School Already.....

I can say that I am so totally thankful and blessed to be able to stay home and raise my kids. It is an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. That being said, although the title states differently, I was ready for school. I knew I would miss them, but there is something to be said about a routine. Especially when you are as Type A as I am. So here we go with the First Day of School!! Tristan would be starting 3rd grade and Ty 1st grade. Dum Da Dum Dum Dum.....

My immediate thought on this was, "Ahh! I have the odd grades together this year". As some of you have been told, the odd grades seem to be more challenging. I swear half the time I help them with their schoolwork, and I feel like I am back in school. It is time consuming for sure. Both of the kids got great teachers, and we are looking forward to an amazing year. Although I may be pulling my hair out with all of the work and learning this year.

Evan also started Parent's Day Out this year at Grace. He went to PDO last year at our church, First Baptist Powell. They have an amazing program, but I knew I wanted to have all three kids at one place. So I made the switch. Evan has a great teacher, and has had so much fun so far. He has made two little friends already, Mason and "Booger". Yep, you read that right! He kept telling me that he played with Mason and "Booger" everyday. I would say, "You played with Parker". Evan would keep telling me, "NO, Booger!" Finally I decided to ask Mrs. Diane, his teacher, who this Booger kid was. She died laughing. Turns out the little boy's name is Booker! Whew, I was nervous that Evan was picking his nose, and he and his new friend Mason were proceeding to play with it. Thankfully, that is not the case. Here is Ev on his first day. Notice the backpack is bigger than he is.

Mrs. Diane sends home a newsletter each Thursday.(Evan's PDO is on Tuesdays and Thursdays) This past one says that one of the goals for the end of the year for her class is for all of the kids in there to be potty trained. I had to horse laugh on that one. Evan is more than ready, and actually has peed and pooped on the potty for me some, on his terms of course! He would much rather come to me and say, "Mommy, I poo in my diater.. please change me!" He is killing me. So I plan to keep tabs on the whole potty training thing. In fact, Ty was 3 1/2 years old. It was the longest time in my life I swear!! I hope E doesn't follow the same path. Training boys in my experience is no piece of cake. Maybe Mrs. Diane will have better luck.

I will say though that boys are so easy to please when it comes to planning things for their birthdays. Ty turned 7 years old on Sept. 4. Instead of a big friend party, we opted to take him to his first UT football game and then have family over on Sunday. He was so fine with this. I loved not having to plan a big party either. Here is a look back on our baby boy after his first laser treatment at 2 1/2 months old, and then at the UT game this past Saturday.

My how we have come a long way, by God's grace only, in such a short time. He has been through so much in his life, but God has given him amazing character. It makes me cry every time I think about how God has equipped my Ty to handle what he was born with. Our God is an amazing God who promises not to give us anymore than we can handle when we put our ultimate trust in HIM.!!! Is it hard to do? Yes, sometimes it is, but I can't imagine tackling these trials in our own strength, and I am so thankful that Jesus is there to catch me when I fall!!!

Here is a picture of Ty showing off his dance moves and his personality. It is never a dull moment with him for sure.

Last but not least is my final update on Ty's eyes. I am so sorry that I have been so bad at blogging and keeping up to date on this. I know that many people check the blog for the purpose of finding out how they can pray for our family. I will try to do better at that.

So can I get a drum roll please................................... As of Ty's last doc visit this past Thursday, Sept. 9, his pressure is at 16, and his vision is 20/30. He is only on two drops. One he takes three times a day and the other one he takes at night. He will see Dr. M here on Oct. 22, and then he will go back to NYC on December 16 to see Dr. R. He will have another visual field test and optic nerve pictures to determine if any changes have happened. Oh yes, and he will have another laser treatment with Dr. G. The laser treatments have kind of fallen to the back burner, but I want to make sure we at least maintain the progress that he has made. So I have to fit in at least one per year. It makes it hard now with school. It will be an appointment close to Christmas time, and NYC is so neat at that time of year!! I promise to keep you all updated from now on. Ha!!! So until next time...........

Time Marches On!

Once again, I am behind on my blogging efforts. School is officially in full swing, but somehow I am not. My heart longs for those lazy days of summer, but fall is quickly approaching. Time marches on whether I want it to or not.

So the new school year has begun. Tristan started 2nd grade with Mrs. Condry, and Ty started Kindergarten with Mrs. Sluss. The greatest thing for the kids this year is that even though 2nd grade is supposed to be upstairs and K-1st downstairs, Tristan's class didn't have enough classrooms to be upstairs. So her classroom is directly across the hallway from Ty's classroom. They love being able to see each other throughout the day. Ty's first day of Kindergarten was a rough day. He cried when we left him. It was so hard to do. Andy says it was because I was the only mom with a camera, and I embarrassed him. I told him, "Are you kidding me? What mother doesn't take pictures of their kids first day of Kindergarten?" He was fine after we left, and wound up loving it. He loves his teacher, and has been making friends fast. He has already had a timeout for talking. He must get that from Andy;)

Tristan did well as I expected her to. As for Evan, he once again thinks he is an only child! Here they are on their first day

Not only did school start, but on August 27-28 Andy, Ty, and I headed to New York for another laser treatment. This trip also had a few extras. Ty's laser doctor suggested we meet up with a plastic surgeon/dentist for advice on Ty's increasing lip size and his teeth. The information we received was great. It was kind of overwhelming, but most information regarding Ty's condition is. So I will try to break it down for you the best I can. Ty's Sturge-Weber Syndrome and his facial port wine stain have caused excess bone and tissue growth in his cheek and jaw. His jaw is growing longer vertically on the right side, and thus it is pushing his teeth out. His lip is also growing because of the excess tissue and blood flow from the birthmark. The suggestion from the doctor on how to treat this. We wait! Surprise! we haven't heard that one before. No, really he wants to wait a few years for Ty's permanent teeth to totally develop, and then we go from there. In the meantime, sometime in the future Ty will see a world renown orthodontist in NYC in order to possibly fit his jaw with a plate to restrict the overgrowth. Then we will talk about tackling the overgrowth of his lip by doing a lip reduction surgery. This is all in the future, but for sure what will happen at some point in time. It was good information to learn.

The most exciting information was that the dentist/plastic surgeon was very concerned with the droopiness of Ty's left eye. He wanted to know why we had not had it lifted. I just flat out told him that I had never really thought of it. I have been so concerned with the functional part of the eyes and getting the prosthesis to fit right that I never gave one thought to the look of the overall eye. So right then he gets on the phone and sets us up with a pediatric ophthalmic plastic surgeon. We met with him and immediately loved him. He is a big Yankees fan, and showed Ty all of his Yankee memorabilia. He told us that he could basically do an eyelid tuck and make Ty's eye look normal like the other one. He proceeded to tell us about how he would do the surgery. Then he told us that he wanted to make sure the muscle was working correctly. He said that he could put a dilating drop in Ty's artificial eye, and if the muscle was in working order then the drop would cause it to contract. This would in turn cause the eye lid to raise as if the surgery had already been performed. So it basically would give us a little "sneak peak" as to what Ty would look like after surgery. WOW! it worked. The doctor was excited that the muscle is still good. He really wants to do the surgery for Ty. We are on board too, and hopefully will schedule it for this summer. It is day surgery, but then he would have to see him the next day, and then a week later. So summer is essential for him to have it done. To have two eyes that look normal and open is something that Andy and I really want for him. Well that is a quick little update on our little buddy. I will post more in a couple of weeks as Ty heads back to the glaucoma doctor to have the pressure checked in his right eye. We are praying for a good outcome for that. Until next time.....