Not Quite Himself

Felix had a bit of a rough start to the morning. He has been a little bit miserable the last couple of days, so he has been really clingy, and woke up the same today. After some cuddles with me, in my bed, he started to seem a bit happier and had a play with his ipad for a while. A few minutes later I turned away for a second and, when I looked back, Felix was standing up right on the edge of the bed. Before I had a chance to react, he toppled off, head first! He had a little bump, but was fine otherwise. It put the poor little guy back to square one, as far as feeling miserable, and meant that, for the rest of the morning, I had a permanent attachment to my hip! I think I'll take him to the Doctor tomorrow, just to check that his ears aren't bothering him again. His surgery (for grommets) is in a few weeks, so I'm hoping he'll make it until then without an infection.

I decided to take Felix to the Special Needs Playgroup this morning, in the hope that a change of scenery might cheer him up a bit. He seemed really happy to be there until he realised that other children had arrived. He was fine with one little boy, but there was a little girl there who was very vocal (and when she screamed, he buried his head in my lap). Felix really doesn't cope well with high pitched noises still, so that set him back a bit today.

When it came to song time, Felix was the only one who went and sat on the little chairs. Being a playgroup for kids with additional needs, the teacher never puts any pressure on the kids to join in, unless they feel comfortable to. All the children have different issues; physical, intellectual and behavioural and are different ages, so there is no simple routine that suits all of the kids all of the time. Felix really enjoys music, so he is always happy to participate in that aspect of playgroup. He did so well this morning, signing the words to the songs he knew and laughing when we did the actions. It was nice to see him smiling. The Speech Pathologist was there today and spent some time with Felix. She was really pleased, when she saw him signing to the songs, and heard him making some good speech sounds when he was playing too.

After a big afternoon sleep, Felix seemed a bit happier for a while. He walked up and down our hallway blowing on a recorder from his music box. I am so pleased that he is able to make it whistle now, but I am thinking about investing in some earplugs (The recorder must be the most painful sounding instrument ever invented!) I think I'm going to have to get used to the sound, because every time he blows the recorder, I tell him how clever he is, so he does it even more. After he makes some 'music', he takes it out of his mouth and laughs out loud, which is adorable. I told the Speech Pathologist about his new trick and she looked genuinely surprised that he could do it. Needless to say, she was really pleased!

Yesterday, I spent the day photographing Joel, Mel and Noah at the beach, and then took some Christmas photos of Noah and Felix together. Felix, not being his usual self, was a bit hard to photograph, but I ended up with a few I'm really happy with. I thought I'd post a few on my blog today.