Bye-bye Sleep

Trey has always been a rock star sleeper, at least at night. While he has never been a big nap-taker (he dropped down to one nap a day around 9 months), we have always been able to count on Trey for a good night's sleep. He started sleeping through the night (8-9 hours at a time) around 3 months, and by 5 months he was giving us a solid 12 hours of sleep at night.

But here is the real kicker, and one that I've always been embarrassed to admit for fear that my friends who are parents will either (1) not believe me, (2) think I am a neglectful parent, or (3) resent me so much they can no longer stand to be friends with me: for probably the past 18 months, Trey would regularly sleep in until around 10 on the weekends. I don't mean once in a blue moon, and I'm not talking about nights where we allowed him to stay up until some un-Godly hour. I'm talking about a typical weekend, when we would put Trey to bed at a normal time (or maybe as much as an hour later than normal), and he would stay in his crib without much more than a peep until 10:00 or later.

And on the weekdays, we usually wouldn't hear a thing from Trey until going to get him up when we were ready, typically around 8 or 8:30. Was he actually sleeping this entire time? I don't think so, but if he wasn't, we didn't know it; he was perfectly content to lounge around in his crib until he either heard us making noise in the house or until we were ready to get him up ourselves.

Yes, we were blessed. And spoiled. And possibly neglectful. But we so enjoyed it. If you know us well, you know that we are not exactly morning people, and we like our sleep. We were lucky to have a baby who was perfectly willing to indulge us in sleeping in on Saturdays.

But in the past couple months, all of this has changed. In late October, we started weaning Trey from his pacifier. Trey only uses a pacifier at night and for naps at home, and he is not allowed to have it at any other time during the day or at any time at school. For most of this year, Trey hasn't really needed it, but he has wanted it. When we started cutting the tip down from Trey's pacifier, he didn't lose his affection for it, but he pretty much stopped using it. Now, when he cries for "paci," he really just wants the comfort of holding it rather than putting it in his mouth.

So, I guess the weaning is working somewhat. But the trade off is that Trey is no longer content to sit in his crib, suck on his pacifier, and think about the world. Now, when he is up, he wants UP!

So, while a typical Saturday a couple months ago might have involved leisurely getting up around 10, Trey now wakes up like clockwork at 8 and pretty much immediately starts creaming "waaaaaah! Daddy, Mommy!" with the occasional "up!" This morning, Mommy walked in Trey's room after several minutes of this crying to find Trey completely unclothed and pretty close to pulling off his poopy diaper. Lovely.

Have we regressed? I don't think so. I just think our good fortune has finally run out in this regard. Serves us right, I suppose, and all in all we are still pretty lucky. Even sleeping until 8:00 ain't so bad!

Who needs toys?

So you think you can dance?

Trey is a dancing machine! I'm not sure a career in dance is in our future, but we're glad he enjoys grooving to even the silliest of music, literally dancing 'till he drops!

Music Class

This fall, we enrolled Trey in a weekly music class. Those who know Trey or have read this blog know how much Trey loves to sing and just loves music generally. He has really loved his music class, and every week he gets more and more involved with the class. His favorite part is the percussion instruments!!

Trey also shows particular interest in the piano (maybe because we don't have one in our house...yet!).

But mostly he loves the drums. And he is so sweet about helping hand out all of the instruments, and then helping Anna (his teacher) collect and put up all of the instruments when that part of the lesson is over.

In addition to singing, dancing, and playing instruments, Anna also helps teach music fundamentals. In every class, she does pitch matching, where she will sing a few different notes and then ask the class to repeat it. At this particular class, Trey repeated the notes on pitch all by himself, and Anna said her heart just melted. We are so proud of our little musician!

Trey really enjoys the class, and he knows that his music teacher is "Anna" and that she says "la la la." And at the end of each class, Trey always gives Anna the sweetest bye-bye hug.

Snow Day!

It snowed in Houston today!! No, it is not December fool's day. It actually happened, and Trey loved it.

You may recall that it snowed last year in Houston as well. We thought that one was pretty cool, but today's snow was much heavier and lasted much longer - nearly all day! And while the ground wasn't quite cold enough for the snow to accumulate, it did stick to some plants, windows, and other surfaces, at least for a little while.

