Age: 2 years (26 months actual, 22 months corrected)
Weight: 28 pounds

While I am typing this Ty is taking stuff off my desk, setting off my alarm clock and moments ago shut my bedroom door and told me “Bye”. I figured since he went through the trouble of closing a door and dismissing me he was up to something. He was. He was trying to get outside with his brother and I haven’t dressed him for it yet so I had told him no. Have I mentioned that I often know when he was up to something because he holds his clothes in a death grip after he has committed the deed? It’s like he is trying to keep himself from anymore disobedience by giving his hands something to do. I always know to look for trouble when he is gripping his shirt.

Lots of little things to share about Ty today but I will start with the paramedic incident.

Always Drama

I was talking to my brother Daniel on the phone on Monday afternoon at about 4:00. Both boys were in the backyard and I was standing in the kitchen near the arcadia door. Ty was no more than 6 feet from where I was standing. Something happened to draw my attention outside but I don’t know what it was. I am guessing that Tanner probably yelled for me but in the aftermath I couldn’t remember the details of that. Anyhow, as I was talking I looked out to check on the boys and Ty was laying on the back porch. He was holding his breath and was blue. He was starting to turn white around the eyes and lips and I knew he was close to losing consciousness. I ran outside and picked him and he closed his eyes and went limp in my arms. He was unconscious for only about 2 to 3 seconds and then he starting breathing again. The cycle than started to repeat and he started going blue again. I was throwing him in the air and blowing in his face and finally got him to catch his breath. What scared me the most about this incident was that (a) the source of the injury was obvious – he had a very large goose egg on his forehead above his right eye and that (b) he had lost consciousness and was at risk of repeating it. In the past when Ty has had blue spells, it was due to very minor injuries. This time I had to ask myself what was going to happen with an injury that was more severe. After he started breathing, he just laid in my arms starting at me. I picked the phone back up and told Daniel I was calling 911. Poor Dan! All he heard was me screaming at Ty to breathe and then telling him I was calling paramedics. Brooke was on the phone with me during a blue spell once too and it was miserable for her. Anyhow, Daniel immediately called my parents (duh) and they arrived at the same time the paramedics did.

Right after the incident occurred the doorbell occurred and thinking I may need help I answered it. It was the lady who had bought our old home coming to bring me mail. She and her father came in and they both agreed that I should call 911 just in case. By the time the ambulance got there Ty was acting right as rain (of course). He sat up, starting smiling, was answering questions about his eyes and ears and talking about his papa. At that point, the paramedics are looking at an adorable toddler with a very large bump on his head but who seemed completely fine and they asked me if I still wanted to transport. I decided not to because I agreed – he looked fine. The frustrating thing though was that they didn’t understand Ty’s history. In fact, one fireman was describing Ty’s blue spell as tantrum and personality. I had to educate him. Yes some kids do have blue spells for this reason but preemies who are neurologically sensitive from hemorrhages struggle with this for neuro reasons not temper reasons. I KNEW that Ty was at a much greater risk of seizures due to this incident because of his past hemorrhages and that was why I called 911. As Susie would tell you, it is AMAZING that Ty DIDN’T have a grand mal seizure. Technically, once a brain bleed has occurred and resolved, it is no longer a threat (a long term threat due to the damage caused yes – but a present threat no). However, the caveat to that is because the damage occurred in the first place, the children are more neurologically sensitive to other things including head trauma and I had no doubt that Ty was going to have a mild concussion from the injury and I didn’t know how that would impact him under the circumstances.

Later that evening Ty was swallowing back vomit which told me he was struggling with a concussion. He never got real sleepy or acted abnormally though so I decided to call the on call Dr. before taking him in to an urgent care. During RSV season, that is the LAST place in the world I want Ty unless medically necessary. Can you believe that for the second time, the on page Dr. never called back and I waited up with Ty not letting him sleep until midnight!!!! Of course they would say that if I was desperate I could have just gone to the ER and not waited but that isn’t the point – I was waiting for their counsel first and I couldn’t believe that they would ignore a page like this (especially twice – this happened to me before).

Anyhow, Ty seems to be doing fine now. I have noticed that he is excessively hungry so I wondered if he is fighting some nauseousness but that could be just a coincidence. The bump is still pretty icky and is bruising but he seems no worse for the wear. I did call the insurance companies triage though (which is awesome ironically) and they told me that if I brought him to the ER they would do a neuro exam – watching how he was walking and eye movement etc. I had to laugh at that because Ty would have failed for sure. He would fail on any given day though because he walks very unbalanced and he struggles to track with his eyes appropriately.

We are so incredibly thankful that the Lord has continued to protect our little guy. Of course, I have been experiencing the stress of “I can’t let him out of my site because if he gets hurt he doesn’t cry he turns blue and then I don’t hear it”….that was the worst part for me. Not even seeing it until he was starting to go unconscious. As I am writing about this I am deciding that I don’t want to write about it or I’ll start crying – finding your baby blue for any reason is the worst in the world and it stays with you. Not going to say anymore about this right now.

Whhhheeewww….okay….let’s talk about some funny stuff instead!:)

Ty-isms

I love it when Ty say’s “UM ON” (come on!)

I love the way he generally precedes “mommy” and “daddy” with the word “ahhh”. “Ahhh mommy Ahhhh daddy”. Don’t know why he does this but it sounds precious.

It is also adorable the way he will say “Alrighty! Okay!” He just changes it up all the time and adds so much personality to it. I get this line everytime I get him dressed.

Powder = Pillow

He is learning to say his last name and most of the time Brinkman comes out as “Binky-Bun”. LOL! Love it!

