Off to school I go

  We decided to go with the pilot group therapy for Tyce.  There is about 10 toddlers in the class ranging from age 15 mo (tyce and only tyce) to 24 (possible plus) months.  The kid closest in age to tyce is 22 months.  7 months difference is quite a bit when we are talking about little ones.  The orientation went super well, he got to sit at the table and have snack time and kept signing ''more'' for more snacks.  At one point I saw him take the snack of the kid next to him ( had to laugh).  Today he brought home a coloring piece, it was a bear and probably one of my most proudest moments as a mom.  My baby is a blooming ;).

Lately he has been doing a whole lot of this, down dog... yoga, perhaps?

He is quite funny, he does the ''yoga'' stance all the time now, we think he is trying to stand.  He also plays this game with Bo our dog where he climbs up and down him, up and down him and he thinks it is so funny!  Our poor 70 pound dog completely takes the abuse, he closes his eyes and wishes Tyce would just got away.

Here are pictures of his first day of therapy at the Early On center, before we left.  I will bring my camera for next time!  

My camera is a canon for peets sake, the pictures are coming out gritty, maybe because I don't let the lens adjust because Mr. quickness won't sit and smile for a picture!  

We are feeling blessed.  Things with therapies, doctors, work, school and life are falling into place.  This little love of mine is so much more then Down syndrome.  He is Tyce, signing, giggling, waiving, playing little boy and he makes me ridiculously proud to be his momma!!!    Next month will be our first ''Step Up for Down syndrome'' walk and he is why we walk.  He is why I walk.  If you would like to donate to his walk we would greatly appreciate it.  Every single dollar donated goes to helping individuals just like Tyce who have Down syndrome in West Michigan. Every single dollar donated goes to Tyce and his friends so that they can keep on Living BIG, Thinking BIG, Doing BIG!!!   Please consider 5, 10 dollars anything you can and you will help Tyce's life continuously be shaped into a life of inclusion, and full of potential.  I will walk with pride, and if you would join us we would LOVE to have you there.  If you can't join then please consider a donation and help Tyce and us reach our first goal.  This community has welcomed us, once very new and scared first time parents with WIDE open arms, we want to give back to the wonderful organization that we have felt always has our back!  

Click here to Donate!!!

He is looking so big these days.  Must be the big boy hair cut, or the shoes, perhaps the vest?  or maybe school! ahhh 

Have a blessed day!

He loves to give kisses

   Our baby knows his ladies (babies).  He loves to give kisses, mostly to himself in the mirror and other babies, ok and me :).  He knows what a dog is and a ball.  He has started calling his pipe ''P'' and signing more, with what we think is meaning.   Have I mentioned music, he loves to dance.  I think he must secretly watch MTV because his dance style is similar to that of the rap videos, swear, I have no idea where he learned to dance, it is a little hood.   

  

  And yesterday was our 3 year anniversary.  I was taken out to a wonderful sushi bar with some delicious Martinis. And Trav was surprised with some nice Lions tickets.  Life is good!

Little Roar-y out.

My husband is the biggest lions fan this side of Michigan.  He anticipated the first game of the pre-season more then, well most things :).  He got Ty all suited up and then Ty crashed as TJ later found out the game wouldn't air until 11pm.

Note the Honolulu blue and silver clothing with Lions Onesie. Tyce has a Lions once from size birth to age 10, ready.  TJ even wanted to paint his room HONOLULU Blue and Silver, yep not kidding. :)

Teething has been no fun lately.  He has been drooling like crazy and fussy.

* Note the drool :(.  Oh and he loves this leap frog phonetic sound toy that goes on our dishwasher with a bunch of letters.  You put in a letter and it makes a sound. Whenever I am in the kitchen he follows me and plays with this toy and it is teaching him to make new sounds, he loves it.  His friends Gabe and Bell s gave this to him, thanks guys :).  P says Puhh...   every letter makes a sound and p says puhh... :)  And then he tries to do it, too cute.  


