We've been sick!

I haven't posted at all this month because Ian and I have been sick. He started getting sick Oct 1st. Started with a cold, then a fever, then a rash. The rash lasted over a week and he still has a few spots left on his arms today (the rash started exactly 2 weeks ago today). For the first week he was so miserable, he cried so much he lost his voice. Poor baby. He's starting to finally act more like himself, but he still has a horribly goopy nose and a cough.

At the same time I came down with a bad cold. There were a couple days that it was all I could do to sit on the couch and hold my head up. I'm almost all better now, but the pesky, tickly cough is still hanging on and my nose randomly stuffs up. That's pretty much normal for this time of year for me though.

Luckily, Alison only had sniffles for a few days and got over it pretty quick. I'm glad she was spared. Dan was only sick for a couple days too.

Now that Ian is feeling a bit better he's testing limits. He figured out how to climb over the big footstool that I was using to keep him out of the dining room and kitchen. So I put the pack n play up to block him. He figured out how to climb the side of it and into the chair. I caught him a few times trying to figure out how to go over the side of the chair. Now I'm babyproofing the dining room and kitchen. I can't fight him much longer. The hard part is that Alison loves to take over the dining room table with her art and projects and Ian can reach pretty far past the edges of the table. This and the couple drawers in the kitchen will be our biggest problem spots.

Not much else is new around here. Alison is doing good with her school work. She's almost finished her first math book. It's all addition and subtraction up to 20. She definately needs more practice with them, but she's grasping the concepts and proud of herself for learning different ways to figure out her problems. So far she can use a number line, her fingers, and she's starting to memorize some of the math facts too. She's not good at doing flashcards. She gets frustrated too quickly. I know that they have math facts songs though and I think she'd really like that, so I'm going to look into those. I know from working with other kids that the key to math is learning and memorizing the basic facts. She is reading really well for only being 6years old. She's amazed that she's actually reading, but then she gets upset because she still has to ask for help. I keep telling her it's normal to be where she's at right now and it's ok because she'll keep getting better and better.