Rex is a funny kid.

Veronica Reeve Photography

Anyone who knows me knows that there is nothing I like more than adventure. Make me move, throw me in a roomful of new people, ask me to visit the prison–I’m all over it. Change is exciting and fun, I live for change.

But Rex? Not so much.

Veronica Reeve Photography

Today my beautiful blond boy is turning four. We’ve decided that it’s a good thing Heavenly Father made him so beautiful because it’s the only thing that keeps people from kicking his panicked little self out of stores and restaurants and circus tents.

Rex has serious anxiety. For instance, getting him to church without a panic attack means dressing him a few hours before and talking A LOT about primary. If we wait until the last minute, he’s a wreck.

Watching him approach the pool at his first swim lesson was kind of like watching an innocent man approach the electric chair. In her twenty years of preschool and swim experience, his teacher had never seen anything like him.

His one redeeming quality is that he is NOT afraid of new people, only new places. And things. And food. And coloring books. I bought him a pre-school book to do in the mornings this summer. He freaked out so badly when I tried to give it to him, I had to double check to make sure it wasn’t covered with poisonous spikes.

Don’t get me wrong, he always comes around (except with broccoli) if we give him time and love. But life as my child is not an easy experience for our little home-body.

And he is a home-body. The flip side to his public display of slightly OCD, anxiety-riddled behavior is the easiest child in the world–when he’s in a safe environment ( i.e. any place he’s been to a minimum of twenty times, and has been thoroughly checked for monsters). Other than politely asking for food and beverages, we rarely have to discipline him for anything, and he’ll happily play with his siblings or his herd of animals all day long (the animals are his best friends, he told me that they’re all turning four today).

Veronica Reeve Photography

And so, on this fourth birthday of your life, I love you, my beautiful little Rex Henry. May your life be stable, despite all our moves, and all the schools, and living overseas, and traveling a lot…wow. Did you pick us on purpose?