Through His Eyes

He brings so much joy

I love looking at the world through Felix's eyes. He observes everything with so much wonder and delight. He notices so many things about the world around him, which I usually take for granted. I'm sure he has a sixth sense about when people need a bit of cheering up too. Yesterday, at the shops, he had so many people stop to tell him how happy his smile made them. One lady commented that he had the most infectious laugh. It's always so much fun to watch him interact with people and see, even the saddest looking people, walk away from him with a smile.

Felix was sitting on a coin operated Thomas the Tank Engine outside the supermarket yesterday. He loves trains and had walked over to it signing 'train'. He was studying it all over, pressing the buttons and looking at the wheels. After a couple of minutes, a cleaner came to empty the bin alongside the train. Felix climbed down quietly, and stood next to her and watched her; she was much more interesting than the train. She was busily doing her job and didn't notice him at first but, after a while, she looked down at him and her whole face lit up. She told him that he had the most beautiful eyes and such a gorgeous smile. He thought it was great and stood grinning at her for a while before he set off on his next adventure; the butcher shop.....

Are you awake?

Felix has a fascination for those giant statue animals, often seen outside a butcher store, or used for advertising, or in a themed restaurant. He loves them..... from a distance. Our local butcher has a large cow, standing on its' hind legs, on one side of the shop, and a big statue of a jolly butcher on the other. Felix thinks the cow is especially great, and took off signing 'cow' and rushing over to it as fast as his little legs would go. He stopped a couple of metres away, still frantically signing 'cow' and intermittently pointing at it. I picked him up to take him over to touch it. The noise Felix makes when he's frightened of something like that is a little hard to explain; it's a bit like the sound a cat makes when you step on its' tail, just short and sharp. He made that sound and quickly climbed up my shoulder, also like a cat. I touched the cow myself, to see if Felix would relax enough to do the same, but he wasn't having a bar of it. I took him over to the statue of the butcher and he had the same reaction. He was fascinated, but there was no way he was going to touch it.

Felix and his partners in crime

Yesterday morning, Felix attended his first group speech session. There were only two other children there so it was a nice, small group, perfect for Felix. The theme for the week was animals, so the Speech Pathologist had set up three little toy barns for the children to play with. First, the children had to find the animals that were hiding around the room. Felix enjoyed searching for his animals and took them back to his barn and started to play with them. After a couple of minutes, he started looking at the barn a little boy next to him was playing with. I was completely shocked when he got up, and walked over to the little boy, sat down close to him and started looking at his barn. The Speech Pathologist elbowed me; she was as surprised as me that Felix had initiated playing with another child. It was brilliant.....until the other little boy decided that he didn't want Felix to play with him, and shouted right in his face. Oops! One step forward, two steps back. Felix dropped his bottom lip, moved to a safe distance and then lay prostrate on the floor. It didn't last long because the next activity was singing and Felix won't let anything stand in the way of him singing! What was the song we sang? You guessed it...Old MacDonald!