In Love...

Sitting on Daddy's bike

I feel so in love today. In love with my husband; in love with all 7 of our big kids; and in love with our little man, Felix. Looking at my family today I marvelled at so many things. I watched our 17 and 15 year old sons helping each other with their Maths homework, and our 14 and 12 year old sons rolling around the floor playing with Felix. Nathan and I enjoyed getting up at 2am in the morning to go and cook a BBQ for our eldest son, Daniel, and his workmates while they were on night shift; and I'm so looking forward to seeing both of our beautiful girls over the next month. I love watching our family relate to each other. Every day brings some hilarious conversations and lots of laughs. Some days there's bickering and tears; but despite it all I love how we all need each other and would do anything for each other. Our eldest daughter, Amy, often jokes that our family would make a good reality show because there really is never a dull moment.

So handsome

This morning Nathan got to come with Felix and I to Kindergym for the first time. I don't know if it was because Daddy was there or not, but he was showing off. He did not stop all morning. He climbed up things and in things and he lowered himself down perfectly from high things. He even did a somersault down a soft padded slope and then tried to do it again. He looked as proud as punch as he gave his Daddy the tour of the Kindergym. We were both amazed at how much his coordination has developed even over the past couple of weeks and he is getting so much more confident trying new things. He's not just sticking with what he's comfortable doing anymore.

I was speaking to a Mum at the Kindergym this morning. She has 2 young children and knows that we have a large family. She asked me if I ever compared our kids milestones to each others and got anxious if one didn't do things as quickly as the others. I told her that with such a big family you learn very quickly that children are all complete individuals and will never do things exactly the same as another child. Amy and Aaron walked at 9 months old and yet Joshua was nearly 16 months old. Was I worried? No. He got it eventually. I told her that one of the beautiful things about Felix having Down Syndrome is that I can just sit back and relax and enjoy his milestones as they come. I can't compare him to other 'typical' kids, so it's just a matter of waiting and seeing what he will surprise us with next!  It really is such a unique and wonderful experience.

Climbing on Thomas the Tank Engine
at the shops

We've shared some fun little experiences with Felix over the last couple of days. This afternoon Felix wanted to touch his 6 week old nephew, Noah. I leaned him towards Noah and he accidentally patted him right on his face instead of his head. Noah didn't care and beamed Felix one of his biggest smiles. Felix thought Noah smiling at him was the best thing and couldn't wipe the grin off of his face. It was such a perfect moment. This morning one of our dogs kept barking and I had already yelled at him to stop a couple of times. Felix looked at the dog outside the window then back at me with a serious face and signed, 'Dog, naughty!' Hahaha! It was so adorable. I then signed, 'Dog, barking' to him and he signed 'barking, naughty.' Such a clever little cookie.