August 11th

Ashley’s computer arrived on Friday. Her speech therapist will get it set up this week and a lot of our time at home will now be focused on helping Ashley communicate through this system. It looks like a tablet PC. It has a touch screen, but Ashley will use a button with her left arm to control it.

The screen will present and ‘speak’ options to Ashley. It will scroll through options in rows. Ashley will hit her button when it gets to a row that displays an option she wants. Next it will display those options and she will click on the one she wants and it will state it. It may take a few screens to get to a specific option, but now Ashley will begin to tell us what she wants verses our doing the yes/no guessing game.

Oh did I mention that the front of this tablet PC is bright pink!?!

This weekend Ashley ‘took off’ on her pedaling. She completed as many as five full revolutions in a row without any assistance. We have to credit the Walk, Talk and Eat praying all of you are doing along with Ashley’s hard work for that significant improvement.

At mass yesterday Ashley gave a huge smile and was raised both arms in affirmation when Father John, in his homily, said we need to have faith in Christ to get us beyond our fears. The gospel reading was about Peter walking to Jesus on the water but then becoming fearful and sinking. It was a beautiful sight to see Ashley’s reaction knowing she wanted us to know that her faith is unfaltering.

As we have often said Ashley smiles much more than she frowns and laughs much more than she cries. When the rest of us are feeling overwhelmed it just takes a look at her beautiful smile to get refocused and to think, “If Ashley can keep a positive attitude how can I let myself fail to do so?”

It is as obvious as the sun rising in the east that Ashley is feeling the beneficial affects of everyone’s prayers. Please keep them coming.