let's talk trent

because I was reminded this morning, while commenting on blogs, of 2 distinct trent incidents, I thought I'd do a post dedicated to the little man we love named trent.

some of the more vivid memories, some not so great and some okay:

the alarm clock incident that I shared on rebecca's blog. trent was about 9 or 10. I was so angry at him for not going to sleep hours after his bedtime that I picked up trent's alarm clock, screamed at him "DO YOU SEE WHAT TIME IT IS??" and then threw the clock against the wall by his head, where it broke. we were both speechless. and then we both cried. I still keep that clock under my side of the bed to remind me to never lose control like that again.

the slurpee incident. I recently told nicole aobut this. an 11ish year old trent and I took our dog maggie for a walk to the local 7-11. I stayed outside with maggie while trent went in to get a slurpee. the slurpee machine went wild and spilled slurpee all over trent and the floor and everything else. trent tried not to cry but a few girls were nearby and laughed at him, and the store manager yelled at him. I watched through the window, unable to do anything because I couldn't take the dog in the store. it was heart wrenching. I knocked on the window and had him stay with the dog while I cleaned up and got him a fresh slurpee, which he no longer wanted.

when trent was about 3, and brett and I were broken up but not yet on completely unfriendly terms, we went to see our friend dave fryling's wedding in poughkeepsie NY and left trent with brett's mother. when we came home, brett's mother came running out, her shirt covered in blood. the first thing she said was "trent's okay." but one look at that shirt, and I could feel my own blood draining from my face. this was one of those times, like amanda said, where you have to be calm so you don't freak out your kid. trent was lying on the couch, face swollen and covered in blood. it seems brett's much younger brother, who was probably 8 at the time, had been swinging a wooden baseball bat in the back yard and trent had walked up behind him and got caught in the face with the bat on a full swing. he still has a scar from the stitches on his cheek - it was right on the cheekbone. the doctors said he was lucky he didn't break it.

I have a thousand more memories, like when trent started to learn to walk while in full leg plaster casts because of his surgery for clubbed feet, and how he ate dog shit and got upset not because it tasted bad but because I made him stop (and the ensuing embarrassing phone call to the pediatrician to ask what to do - fyi, if your kid eats dog shit, just let him drink alot of milk), and all the times he was a sweet boy who would do things for kids who the other kids wouldn't talk to...

but I'll end with one that most of my friends know. when trent was about 5, he created a one man band which he called Trent's Pants. he had been making up "songs" that lasted about 30 seconds each, but he had amassed like 30 of them. one day maybe a year or so later, when he was bored, I told him to draw a poster promoting his new album, because we had set out to tape record his songs and distribute them. which unfortunately never happened, though trent remembers all of the songs to this day. anyway, he wanted to come up with a catchy slogan for his album release, so this is what he came up with, emblazoned on a red poster with a very child-like picture of a pair of pants, in his uneven 1st grade script:

TAKE A TRIP INSIDE TRENT'S PANTS

he thought it was genius. I wasn't going to burst his bubble, so when our friends would come over and ask how the band was coming along, he'd tell them all about his slogan. of course, we all giggled. people wanted me to make shirts, and trent was all for it, but I was afraid of being arrested for corrupting a minor. I still may make those shirts, as trent is on the cusp of puberty and in a few years, unfortunately, it may be something he still wants the female public to do.