joe’s prayer and recites it as well.  Joe is much more chill about it but Trey is in it for the long haul.  Finally, he lists just about every other kid in his pre-K class and prays for them by name which takes forever and drives me crazy (it’s a long list, he very often repeats it several times until he gets them all right all at once).  Yes, this is prayer time with Trey.

4.  I have actually held his head in my hands (aggressively but not painfully) and said, “Can you please not be so adversarial?”  I realize that to have a child with the moniker of “YoungWarrior” who fights cancer so hard and yet expect him to be a gentle rule follower at home is a bit idealistic.

5.  He has begun to sing more and more with Rachel.  We have found that he can perfectly match her pitch.  It is a beautiful sound.

6.  He still prefers to be naked and will drop trow at any given moment (much more likely with more people around).

7.  He declares most days to be “running days.”  Running days mean he wears shorts.  To combat this, Rachel has been taking his shorts out of circulation as they come through the wash.  Never deterred, now with an empty shorts drawer, he has begun to wear Joe’s shorts.

8.  He can’t get enough PlayDough and always always always mixes colors (see #3) which drives Rachel nuts…me too.

9.  “Taggie” (his tag surrounded mini blanket) rules the day and is never far.

10.  He loves to have his mother lay with him.  He goes to sleep fine but when he gets up to pee it’s always, “Momma…momma (we have no idea where “Momma” came from, it used to be “mommy”) I want you to lay with me.”    Most times I get up, use the bathroom with him and put him to bed.  From time to time Rachel will sleep with him.  We both believe that she should drink every sipp of that cup…except when it wrecks her physically.

11.  He still eats all things all day long.

12. Medically speaking he is currently out of treatment and awaiting any trial in which to participate.  This is, to a degree, scary for us as the cancer is completely unabated other than the thousands of prayers offered on his behalf.  That being said we are ok and fully faithful that God is more than in control.

13.  Trey still has no idea what cancer is, that he has it, and what his diagnosis/prognosis is.

14.  He never wants to take a nap, he almost always takes a nap, he never wants to get up from his nap.

15.  He just lost his first tooth, pulled it out himself.  Also just had a filling done on a very small cavity.  He reacted worse to that treatment than having a 1/2″ tube put in his side when he had a collapsed lung…go figure.

So, this is our Trey.  This is our boy.  This is our YoungWarrior.  Someone posted somewhere else that he belongs to all of us in a way.  It made my heart smile and my eyes tear.  Thank you for being a part of this with us.