Ability Awareness

I'm pretty sure I told you that the kids are off track. That means I have five little ones home plus the two grandkids. I let them play and trash the house most of last week since it was my birthday week, but things are different now. This morning I made them clean their rooms (they hate that part of being off-track!)

We've also been working on some scout stuff. Sport and Taco are both Cub Scouts and our scout council has a bunch of random patches they can earn at any age, so I picked one. It's called "Ability Awareness." Now a lot of these requirements could be easily done by just having the kids work with the Dog Walker, but I like to have them stretch a little and do some of the harder ones.

Yesterday they read about wheelchairs and they learned to write in Braille. Today I called them to my bedroom for something else. I had rounded up all the Ace bandages I could find and I bound each boy's right hand and arm to their sides so they couldn't use them. Then I sent them on their merry way for the rest of the morning with a promise to remove them after lunch (kicking myself about now for not taking any pics!).

The idea was that they needed to learn in a small way how it felt to be without a limb. Taco cheated a bit. He used his hand even though his arm was still pinned to his side. Sport (being a little older) tried a bit harder. He found it difficult to put together his Lego pieces he was working with, but the most difficult thing was eating lunch.

I asked Crafty to make some Ramen soup, but while she was downstairs getting supplies, she had a better idea. She came back with spaghetti and canned sauce. I was still cleaning my bedroom, so I let her cook. Half an hour later we were all seated around the table. The boys were surprisingly good at scooping the food with the over-sized utensils, but handling a fork left-handed was more difficult.

Sport eventually gave up and just started using his fingers...until he got caught and then he sighed and hefted the fork again. They were so excited to finally be unwrapped! Both boys headed immediately to the bathroom to wash off the extra spaghetti sauce that had somehow gotten all over their cheeks and chins.

And tomorrow we learn a little sign language...