And he loves chasing his dog Bo.  

Kiddo pulls up on anything he can get those little hands on, he is starting to let go a little and stand,  but then gets scared and does this little plop below.

Our PT says this isn't the proper way to go down, but we can't get him out of it.  He needs to bend those little legs down. So far the plop and drop works for him :).

Gross dog toy :/.  He plays this game with that ball, where he throws it and chases it.  This game can last for half an hour and he get's such a kick out of it.  Kiddo has lots of energy and is always on the go.  


I have now gone back to working day hours and today was my second day.  He seems to be doing really good and gets to spend the day with his cousin and watch him do fun things all day.  His cousin is about a year older then him and I hear Ty loves to just watch and do what he does.  I love that he get's to play with someone else all day, it makes me feel like he will be ok with out me, even if I'm not ok without him :(.   No, but my job is going super well, I actually love it and I am working with my friends and people I absolutely admire, doing the work I love. It is so good, you know when you are suppose to be where you are suppose to be, great feeling!  Tonight I once again got to read to him, bath him and cuddle him for a few hours. I thoroughly soaked up the few hours with him and made the best of it, I felt I was a good momma, regardless of not being with him all day anymore.  Even better things are commin.  I know I will be still and know that God has this all figured out.  


Ty is starting some private PT  next week.  He had an evaluation done by a local child therapy group and so far he doesn't need the speech or OT, and will only need it if she notices he needs the (EXTRA) OT and ST help, then she will refer us for those extra therapies.  He will get OT, PT and ST through Early On, but we thought we would try some more intensive PTfor him, and so far so good.  Fun news for him, he gets some more attention and someone else to force him to bend those legs down correctly :).  

To be with you!

  So much has happened lately.  First of all Tyce got strep throat about three weeks ago, and on day eight of his antibiotic he developed an insane rash all over every inch of his body.  It was an intense rash and it bothered me a lot more than him. I don't even think he knew he had the rash, but we sure did.  We figured out he is allergic to the penicillin so, no more of that.  I had never heard of that before, luckily we have friends that have told us they have it and it is quite common, go figure.  I only took pictures on my phone and not my camera,  because it still hurts me too look at that, then I deleted them off my phone cause ouch!

  Next, he had his one year kidney check up.  And unfortunately he still has hydronophrosis which means he is retaining urine in his kidney's instead of flushing it all out.  His urologist is great, he loves working with Ty and is so patient with my millions of questions.  He reassures us that Tyce's kidneys will be fine and that if he has made it this far without any infections then they must be working well. We will keep praying hard that God heals him.  I know he will.  We still have to go back in six months and hopefully this will clear itself.  Prayers.

  Next, he has been going nuts in the PT area this month.  He finally crawls the ''correct'' way.  And he pulls to stand on EVERYTHING he possibly can get those little fingers around.  He walks around the furniture and has figured out the smoothest ways of falling down gently.  He rarely likes to be held and doesn't like to snuggle as much, he is a busy body with lots to do.  I miss my snuggle bug, he is all boy now.

  He no longer needs the thickener for milk, we use his sippy topper and that works wonderfully.  I don't know a whole lot about the OT area but I think he' doing well there too.  He mimics noises and his newest thing is waiving bye bye!  And loves his shadow!!!  He is a curious little boy.  Everything is so one day at a time, for a while he won't do anything new and then all of a sudden he shows us five new things we have never seen him do before.  We are proud of our little monkey at whatever his pace he does things when he wants too.  I am learning not to push a whole lot and let him be a baby, I feel he does more that way.

