So Grandpa, through canny instinct and stealthy stake-outs, found a Wii Fit last month, and gave it to Laura for her birthday. We started into it immediately, but found it much harder than we had expected from the trailers. But we’ve hiked up our socks, and in our spare moments we’ve begun the various activities and started unlocking new games and exercises.

There’s a heart-breaking element to this though, and it’s Jon. We initially thought that because of his cerebral palsy, he wouldn’t be able to use the step-like Wii Fit Balance Board. Once he saw others playing it though, he was confused and sad, and couldn’t see why he couldn’t play. But I got an idea: why couldn’t we use Jon’s stander?

It seemed feasible. But sadly, the required body test just doesn’t seem to accept Jon on the balance board, even with the stander. It constantly would say he was shifting too much and asking to reset itself. We’ve tried about ten times over two sessions. Sigh. Jon has taken the disappointment well enough, but clearly his feelings are hurt.

At the cottage, he kind-of-cheated and used Meghan’s profile, which worked out about as well as possible. Jon can’t wait for Meghan’s next visit to our house, so she can fake a body test for him (they are roughly the same weight, and that’s all we need.)

In the meantime, using Grandma and Tamo’s profile, Jon has discovered running in the Wii Fit’s virtual park. It is the one game on the Wii Fit that doesn’t use the balance board. Instead it measures your energy through the bouncing Wii Remote in your pocket while you run in place in your living room.

At first, Jon just shook the Wii Remote with his hand, creating a super-fast running character who disobeyed commands to slow down, and thus tripped a lot. But then I had another idea…and it worked. It’s a more intensive version of his MEDEK wall exercises, and Jon loves it. And it makes a nice complement to Jon’s activities in his new walker. It’s a little hard on me, but with his enthusiasm…Go Jon go!

In the meantime, Wii Fit development team: you need to tune the Balance Board to include the disabled. You probably have a few hundred thousand or more in Japan to work with, or feel free to invite us over for some testing! Jon will work for sashimi and tempura!