One year ago today, I posted online a photo of Dexter and me taken at 3:30 a.m. We had a full house – grandparents visiting – and he and I were the only ones up. He’s just finished nursing and was snuggled into me, so warm and tiny. See?

Today, as I’m driving to daycare to visit him, I remember this photo, and get all warm and fuzzy and really, really excited to see Dex. When I get there, I can’t immediately find him, and finally, one of the teachers says, “He’s behind you!”

I turn around and Dexter is lounging in the sunken area (which you might remember as The Furniture Pushin’ Gang’s preferred ledge over which to shove cribs), lazily swinging his legs in the air and grinning that grin he gets when he knows he’s pulled a fast one on mommy. Look: 

Last week, Dexter’s sweet teacher decided to treat herself to a Happy Meal for lunch. Believe me. SHE DESERVES IT.

She dug through the cardboard box, looking for her prize, and out it came: a small plush emoji, a yellow smiling face wearing sunglasses. I’m pretty old but I believe it stands for “cool.” (Also, it had a tag on it that read “cool.”)

Dexter immediately feel madly, deeply in love. He reached toward his teacher, begging her for the object of his affection. She handed it to him and he immediately, for some reason, put it in his mouth and began crawling around the daycare looking disturbingly like a dog with a chew-toy. (Add that to the list of things I didn’t know babies do until I had one. It’s getting to be quite the tome.) When she saw what she was doing, the teacher determined the cool tag was a choking risk and took the emoji from Dex to cut it off.

In order to survive the mean streets of daycare, my one-year-old son has joined a gang.

They call them The Furniture Pushin’ Gang. The members are Dexter, Camden, Jaxon and Mary Lou. (Names slightly changed to shield the not-so-innocent.)

Jaxon: the muscle, with the chunkiest thighs on planet Earth.

Camden: just started walking, so he brings that to the table, plus he grows hair at a rate hereby unseen on a baby – 4 haircuts by the time he was 7 months old and still going strong.