Nearly all of downtown Houston shut down early today, so Mommy picked up Trey after his nap and the whole family headed home ot enjoy the snow. Trey was able to go out and run around in the snow briefly, but after a little while it got to cold for his sweet little hands, so we headed inside to enjoy the head and cuddle up to watch the Tigger movie (which Trey watched for about 5 minutes before moving on to his books; can't complain about that!).

Thanksgiving Weekend

We are a week late in reporting about our Thanksgiving weekend in Virginia; it has taken us this long to recover! We had a great holiday, and we were exhausted by the time we returned home late Sunday night. Trey was a trooper, though, and despite giving Mommy and Daddy a challenging time on the plane ride home, was his usual easy going self.

Sugar and Papa John were so excited to see Trey, who is no longer the baby that he was the last time he was in Roanoke. Sugar was prepared with lots of Daddy's old toys (including a train set that literally disintegrated upon touch it was so old!), and Trey took full advantage of the lot.



Sugar also gave Trey lots of Daddy's old books to dig through. Trey LOVES books!! Can you tell he enjoyed them??

Thursday we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with the extended Edwards family. Trey was the second-youngest one there; second cousin Mae was born only a few months after he was. Trey enjoyed playing with all of his bigger cousins more than he enjoyed the scrumptious spread of food. To him, the highlight of the day was hanging out with family. It is always so nice to see events and holidays through a child's eyes, and Trey's delight with the family togetherness truly reinforced what was really important about the holiday.

On Friday, Trey enjoyed some special time with his Papa John and Sugar and his Aunt Catherine, whom Trey loves so much.

And we kicked off the Christmas season with a parade of Christmas pajamas, again courtesy of Sugar, and a lovely pre-Christmas dinner on Friday night.




On Saturday, we all headed over to heaven on earth, I mean Charlottesville, for the UVa football game. While we feel no need to talk about what happened on the field that day, Trey had a great time in our favorite city.

Mommy and Daddy have always loved going to UVa football games, and before the game, we headed to our usual pre-game spot: the UVa President's house at Carr's Hill, where Trey enjoyed exploring some of the beautiful grounds.


But perhaps the highlight of Trey's weekend came next: when we rode an actual BUS to the football game. Trey squealed in delight when he saw the parade of buses lined up to take the President's guests to the game, and couldn't believe his luck when we told him we would actually be riding on the bus! This was his first bus ride since he has been old enough to know what a bus is, and the entire ride, Trey kept exclaiming "a bus! a bus!" That night and the following day, when we asked Trey what his favorite part of the day was, he told us "bus!"

But Trey enjoyed the actual football game, too. Trey cheered when UVa had a good play, especially during the first quarter (and we attribute that to the fact that Trey was not yet tired rather than the suggestion that UVa had no good plays in the second half), and learned how to say "first down!" He also enjoyed seeing the horse that rode onto the field carrying CavMan, and said "bye bye, night night" to the horse when he disappeared back into the locker room area.

Trey also loved the band! He would dance to the music, and he loved looking at the drums. (Mommy still believes Trey will be a percussionist one day.) Although he got pretty tired towards the end of the fourth quarter, Trey really made the game a fun experience for all of the UVa fans around us (and we're glad they had some sort of positive experience to take away from the game).

After arriving back in Roanoke late last night, Trey even got to tear into an early Christmas present, thanks to Uncle P and Aunt Dabney (and baby!).
Other than the football game, perhaps the highlight of Trey's weekend was on Sunday morning, when he and Lady June (Uncle P and Aunt Dabney's dog) ran around outside and all through the woods playing. Trey was quite wary of Lady June all weekend, but by Sunday, he had warmed up to her pretty well. Trey literally led Lady June through the woods behind Sugar and Papa John's house wearing only his Christmas pajamas and shoes and ended up in the neighbor's yard! When it was time to go inside for lunch, Trey had to be torn away from the outdoors and carried inside while he cried "play! play!" Sadly, we don't have any pictures of this delightful event, but we're so glad Trey enjoyed playing in the leaves and woods in Virginia.

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had with our family! We truly have so much to be thankful for.

Another new molar!

Trey officially has another new molar; this one is his top right one. The other two are bulging, so they will also be here soon!