School
After having a bit of an extended Winter Break due to the cold and snow, James was well rested and ready to get back to school. During the winter months there’s not much for him to do at home other than watch TV and movies, which probably gets a bit boring for him. He probably gets tired of being with mommy all day, too. He is a teenager now, and what teenager wants to hang out all day with their mom?
School offers him a change of scenery, he gets to interact with other kids, go on field trips, and even get involved in sports like hockey. Yes, I said hockey. How exactly does someone with quadriplegic cerebral palsy play hockey? Since he can’t use his legs, he obviously has to have someone push him around in his wheelchair. And because he can’t use his hands and arms, they attached a hockey stick to the front of his wheelchair.
Some might ask that if he’s not doing any of the work, is he really playing hockey? Maybe not, but I think it’s more of the social interaction of being involved in activities with other kids his age. Forty or fifty years ago, kids like James were institutionalized, excluded from society. That’s not the life we would want for James. We’re thankful things have changed and that he can “play” with able-bodied kids even though he can’t do the same things they can.
In addition to playing hockey in gym class, he has also taken up dancing. He must have gotten that from his mom, because he sure didn’t get it from me! It’s hard to see him in the video below, but he is towards the middle, behind the girl in the blue shirt.
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Here is another short dance video they put up on Tik Tok. Sorry about the poor video quality.
It looks like he also inherited some artistic ability from his mom’s side of the family. This is a piece of artwork that he brought home from school last week:
He prepared (with some help) the following New Artist Statement to explain his art:
“The new thing I tried was drawing a person. I would say my successful part is drawing Ms. Gina because Ms. Gina means a lot to me. My challenge was getting the pen in the right area. I learned I can do anything. This artwork will inspire me because I enjoy creating my own artwork. I learned during this project I enjoy being an Artist.”
~ James
Last week James went on a field trip with his class and saw his first movie in a theatre. A local movie theater has sensory-friendly screenings of movies for those with special needs where they have the lights turned up and the sound turned down. They saw the new Wonka movie.
Gifts
About three weeks ago, a couple of James’ fans sent him a collection of Chicago Cubs World Series baseball cards. These same fans sent James a few Cubs baseball cards a few years ago. Thank you, James and Gwendolyn, for the gift and for continually thinking about our James.
A week after James received the baseball cards, one of Stacy’s dog walking clients brought James home a shirt from a trip that they took.
I always thought it would be cool if we were to travel to the places that someone brought James back a shirt from. I am realizing now that that might not be possible. Because James is in a wheelchair and has a lot of equipment and supplies that he travels with, flying is not an option for us. All of our traveling would need to be done in our van. Looking at Google Maps, it would take us almost 20 hours to drive to Bonita Beach, Florida. That’s three or four days of driving, just to get there. If I were to take a week of vacation time for this trip, we’d have to turn around and head home as soon as we got there. That wouldn’t be much of a trip, would it?
Valentine’s Day
