As I am writing this, Ty is in his crib trying to nap. I say trying because I can hear him fighting it still. I started putting him in his bed for nap time about two weeks ago and I am finally getting 2 hours worth of naps per day outta the kid. That was a long time coming!!!

Here are a few brief Ty updates as of late:

Words

At 19 months, Ty is saying:

Mama
Dadda
Tanner (sometimes Nanner) – he rarely says Tanner’s name but he tries once in awhile
Baby
Jodi
Papa
Hi
Bye Bye
Trying to say More
Nigh Nigh (Night Night)
Um Um (Yum Yum)
Ya Ya Ya (or Yay Yay Yay:)
No No

Signing

When I first started teaching Ty to sign, he would sign on me. For example, I was signing please all the time and the first time he tried to sign the word please, he signed it on my chest instead of his. Cute.

Ty loves to sign “more” and “please”, “eat”, “soft” and “gimmee” still:). We are working on play, all done, and drink but he isn’t picking them up yet. The other day he wanted more fruit snacks (another child with an ADDICTION to those darn fruit snacks) so he found an empty package, opened my fingers, placed the package in my hand, and signed more. He will bring me a cup when he is thirsty too. I watched him sign “eat” “more” for Tanner the other day when Tanner had cookies that Ty wanted. Baby sign has been very good for Ty and I have noticed him trying to say “more” now that he is signing it so often.

Eating

Ty is still eating well. He hates eggs and has some texture aversions still but he is eating a ton. I think the kid is a bottomless pit most days. I also discovered that I must feed him a snack after nap time or he is a terror between nap and dinner time. When he sees daddy come home from work he heads straight for the kitchen and behaves as though dinner should be ON the table when daddy walks in the door:). He is also doing better with thin liquids which is awesome because he isn’t wanting to drink much milk all of a sudden.

Walking

Ty can take 6 to 7 steps between people still and can manage a few steps between furniture but he is not motivated to try any more than that. He is quite satisfied with crawling and won’t try to walk without motivation. His balance is still terrible and he can’t stand on his own well. I noticed this week that when he is trying to walk he seems to fall to the left side. I pointed this out to his PT and she agreed that he tends to be weaker on the left side. We are watching this. Both of us think the weakness is very mild but it might be keeping him from being motivated to move ahead in the walking field. Remember he had a bilateral brain hemorrage, the worst of which was a grade 4 on the right side of the brain. This hemorrage would affect the opposite side of the body and his neurologist told me from the beginning to watch his left leg specifically. Therefore, I am not surprised by this. I don’t expect a big problem though. I think he will have to work harder to overcome this little stumbling block but once he finds a way, he will be in good shape.

Tickling

Ty loves to tickle and is now lifting my shirt and tickling my tummy. This is less than fun for me because he does it so hard he actually draws blood. I had several scratch marks on my stomach in recent weeks. Nearly everyone in my family has had battle marks on their face (watch the eye area) from Ty trying to touch and touching to hard. I still think this is an OT issue. He had his eval but we haven’t heard back to have it officially started yet.

Mr. Sensitive

I mentioned this week that Ty cries during the scene on the Camping video where he is getting in trouble. I also have noticed that if I sit him on my lap to watch the videos I have put on the web, he will cry the minute he sees the first frame of that glowbaby sequence. He does not forget a thing – unless he purposes too LOL. He is still not happy about that camping video either. This week I have been just trying to mute that part. He is such a little doll.