Productive Day

Friday morning, I got a call from the babysitter that she couldn't come. I hurried up to get Jojo ready and up in the wheelchair for the school's assistive technology person/ST by 9:15. The evaluation went well. The ATP was amazed at what Jojo could do on the computer with the help of technology. The last time she saw Jojo was about two years ago when he was first getting admitted to the school system and we were trying to figure out how he could use the computer by himself. Anyway, we talked about on-screen keyboard to help him type and spell and also use the up/down/right/left arrows (so he can play more games on the computer by himselft), and some kind of communication device to better understand his speech. It's getting harder to understand Jojo when he speaks because (1) he is not achieving full closure of his mouth anymore due to increasing weakness of his lower facial muscles, thus the limited smile, too, and (2) his jaw muscles are getting tighter so he cannot open his mouth. Try talking with your teeth together and at the same time do not move your lips...That's how he sounds especially when he is sitting up because of his head positioning. She also showed me some program she could put in the computer where Jojo could click on pre-determined/custom phrases to help us (mostly the babysitter and other family members) understand him better when he talks. So, we will wait for two weeks to give the ATP time to write her report, then we shall start "harassing" the school board to get the ball rolling on this ASAP :) After she left, Jojo drove his chair in the house, watched his shows, played cars for a little bit.

This was Jojo at the end of the day, after his bath. He asked to sit up in his bed so he could touch his legs. He usually cannot tolerate sitting up tall that's why he drives his wheelchair in a tilted position.



Before his bath, we decided to fly a kite. It was very windy. Not easy to fly a kite when the string gets tangled in the wheel or wraps around the chair/joystick because the boy doesn't stop when his Mom asks him, too. But it was fun. Next time though, I'll make sure somebody else is around to watch the kite or keep Jojo from getting too close to the edge of the driveway.


We also played with bubbles. Like I said, it was very windy. Jojo could not catch up with the bubbles to pop them. All in all we both had a good Friday.