Sunday, September 25, 2016

Nate's Corner


Nate likes making videos. Usually they are of the comedic variety. They're usually really long videos of the carpet though, since Nate things it's super hilarious to film nothing for 10 minutes. I thought I would funnel his passion for video into something to make the blog more entertaining than I could ever make it.

The focus of this video are the Pokemon gym badges Nate has been earning. Nate LOVES Pokemon. He watches, plays, sings, talks about or researches it nearly all the time. The major themes of the TV show, from my limited understanding, are working hard to achieve things and dealing with failure. This suits Nate's attitude perfectly.

In the show, the main character earns badges by conquering various opponents and obstacles. We've lived with Nate for over 6 years now and we're starting to figure this kid out (at least until he hits puberty). So, we went to Amazon.com and found a little box like the one the main character carries in the show and in it were 8 badges from the show. Annie and I came up with 8 different challenges for Nate that would push him on things he didn't want to do or was having trouble with. Once he completed the challenge, he would earn the corresponding badge, just like in the show.

I couldn't have imagined a better response. Here's Nate after earning one of the badges:


So far he has completed the first 4 challenges.

1. Memorize the first 6 Articles of Faith.
2. Read 3 60-page books all on his own.
3. Behave himself and sing as many lyrics as he could in today's Primary Program
4. Scoot 24 feet on his scooter board in under 55 seconds.

The last one was the hardest and the one Nate was the most proud. And I have never been more proud of Nate. He worked really hard and was determined to get those badges. The scooter board was the toughest.

His arms remain very weak compared to what they used to be. He barely scoots anymore on his board, something he used to do with ease. I suspected he could gain a little more strength back but he never had any motivation. He worked on it for about two weeks until he finally crushed the 55 second goal at by 9 seconds.

I wish I had recorded the actual event. It was great to see him working so hard. I'm pretty sure Nate beating the 55 second goal was the inspiration for St Elmo's Fire by John Parr.

Anyway, Nate wanted to give his thoughts on the badges and his new favorite thing to play at recess. Oh and sing a couple of the Pokemon theme songs.




Yep, dodgeball. Nate loves to play dodgeball. The version they play is a little different. The aim for a cone instead of other children and the defenders have to use their bodies to block the goal. But as Nate always points out, no puppy guarding!

As you can imagine, Nate in his big power chair is always a sought after player.