We love Wednesdays

Making a few phone calls...

It was Kindergym day again today. I have to say it has become one of my favourite days of the week and I think Felix would agree with me. He just loves climbing over everything now and needs very little help maneuvering up and down; with persistence he gets it nearly every time. Today we jumped on the trampoline together. He thought it was so much fun and laughed so hard. It makes my day to hear that laugh and to see the smile it brings to so many other people's faces. At the beginning of the session I had to fill in a registration form. There was a question there which asked, "Does your child have a disability?" The lady who runs the Kindergym laughed and said, "I'd tick 'No'! There's nothing disabled about Felix!"

Chillin on Daddy's bike

The only issue I had with Felix this morning was at 'song time' at Kindergym. For the most part it was wonderful. Felix joined in with the singing and dancing more than he ever has before. They even sang 'twinkle, twinkle' which was mesmerising for Felix. A whole room full of adults and children singing his favourite song and doing the actions. He was in song heaven! The problem came at the end of the song 'Row, row, row your boat' when they sang the line '....if you see the crocodile, don't forget to scream!' All the kids squealed at the top of their lungs and Felix dove into my lap. Poor little guy; his ears really can't handle high pitched sounds. One of the joys of having Down Syndrome and tiny little ear canals. The good news is that he bounced back well and when they sang the song a second time, I quickly put my hands over his ears when the kids screamed. His eyes still went wide open, but he didn't get upset.

Kindergym makes Felix so hungry. He eats non-stop after we get home. Tonight when he ate dinner, he used his fork so well. He was eating egg noodles which can be quite slippery, but he managed to put some on his fork and ate the whole bowl full and then signed "Eat" and pointed to the microwave. He wanted us to reheat more; a compliment to Daddy's cooking! He ended up having three servings. One thing I have noticed about Felix is that he loves any food which is high in carbohydrates; rice, noodles, bread and potatoes are his absolute favourite. He likes fruit as well which is good, but vegetables can be a bit tricky. I've discovered that if we cook something like fried rice and grate or chop vegetables up in tiny pieces and add them to the rice, he will eat the whole lot; we just have to be a bit sneaky about it.

Playing with his cousin

I was so excited today to receive some sign language books I had ordered from www.handscantalk.com.au They are even better than I thought they would be. They are picture books on different topics. I bought Animals, Objects, Food, Emotions/Feelings & Opposites (1)   On each page there is a photo of, for example, an apple, and above the photo is an illustration of how to sign the word 'apple'. Now when we read to Felix we don't have to quickly run to the computer to look up a word we don't know. It is right there in front of us. I'm particularly excited about the 'Emotions' one because we haven't learnt any of those yet. One of the biggest reasons why we wanted Felix to learn to sign was to be able to tell us how he is feeling so learning how to express those is going to be invaluable to both him and us. Hopefully we'll all pick them up quickly.

Note: The books I bought are Auslan (Australian Sign Language). If you live outside of Australia, you may have to contact your local Deaf Association to see if they have something similar.