Sunday, August 21, 2016

Something in the blood

The Olympics officially ended today and apparently I won the Bronze medal in the marathon.



There's something about the two weeks during the Olympics that gets into the blood of the Green family. It caused me to start a 5 year Junior Olympic stint in Gymnastics. It caused my oldest brother to host an impromptu Olympics in our grandparents backyard that ended in a rather fantastic magic trick: turning one of his femur bones into two. And now it seems like it's gotten into Nate as well.

After watching volleyball he wanted me and Annie to setup a volleyball court on our rug so he could play. For a kid who can barely lift the weight of his own arms, it was an ambitious idea. But we all loved the idea so Annie came up with a way for them to play. It's rug Volleyball and Nate was the best player in the competition.


He also made his toys compete in various Olympic events and set up a shooting event between me, him and Annie with a Nerf gun and some toys.

Ever since Nate lost the majority of his arm strength back in May, he's defaulted to avoiding anything physical, including playing with toys. It's been a bit heart breaking, so seeing him want to get back into physical activity has been fantastic.

And for those of you who don't know what the Olympics are and also want to know what Nate's favorite events are, you are in luck!


Nate also started first grade this last week. As always, we took a first day of school pic:




I didn't take this picture and I wasn't there so I refuse to be held responsible for whatever he is doing in it. Last year at this time we were nervous about Nate starting kindergarten. We didn't know how he would handle hours of sitting in school, how we would make it work, if/when we would have a nurse, who would the nurse be, etc...

Turns out while school wasn't a disaster, Nate shared my approach to schooling, dying for it to be over. Even on my worst days at work I still think to myself, at least I'm not in school.

Having SMARD added to his difficulties with school but I don't that was all of it. Thankfully, this year has started MUCH better. 

In fact he was very excited the first day.  Some might say, too excited. 


After a few outbursts like the one in the video Nate tried to calm himself down, saying to Annie:

Nate: Okay Nate, calm down.
Annie: It's okay to be excited, Nate.
Nate: I just don't want to disturb my classmates. 

This year has had a very different start. Nate already has a great nurse that he knows and trusts, he has most of his school equipment squared away, and he has started taking his power chair to school. A big difference for Nate. 

While Nate still doesn't love school, and likely never will he doesn't hate it and even enjoys parts of it this year. Here's hoping!