Snuggles and reading books

If I had been Maria (in the Sound of Music) these would have been a few of my favorite things...

Every day it becomes more and more evident to me, and to those around us, how different Alexander and Lucas are. Isn't that usually the way with siblings? We've been doing a lot of reflecting on this lately as Lucas is now the age Alexander was when he came home over 3.5 years ago. Lucas usually can't stop for long enough during the day to sit through a book (he does at night though) while Alexander could (and still does) read for hours. Lucas is already quite comfortable with strangers (as long as we are nearby) while Alexander took years it seems to say hello to friends. Lucas usually doesn't budge when we try to get him to stay away/put down/get down from X/Y/Z while Alexander would have been nearly in tears from a raised voice.

But one area they are same, for now anyway, is that my boys love to snuggle. Alexander to this day still likes to hold of our hands to his mouth while he sucks his thumb, climb in our laps for books and have us "snuggle" with him for a few minutes before he goes to bed at night. Lucas recently has become more comfortable and interested in sitting in my lap just to sit and relax for a minute. When he's hurt he'll typically find me and get into the cradle position sucking his pointer and middle fingers or rest his head on my shoulder. And tonight, as I changed him into his pajamas he said he was cold, came into my lap and took my arm to wrap it around him. I said "aw snuggles" and then a few minutes later after he was done brushing his teeth with Papa, ran back to me saying "snuggle, snuggle". Bliss.

And even more bliss...Alexander read me a book today! It was a short, simple book, but a book nonetheless. He has read sentences and passages here and there before but not a whole story without any help. I'm amazed at how far he has come...only 5 months ago he could recognize maybe a handful of words. I give huge kudos to Alexander for his attention and persistence but also to his fabulous Kindergarten teacher at Ayers. I see him in a new independent light now but hope he still wants me to read to him for a long time to come :). Oh and yes, there have been more deep questions...how long has the earth been here, why do numbers keep going (how DO you explain infinity to a 5 year old?!?) and how did the earth get made? Which led me somehow into trying to explain the infinity of space...

And not so bliss...Lucas has developed a couple pretty intense fears. One oddly enough is to bathroom stalls. For some reason the last couple times I have had to take him in with me he just starts screaming and crying and trying to get me to get him out. I am not sure of the trigger as he has not been affected by loud noises (1st time I turned on our vacuum he tried to ride it) or small spaces (goes into dark closets here and everywhere all the time). Needless to say I will be waiting to use the facilities wherever possible. Another though is very understandable...last week he was in the basement with Paul and decided to see what the red switch on the wet/dry vac did. The vac was still plugged in. Yup...loud, loud, loud noise. Paul said he literally jumped back 2 feet and then fell onto some other noise-producing item. He cried so hard he was shaking. When I later took him into the basement to change laundry he was fine until he saw the wet/dry vac......Poor kiddo.

Laura