Tyson the Warrior Turns 1

That picture tells it all.

Look how far my boy has come.

Tomorrow, he turns 1. With apologies to Mr. Dickens, the past year has been the best of times and the worst of times.

One year ago tomorrow, we nervously awaited the arrival of our son, Tyson. The excitement was nothing like we had experienced not even two years earlier, when Sydney arrived. This time, our stomachs were queasy at the thought of bringing our new baby into the world.

Can you imagine something so exciting being so dreadful? My wife was going to give birth to a beautiful baby boy whose life would be at risk from the second he left the womb.

We knew a few months ahead of time he would be born with a significant heart problem. The doctors told us there was a decent chance he would need life-saving surgery upon his arrival. They also told us he would require another heart surgery about 4-6 months after his birth if he was going to survive.

You can read about the drama in my earlier posts. We were ecstatic when he didn’t need that immediate surgery. We were heartbroken when he struggled to eat and develop normally and we slowly realized he couldn’t wait 4-6 months for surgery and they were going to operate when he was smaller and more fragile than they wanted. We were emotionally scarred when we turned him over to the surgeon with fear we’d never see him alive again. We were elated, then shocked, then ecstatic when he made it through the surgery and began to recover.

One year later, Tyson is leading a pretty normal life. His scar is still jagged, but fading. He still takes heart medicine every day. He’s very underweight because, prior to his surgery, drinking a bottle of milk was like running the Boston Marathon and he really never developed a like for it. 

 

But those are the only signs that he is what they call a “heart baby.”

He goes in for a complete checkup next week – his first one since last fall -- and we will see how his heart is doing. We are obviously hoping for complete healing and no further surgery.

Tyson’s biggest obstacle since heart surgery has been his weight. He had a feeding tube for the first seven months of his life. Since then, he’s had a feeding regiment of supplemented breast milk or formula six times a day. We wake him three times during the night (10:30 p.m, 2:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m.) and force fortified formula into him, often against his will.

Even with that, he struggles, especially now that he is mobile and burning calories like a Hummer burns gasoline. He should weigh about 22 pounds. He weighs slightly more than 17. That’s a pretty big deficit for a kid his age and we would not be surprised if he went on some specialized eating plan after this week’s checkup.

No feeding tube, please!!!

The Budster  --- his nickname -- is showing signs of improvement in this area. He eats solid food better than his sister. I really believe when he is able to eat anything he wants he will pack on the pounds. He seems to really like food. Let’s just hope he doesn’t like it as much as his daddy.

  

He is a bit behind in his development due to all the time in the hospital and other restrictions during those first few months. For example, Sydney could probably say a couple dozen words at 1 year old, while Tyson can't say much more than ma ma and da da.

He is, however, ahead of Sydney when it comes to moving. He isn’t quite walking, but he scoots across the floor like an Indy car driver and he can lift himself up to a standing position faster than a professional wrestler after a choreographed fall. He is always moving and loves to play the worm on the end of the hook when you are trying to change his diaper or get him dressed.

In fact, he is pretty fearless. He loves to be manhandled, flipped around and tossed in the air. He gets a good belly laugh from it.

He's a really happy kid. He wakes up with a smile on his face, giggling when he sees his dad emerge from the shower. It is almost as if he knows what he has overcome and he’s chosen to really relish every day.

He loves to watch his sister do just about anything and laughs at her like she is Jerry Seinfeld working a crowd.

Believe me, she is not that funny. But the Budster is high on life. As he should be.

  

Even his scar is slowly fading. I think it will always be a visual reminder, but I don’t think he’ll be embarrassed to take his shirt off at the beach.

The kid has come a LOOOONG way. And so have his parents. The highs and lows of the past year have been draining, but we have all that much more appreciation for him and parenthood.

I have tears welling up as I write this. I am proud of this kid. He has taken a real tough situation and kicked its ass. I remember those days in the hospital when he looked like the before part of the above picture. I cried at his pain. Now I cry tears of joy for his resilience.

Tyson is where he is because 1) he is one tough kid, 2) he had one awesome mother who wouldn't let him give up and exhausted herself ensuring he had everything he needed, 3) we live close to one of the finest children's hospitals in the world, and 4) the positive thoughts and prayers of friends, families and even strangers blessed him with healing power.

Brooke and I really didn’t know if he could make it, and the outcome has been much better than we anticipated. I really feel like I have a pretty normal kid and my dreams for the future are no longer tempered.

I know this can all change next week, or next year or when he becomes a teenager. His healed heart can tear and start to leak again. Or the altered anatomy might not result in normal function. But right now, he’s just a kid who carries around a 2-inch Old MacDonald character like it is his best friend. Or a tike who likes to crawl across the floor at warp speed, grab the remote from daddy’s hand and attempt to change the TV channels, all with a devilish smile on his face.

He acts just like his sister did when she was his age, and does things hundreds of thousands of other 1 year olds will do this weekend.

Normal is good. Normal is peaceful.

I think birthday parties for kids who don't know what is going on are silly, but even I admit tomorrow is worth celebrating. The Budster has come a long way.

Happy Birthday, Tyson. You’re a warrior.

Mom's Legacy is Secure

This blog is supposed to be about my kids. I’m going to break protocol.

It is Mother’s Day, and I want to talk about my mom.

