How to Create a Cautious Driver

Initially I wasn't going to blog about this as it is neither a humorous story nor an anecdote about the latest phase of Tru's development. But as this is a chronicle of Felix's life, I thought that perhaps the discovery of this new emotion should be detailed here. The catalyst was a spectacular single-vehicle car crash that, with Natalie at the wheel, took her, Felix, and me into the right barrier twice and then across five lanes of moderate traffic until we came to a stop across the left two lanes after bouncing off the center divider. Luckily no one was hurt, and I still can't believe we managed to involve no other cars.
The new emotion Felix discovered was apprehensive fear. After the crash I asked Felix if he was okay. He told me, "Yeah, I'm okay". I asked him several times, and each time he gave me the same answer in a calm why-you-ask manner. I thought that maybe he wasn't aware of what happened. Renae came to pick us up and on the way home I witnessed how very aware he was of what happened. When we got up to about 40mph on the freeway, Felix, in not a hysterical tone, more of a somewhat panicked tone, told me that I was going too fast and then asked if I could slow down. I couldn't without impeding traffic so I pulled off the freeway and took surface streets home. For him that was an improvement but he would still alert me when he thought I was going too fast. It is very disconcerting to hear your child so fearful.
It is now a week later and the trauma seems to have subsided, though today he did ask if we were going too fast as I brought the car up to speed upon entering the freeway. As for Natalie? She will never drive again... I'm just kidding... on the square.

I'll bring us to another topic and give us all a chance to wipe our eyes. We have had some pretty crazy weather here in Seattle this last week. The picture above was taken last Saturday when we had temperatures in the low 80's. This Saturday, today, we had this:










Yes, that's snow on the ground, and yes, Felix should be wearing a coat but he refuses. What are you going to do?