  Lastly, I will be in transition of a job change and thus, no longer day time with my buddy.  He will be going to his Grandmas everyday.  I know he will do so great there, but none the less I am going to miss him like crazy!!!  I also have a year long internship coming up and will be working a ton of hours, free labor.  It all is sooo exhausting to think about and I don't want to give up my time with him.  But I keep reminding myself that there will be an end to all this craziness and at the end will be a better life for my baby boy! (the internship is only a year, still long enough I know) On the plus,  I will finally be able to put him to bed, to read him books at night and soak up the three hours I will have with him everyday.  I plan on keeping my head up through this process, I can't quit now, what would that teach my son in the future.  I will get through this!    I know this is what I have to do, but its not easy, and it's not forever just for now.  For He knows the plans.  :)

  This past week my sisters were able to help me take care of Tyce while his grandma was on vacation, she deserved it, she wins outstanding grandma of the year!!! Well my sisters love my little man and I love it.  All of them pitched in all week and I can't thank them enough, we start and end with family and my family rocks!.  Thanks sisters and my niece for having him all day tuesday.

Here are some videos and pictures of the T-Man  (you can pause the music at the bottom if you would like to hear him).

I found my toys, all by myself

Hard to capture a un-blurry picture when he moves so much!

Just a tad bit loved :)

Tia Evelyn came over and did not help you fall asleep, but you just love her and the attntion you get :)

  And Ty and daddy practiced pushing the walker.  He had some tumbles but he loves to try and hop up on there.  

Lift up! (video day)

I know I talk to much in the videos, its just I looooove seeing him and being with him and talking to him.  And he makes me so proud!!!

  We went to Saugatuck for the fourth of july :)  It was wonderful.  Here is a picture of Ty and his daddy!

And they love each other like crazy!

Yep!  He is a stellar dad.  

Ty and his best friend Bo :)

I am very sneaky!

He is becoming a big boy!  I can't emphasis how much we love him.  How much he captivates us with all the fun things he does.  

Updates

It's different, new, exciting.  All of Ty's milestones are new to us, we are new parents. Regardless we know that due to him having a some lower muscle tone, him pulling himself up is harder.  He has wanted and tried to pull himself up from his crib for at least three months now, and he would only get to his knees.  He would sit there on his knees peeking with his head up as high as he could get it to look at us from his crib.  He tries, and he would try, he would pull and fall, pull and fall and then one evening, all by himself he finally did it.  Tyce pulled himself up.  We were all so excited.  Some parents may take this for granted and some may not, we take it as a huge step in him figuring his body out and maybe the start of walking sooner then later, perhaps?

  His dad and I both witnessed it twice since then and now he is trying to pull up on everything.  And with a little push he will move around furniture.

  He had his one year check up last week.  So at 12 months old he weights 21.7 pounds and he is 28.5 inches, he is smaller, but still hanging in there strong.   Overall he is pretty healthy.  He was given a third opinion on his glasses and the eye doctor wants us to hold off on his glasses for a couple more years.  He get's his kidneys rechecked in the middle of July.  He got his blood work re-drawn and we are waiting to hear those results, hopefully all will continue to be well.  Ok, since this draft, we got the blood tests back and we are good, good for one more year, yay!  Ty is now completely on whole milk, we mix it up and give him bottles and sippys of milk. I am so not ready for him to be close to being off the bottle.  We recently started using simply thick to thicken up his milk and it has been working great, he caught on and he likes it, who wouldn't he is no longer choking. He is also getting so much faster crawling all around the house and getting into everything now, we have to close all the doors, because he will book it anywhere he is not suppose to be.   Yesterday he was chasing bo with a wooden spatula.    :)  He also is a fanatic of pizza, grilled cheese and mac and cheese, go figure he must be an American boy!  His feeding is starting to get pickier so we are getting creative like adding chicken to his grilled cheese or veggies to his pizza.   I also think he has a bit of a texture issue, he is not a fan of slimy food, like bananas and mandarin oranges, they drive him nuts!    Those are our boys updates ;).

  Today we went to our friend Andrews birthday party, I didn't get to take a ton of pictures because TJ stayed home sick :(.  But I caught a few.

Ty and his buddy Kobe

Shortly after Ty face planted it

This was right before, but he got out of there :)

Ty, Clyde and Ryan :)


Happy 4th, we will continue to enjoy our freedom and are thankful for our independence!

Love the Matchinsky's