lots of snuggles!

Alex came down with the stomach bug this past Thursday night... first time he has been sick since before Gary's time at home... 4 1/2 months ago was his last time sick! I think that was our longest stretch ever. I guess I shouldn't have spoken so soon - just that afternoon at daycare his teacher and I were talking about how her little one had been sick a lot and I mentioned that Gary and I had taken bets on how long till back in daycare before Alex would get sick. I told her I guess I lost the bet because my guess was his second week back (Gary guessed it would be after 3 weeks, probably over spring break...) So anyway, I guess I spoke too soon because he woke up throwing up Thursday night :(

It is so hard to watch a sick toddler... he was up from 11:30-4:30 throwing up every 10-20 minutes, it was awful! We just snuggled on the couch all night and watched a couple of movies. He would dose off every now and then but then wake up within 20 minutes sick again. Poor thing! Finally he fell asleep about 4:30 though and that was it for getting sick. I took Friday off and we spent the day snuggling, sleeping, and watching movies together. As much as I hate for him to be sick, there is something about being able to hold him and comfort him and spend a whole day just snuggling!

Alex is such a snuggler anyway... he is a very affectionate little boy and I love it :) He gives big, long hugs and will smother you with kisses! I think that will be hard for when the baby comes for him - seeing another little one snuggling with mommy and daddy. Of course we will do our best to show him there is plenty of love and plenty of snuggles to go around :)

I'm thinking Alex may be an early little reader... he is so into his letters and it is so cute! I don't feel like we've pushed it or quizzed him or anything, he just really loves letters and his little mind is soaking everything up! He has foam letters in the bath, a letter puzzle, magnetic letters for the fridge, and lots of letter books that he enjoys. (You can tell I'm a K/first grade teacher! haha.) He also loves "The Letter Factory" movie he got for christmas and probably watches it once a week or so. His favorite TV shows have been "Super Why" (or just "why" as he calls it) that revolves around letters/sounds and "Word World" (or "words" as he calls it). Anyway, he got some letter flashcards from Santa in his stocking back at Christmas time and we hadn't really gotten them out yet. He saw them in the closet a couple of weeks ago and asked to play with them, so I went ahead and took out just a few of the ones that he knows and a couple of others for him to play with. He asks to "play cards" and we'll go through them together or he'll just line them up and say them to himself. I decided to get them all out when he asked for more cards yesterday just for fun and to see which ones he knows. I went through the whole stack of 26 (capital and lowercase on the same card) and he knew 17 letters!!! I was very surprised and so proud! What a smart little boy! He went from knowing 7 to 17 in just a couple of weeks! My goal was that he'd know his letters by kindergarten, but it looks like he'll know them before he's 2 1/2!