Day 16 – Self-directed day

 Today, Kathy was away in the morning at a meeting, so we worked with the kids at COBT by ourselves. We continued to organize the OT room for a little bit in the morning, and then we went to the other house to work with some of the kids in the behavioural challenge class. While working with one of the kids on the therapy ball, we have already seen slight improvements in his ability to hold his head up. We saw him attending and engaging with his environment and us. It was so exciting for us every time he held his head up for a prolonged period of time.

In the afternoon, we went to Sandi Rehab. Luisa and I taught Titus on how to administer and score an assessment that we use and saw 2 children for therapy sessions today. Afterwards, Luisa and I had some time to look at the resources and activities there. We started playing a game called ‘Outburst’ where a card has a topic with 10 answers (not necessarily the most popular/common ones), and the other player/team is supposed to get as many answers as possible. Here are some of my favourite “Luisa moments” from the game Outburst. (P.s. she has been feeling tired since the morning…)

Topic: Household pets

L: Fish

Y: Be more specific

L: goldfish

Y: no

L: What other kind of fish are there? …Tuna fish

Topic: Things that fly

L: Leaves

Topic: Things in shells

L: Seahorse

Y: Seahorses don’t have shells

After a few more guesses…

L: Salmon

Song of the day: Listen To Our Hearts

How do you explain,

How do you describe,

A love that goes from east to west,

And runs and deep as it is wide?

You know all our hopes

Lord, you know all our fears

And words cannot express the love we feel

But we long for You to hear

So listen to our hearts (oh, Lord, please listen)

Hear our spirits sing (and hear us sing)

A song of praise that flows (a simple song of praise)

From those You have redeemed (from those You have redeemed)

We will use the words we know

To tell You what an awesome God You are

But words are not enough

To tell You of our love

So listen to our hearts

If words could fall like rain

From these lips of mine

And if I had a thousand years

I would still run out of time

So if You listen to my heart

Every beat would say,

“Thank You for the Life, thank You for the Truth, thank You for the Way.”

Anyway, after work, we returned home and I was to use the shower first. As I walked into the bathroom and closed the door, I see a very orange looking gecko right behind the doorframe. I saw its huge eyes looking at me, and then it quickly scurried up the wall and escaped through a narrow opening. Later as I was looking at my reflection in the mirror without my glasses on, I saw something move very quickly on the wall and I just knew that that was yet another gecko. I simply just sat on my bed staring at the gecko that’s up on the wall near the corner. After dinner, I returned to my room and it had already crawled elsewhere.

Wow, 4 geckos in 2 nights. I wonder if I see any more tomorrow night.