Friday, August 22, 2014

Prosthetic

One of my girls’ favorite movies is Soul Surfer, the story about Bethany Hamilton and how her arm was bitten off by a shark but she went on to become a professional surfer anyway.

I like this movie too, I think that Bethany is an amazing role model for strength, faith and perseverance. I also like how her family is portrayed in the movie, very supportive, loving, protective and yet they let her shine too.

Soon after we watched the movie for the first time, Alyssa was taking a bath and remembered the scene in the movie where Bethany took one of her Barbies and snapped the arm off of her. Bethany’s mom says, “I like her better that way.”

This scene was right after Bethany was fitted for a prosthetic arm only to be told that it was in no way weight bearing. She asked how she was supposed to surf with it. When she was told she couldn’t, she asked that it be taken off and left.

In the bath, Alyssa tried to snap her own Barbie’s arm off but this Barbie was obviously made differently from the one in the movie because there was no snapping. Instead, we brought out the scissors and Alyssa made her own ‘Bethany Barbie.


In the last few months, Olivia has discovered our bin of Barbies and she’s found her favorite, the Bethany Barbie. She loves that Barbie so much.

The other night, she asked me if we could make her Bethany Barbie a new arm. I told her that we’d thrown the arm away when we cut it off years ago. She looked at me like I was stupid and said, “I know, but in the movie, Bethany gets a new arm for a little while.”

Oh, duh! I said, “You mean you want us to make her a prosthetic arm?”

Olivia nodded. “Can we do it with paper and some tape?”

I told her we could try.

We sat down with some paper, a pencil, scissors and some of Tom’s packing tape. I used the Barbie’s right arm as a model for the missing left one and drew out an arm. Then I cut it out and let Olivia help me tape it onto the Barbie.

She was so thrilled with our creation. I asked her how long Bethany Barbie was going to wear the arm. She said, “Not long, I just like looking at it for a minute.”

After all, in the movie, Bethany didn’t wear the prosthetic arm for longer than thirty seconds if that.

I love that her imagination is firing and her creativity is blossoming. Now, if only her fine motor skills would catch up with her brain, I wouldn’t have to try and be crafty when we all know that is not my strong point. (Please don’t ask me what my strong point is. I’m still looking for it.)

Though I have to confess that when she later asked if we could tie her own left arm behind her back and make HER a prosthetic arm, I distracted her with chocolate. I’m not sure even my fine motor skills are up to drawing out a paper arm the size a seven year old would need.

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