Sunday 11 March 2012

Feeling philosophical - March 11th, 2012


I'm going to start with some philosophy - but I must admit I learnt it from "Horrible Histories"...
There is an ancient greek philisophical problem known as "Achilles and the Tortoise". In this, the author - Zeno - talks of a race where Achilles challenges the Tortoise and asks how much start he needs, and the tortoise says that it doesn't matter as he will win anyway, as long as he has some start. When asked why, the tortoise explains that if they set off and the tortoise has, say, 10 metres start. By the time that Achilles reaches where the tortoise started from, the tortoise will have moved on - even if just a small distance. Then, by the time that Achilles has caught up on this, the tortoise will have moved on again. etc, etc, etc.... So, Achilles will never catch the tortoise up.

Of course, this is clearly not true - although the more you think about it, the more you convince yourself that it somehow seems true - and, indeed, this is how it often seems for Evan. Yes, there are lots of "facebook moments" where we are so proud, but there are equally times when there are tears, lack of motivation, mo-jo is no-more and the "get up and go" has got up and gone (and sometimes Evan feels the same :)

A few weeks ago we decided to take a break from physio for a little while - and we also went away to Centreparcs (for my birthday "celebrations"). As we were rarely in a rush (which is far from being the case day-to-day) we had the chance to let Evan take a little time getting around. So, he gave himself the challenge of beating his "independent steps" record. Which stood at around 200. He well and truly beat it and achieved 500 - and if that wasn't enough, he more than doubled that a couple of days later - and managed 1,140.

He was so chuffed with himself - and so, with this new fire in his belly, he returned to school after half-term. He has some new challenges now and this weekend has seen a couple of really fantastic developments.
Yesterday, as a result of some one-to-one swimming lessons, he achieved his 5 meters badge - which requires him to do this on his front and his back. This really helps with his flexibility and confidence (although it hasnt done much for Loup's saturday morning lie-in as the lesson starts at 8:15am).

Then, as part of another challenge (of which there will be more in due course...) he attempted to walk from home to school, using just his sticks. With it being a nice morning, he set off with Mum, Sister and best friend in tow. It's 700m (Ev's walk to school route) and is a ten minute walk for us usually, but this was a lot of effort for Ev - but he did it, in 1 hour 8 minutes. At the end, he was tired but so proud of himself. Walking to school is such a simple thing for kids to do, but is something that we once wondered if Evan would ever achieve. Well, he has - another one off the list - and the fact that school was closed and he got to come back home to a well earned slice of "sticky toffee fudge slice" and a session on the wii made it even more special for him. I'm sure he'll be looking at doing quicker than an hour next time.

Yes, life goes fast, but Evan keeps catching up.

2 comments:

  1. Brilliant Ev , hope you enjoyed you're sticky toffee fudge slice mate , i wont tell ya tight mum and dad that you wud of walked back as well if they wud of put ice cream with it .

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