Hooping it up

I haven't made a post in a really long time and I'll try to spread out the news in a few posts. To follow up on Melissa's previous blog my Mom is doing very well. She had thyroid surgery at Mayo on Wednesday and found out she didn't have cancer but they removed the growth as a precaution. It looks like Grandma Pat will be around for quite a while. So let's skip to the purpose of this blog...

Basketball and Bea. Melissa bought Bea a cool basketball set with a lion as a backboard and the balls, after entering the net, roll down to the lion's feet. We've developed her ball handling dexterity by starting with long slender objects for her to learn how to grab, then moving to slightly bigger objects with many corners and edges for good gripping. Then we moved to the NBA approved indoor-outdoor-and bathtub blue, red and green infant balls Bea is palming in the attached picture.


To develop her forearm strength we started with push ups and practicing banging anything on the table - plastic lids, plastic glasses, essentially any break-proof non-edible, non-gaggable object. She can now successfully make a basket about every other day. Also attached are pictures of her throwing one down then bringing down the backboard like baby Shaq. After she pulls down the backboard she likes to eat the little fuzzy things on top of the backboard. Rather then get a technical for showmanship she usually gets cheers, pats on the back and a lift off the ground so she can sit up and do it again.

Her arc is a bit flat so we're working on getting the ball off of the palm of her hand and using good follow through. Now if only Tubby was the women's coach.