Wet Sand

Our bright eyed boy feeding himself some yoghurt

I am very excited because, after 3 days, we finally have lights back on in our house! We have had tradesmen in and out all day looking at all the damage to our place, and deciding how and when they will be fixing things. They have a long list of homes to repair over the next few months, and ours is a lower priority than most, so repairs won't start until the end of January. At least the lights were able to be fixed straight away. It was just an inconvenience, but it's nice to have them working again.

If anyone is interested in checking out the news story on our freak storm, here is the page: http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/sa/watch/6a7b8ac1-05c4-3b6b-93c0-2e58c76b73f9/whyalla-powerless-after-storm-hit/

Building a sandcastle with Aaron

Felix has had a fun time, experiencing some new sights and sounds, since the storm. There have been a lot of sirens from emergency vehicles, which never fail to make his eyes open wide. We have had different kinds of trucks outside the front of our house; builders, electricians, emergency services etc. He was quite fascinated with the big electricity truck on our street yesterday. It had a flashing light and a ladder that went up and down to the power lines. He thought it was great until one of the workmen, in his bright orange suit, came up to our front door where Felix was standing. Straight away Felix went into his 'overwhelmed pose', with his face buried in the floor. The poor man wasn't quite sure what to say, but he tried his hardest to make friends with Felix using a very gentle voice. Eventually Felix decided that he wasn't so bad, and got up and started pointing at the truck again.

All the rain from the storm soaked Felix's sandpit, so the sand was perfect for building sandcastles that were solid enough to stand up. Aaron (12) took Felix outside yesterday and showed him how to make a great sandcastle. It was the sweetest thing to watch as Aaron was so patient with Felix. Aaron would build the sandcastle and put a perfect point on the top of it, and then Felix would come over and grab the top of it off. Felix did the same thing several times until he realised that he could help Aaron build it instead of breaking it. He crouched down next to him and started copying Aaron as he patted the sides of the sandcastle. It still amazes me how quickly he learns things.

Felix and his beloved recorder. Great for speech
development. Not so great on our ears!

After a while, Felix moved away from the sandpit and leaned on Aaron's back as he walked past him. His hands were still covered in wet sand, and his palm made a great handprint on the back of Aaron's black tshirt. Felix noticed it straight away and thought it was fantastic! He went straight back to the sandpit, covered his hand in more wet sand and made a second handprint on Aaron's back. Obviously not happy with his artwork, he went and filled a spade with sand and dumped that on the back of Aaron's shirt, smearing it around with his hand, chatting away the whole time. He was totally engrossed in what he was doing. It was so funny to watch. He continued to create his masterpiece for quite a while and Aaron, the ever-patient canvas, sat perfectly still and let him do it. Needless to say, there were a couple of very sandy boys by the time they came inside.