School

Since Tanner is enjoying “homework” and Ty copies him, Ty is learning his letters too:). Ty can often recognize the letter “T” and he knows it makes the “tah” sound. I have been teaching him to identify some basic shapes for a vision test he needs to take (box, house – which he calls houf, an apple, and a circle). What is amazing to me is not only that he learned the shapes in like 5 minutes but that he walks around the house identifying circles all the time now. Seems advanced to me for his age.

Citrus Trees

Anyone know anything about fruit trees? I don’t and I am now the proud owner of 11. We have the following: 1 lemon, 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 blood orange, 1 tangerine, 1 peach, 1 ruby red grapefruit, 1 pear, 2 plum, and 1 kumquat. Recently Ty saw me holding one of the lemons and was begging for one. I was talking to Jim at the time and was getting frustrated that Ty wouldn’t be quiet over the lemons. Jim finally said “DONI JUST GIVE HIM A LEMON!” I gave him a bite anxiously awaiting the sour expression and to my amazement he loved it – rind and all. He ate about 4 big bites before I took it away. That didn’t work in my favor:)

Es Em

If I had to pick one phrase that Ty say’s that I hear the most it would be “Es Em” hands down. My little boundary pusher is having to say “yes mam” all darn long day because he is looking for trouble everywhere he goes. The adorable thing is that he has perfected his charm with “Es Em” and he steals my heart several hundred times a day saying it:). It is to the point that I can simply give him a look and he stops his actions to say “Es Em”. Grandmothers are being manipulated terribly though by Ty’s charming demeanor. And he knows it….and he works it. If you could only see this kids batting eyelashes. They are truly truly amazing. I just went and measured them and they are OVER half an inch long. For eyelashes that is stinking long – look at a ruler! We are talking Guinness here:) If you get those lengthy lashes batting there way at you, you just gotta close your eyes for fear of caving. I am not kidding. Ask his grandmothers – they will totally back me up on this.

Child Proofing

What a royal waste of my time. Jim and I bought the child proof door knobs and we both swear it is easier for Ty to open doors with them ON! Crazy! The fridge lock we bought was busted the first day. We now have the straps that go around the side by side handles but what a pain. Ty’s birth great grandfather was precious and spent hours on my kitchen floor installing cabinet locks for me and Ty has not been able to open those yet – thank the Lord. His first two days in the new house had plenty of mischievous adventure. He continually got into the pantry (still a problem), he grabbed creme brulee coffee creamer out of the trash and spilled it all over my carpet, kept getting stuff out of the fridge (darn it he just climbed out of his playpen while I was typing) AND he ate paint. You’ll have to ask Grandma how that happened LOL. (Thankfully it was water based paint). Yesterday he put oranges on my carpet and when he saw that I had found them (bleeding their juice into cream carpet) he started saying “Oh man! Oh man! Oh man! Oh man!” I couldn’t help but suppress my laughter at that.

Strangers

Strangers? There are no strangers in Ty’s world. Only countless numbers of people who want to cherish and adore him. Quite obvious that this is his basic belief. Everywhere we go he smiles and say’s “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” to everyone. If you ignore him, he will repeat it continually until he is acknowledged. He also walks up to random strangers and hugs them and will sometimes ask them to pick him up. This happened at the park this week a few times. The first couple of times he was working a few ladies because they had food in their hands and he first charmed them and then asked for a bite. The third time he was after her necklace. He yanked a beaded necklace off a lady at the park who was talking to me about homeschooling. She was so sweet about it but I felt awful. What do you do when you have a very loving and affectionate child????? I don’t want to make other people uncomfortable when he is trying to hug people he doesn’t know but then I don’t want to change his precious little personality either. Tough to decide and the price I paid for my indecision was one shattered necklace this week. Occasionally I have had small children randomly hug me and I always love it. Of course their mama’s eyes are always wide with concern (and now I share that expression) but I always assure them that being hugged by a little one for any reason is just a day brightener. I hope other people feel like I do or I am allowing my child to invade some serious boundaries. Yikes. Not sure what to do about this one.

Counting Sheep

Well he doesn’t exactly count sheep. He recites the things he loves:). Sweetie first brought this to my attention when he was staying the night with her while we moved. She told me that when she rocked him to sleep he would recite the following list at least twice: Papa, Sweetie, Daddy, Mommy, Tanner, Phone, Computer. Recently I noticed him doing the same thing while trying to fall asleep with the exact same list. Is he praying and thanking the Lord for these things? LOL? Funny that Phone and Computer made his list but not surprising he DOES love the phone and computer!

Illness/Injury

Two weeks ago Ty scratched the heck out of his right side of his face and ear. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he would do that. A few days later he told Sweetie ONE time – “ear hurt”. Hmmmmm…..

The next week he did the exact same thing to the other side of his face and ear. I took him to the pediatrician and said “I know he looks fine but just look in his ears and assure me that he doesn’t have any ear infections.” He did! Ty is now on a 10 day round of Omnicef antibiotic. I learned my lesson from this. Ty will not fuss or complain or cry but if I see him making his ear bleed – I know what’s up.

Speaking of not complaining…yesterday I was taking his socks off and noticed a quarter inch splinter sticking out of the bottom of his foot – long enough to catch my eye. Can you believe he never did ANYTHING to alert me to his condition? Never cried, fussed, limped, nothing. He was just walking on it like that. I totally don’t get that and it is a little bit concerning. He has not fussed one bit about his head injury either.

I have another story to share but sorry friends…it is for family viewing only so I will have to password protect it:). I know that drives you nuts but it is the only way I can keep all my journal entries together so I just have to password the things I want to keep personal.

So long for now….