In a way, this is still about my kids. Everything that I am can, in some way, be traced back to my mom. Every lesson I’ve learned either came from her, or was absorbed from someone else because she taught me to keep an open mind and value education. The way I conduct myself, the way I treat people, the expectations I have of others – mom, mom and mom.

I’ll pass all that down to Sydney and Tyson. They are her legacy as much as they are mine.

Diagnosed with colon and liver cancer a few months ago, my mom has been thinking about her legacy. I know this because she has asked me if I want to take ownership of some of her prized possessions. She wants things to carry on.

I will. If they mean a lot to her, they mean a lot to me. Because she means a lot to me.
 

But the most important things she will ever give me have come from the example she has been and the lessons she has taught.

Pregnant at 16, she was a divorced at 17, stuck raising me on her own. In the next six years, she’d marry again and have two more children. At the age of 27, she was twice divorced and, essentially, a single mother of three.

To that point a waitress, she came upon her single-mother status with a new job, working at a state mental institution, making a whopping $2.42 an hour. That is less than $100 a week. She’d often come home with bruises and bite marks from the patients, so she earned that pittance the hard way.

Over the next eight years, we’d live in four different places. We stayed with my grandmother, then shared apartments with a live-in babysitter or a family friend to help make the rent. The threat of eviction or the electricity being turned off constantly hung in the air. I went my whole high school career calling my girlfriend from the corner pay phone because we couldn’t afford a phone in the house.

We ate government cheese and sometimes paid for food with colorful play money called food stamps. Mom would make a big pot of potato soup or ham and beans soup and we’d eat it for a week. I remember a sixth grade class project where we chronicled what we ate for breakfast every day and I had five straight days of cake and Kool-Aid. It was my brother’s birthday week and mom had bought a big sheet cake -- every kid deserves a nice birthday -- and, well, Kool-Aid at 15 cents a pack was a lot cheaper than milk.

We went without, but mom always came through when we needed her. In sixth grade, I wanted to go to Washington D.C. with the school's safety patrol. The cost was $100. That was more than a week’s pay. I have no idea how she came up with the money, but somehow I went on that trip.

My bet is she swallowed her pride and borrowed it from a friend or a relative. In those days, my mom had three children to raise and she couldn’t afford the expense of pride. I’m known around the office and in my life for often saying the phrase “Don’t trust anyone but your mother.” I guess I say that because I’ve had one who has never let me down.

I look at how Brooke and I struggle sometimes making far more money than mom ever did. I'm amazed at how she ever pulled it off. I know we didn't have what most parents would like to give their kids, and I am sure that broke mom's heart. But when I look back at those times, I realize that we had what is really the only thing that matters: endless love.

After she got pregnant with me, my mom got her high school diploma by taking classes through the mail. She could have dropped out and been done with it, but education was important to her, even then. If you ever play Scrabble with her, or watch her do a crossword puzzle, you know not to underestimate her. She can outshine many a college graduate when it comes to vocabulary.

When I told her during my senior year of high school that I was thinking about not going to college, she went Alec Baldwin on me for being a rude, thoughtless child. We might not have had the money, she might not have known how to fill out the paperwork, I might not have made a single college visit in my whole life, but, she’d be damned if a kid with my potential was going to skip out on college.

So, I borrowed money, took advantage of grants, won scholarships and – with mom as an example -- worked up to three jobs at a time to make it through. 

 

And that decision made all the difference in the world for me. It set in motion a tremendous journalism career and follow-up public relations career. I’ve sat and talked with presidents at the White House, spent time with numerous politicians, actors and rock-and roll legends, and traveled in 38 states, as well as Mexico, Canada, France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.

None of that is achieved without my mother. If it weren't for her, I'd still be living in Massillon, Ohio wondering if my next pay check would cover my rent payment.

If it is the wish of every parent that their child do better than they did, my mom’s wish has come true.

And that, my friends, is mom’s legacy. I know the statistics on single mothers and teen mothers, especially those who live in poverty. Their offspring have a much greater chance at failure. If my mom did nothing else during her time on earth, she was the world’s greatest mother. She’s three for three when it came to raising children who graduated high school, stayed out of the criminal justice system, avoided abusing drugs and alcohol and somehow managed to become productive members of society.

Just as important, they’re all now raising children of their own and imparting mom’s wisdom at every turn. My brother, a single father who runs his own business, does such a wonderful job I am waiting for some parenting magazine to name him Father of the Year. My sister, who has struggled with single motherhood in the same way as my mother, has handled it with the same never-say-die attitude.

And now I have Sydney and Tyson, her youngest grandchildren. I, too, will raise them with the same lessons mom passed on, either verbally or by example: “Show up for work every day, so they know they can depend on you.” “The only way you get something in life is if you earn it.” “Don’t do anything that will embarrass your family.” “Once you start something, finish it.” “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.” “Education is the way to a better life.” “Help those who are less fortunate, because someday you could be in their shoes.”

She may not have uttered them all, but she’s sure lived each one. She taught us right from wrong and held us accountable for our actions. I know people who grew up with far more than I did but learned far less.
 

I don’t know if we will have my mom for another two months, two years or twenty years. I do know, however, that her legacy is secure.

I need look no further than the two children scurrying at my feet.