Advice Please

Lucas is very attached to his Binky. I only let him use it for naps and bed-time, but he does tend to find it sometimes. Well, he refuses to take any other kind besides the new born kind (in the picture above). I want to get him off of it. I think he is getting too old, and especially too old for that particular kind. I tried cutting par of the nipple off, and he still keeps crying. he is not really old enough to understand that it is "broken". We have 2 Binky's, so I cut the one, and then I hid the second one. It has been 2 days without it, and it has been horrible. He just cries and cries. When I put him down for naps and bed, it is at least 45 minutes to one hour one crying. And I know some of you deal with that all the time, and I feel for you. But I am not used to that. On a normal day, Lucas falls asleep (with the held of his Binky) in about 5-10 minutes. Lucas has now started a new scream, and he does that the whole time, it sounds so incredible painful. His throat has got to be hurting him. And it is hard on Matt and I, we feel like awful parents. But I don't want my kid being that 4 year old in the store with a Binky. And I have heard, the longer you let them use it, the harder it is to break the habit. I also feel really bad for our neighbors, I am sure they can hear him. Last night: The first 4 hours of 'sleep' he woke up about 3-4 times. After about 11:00 he stopped and slept the rest of the night. But I know my upstairs neighbors have little kids, and I am sure they are in bed. Anyway, I need help. Does anyone have any advice as to how to get Lucas off the Binky? And how to help him adjust so he doesn't have to cry himself to sleep every time? Thank you everyone!

Matthew!

I know, 4 posts in one day, WOW! But I just had to do one more! Matt is preparing for his last week of school for the semester, and we are looking forward to it! Lucas and I have missed Matt these past few weeks, and are so excited for a few weeks of no school and no homework! YAY! Just to update everyone, Matt will most likely be graduating in the Spring (he has to take a huge semester, if he were to take his normal amount of credits, he would be 1 credit short of graduating. So, next semester he is taking an extra class on top of his normal, and he will still be working, and doing his internship. What a busy man! If it is too much, then he will walk in the spring, and then take one more class in the summer. But, who wants to do that?) Anyway, I just wanted to publicly tell Matt how much we appreciate what he does for us. He works so hard for our family, and we love him for it. Congratulations on a great semester Matt! I am proud of the student you work so hard to be, and the man that you are! :) We love you! I am so sorry, I know you hate this type of stuff, but that's just too bad! :)

FIRST snow

It has finally snowed and Lucas is old enough to go out and play in it. I hate the snow, and am usually not happy at all about any snow. But I have been really excited for Lucas to experience snow. So I took him outside. I was freezing, and Lucas was freezing. (I know I know, we are bad parents, he doesn't have a coat yet. But I just bought him one, and its on the way..) Lucas was wearing 3 jackets, and a hat and gloves, still I don't think it was enough. His poor body was ice cold afterwards. Anyway...the picture above is Luke's first impression of the snow. We would walk around outside, and he would bend over to touch it, then get too scared, and start walking again. After several minutes of this, I pushed his hand in the snow, and that's the look I got afterwards. That look could kill. Finally he decided to walk in the snow, and led us right to the swing. Only my kid would want to swing when its that cold outside. Well my kid and my niece that you can see in the back. Crazy kids.

my FAVORITE toy

Lucas and I were playing in his room yesterday, Lucas was taking his bat and hitting the closet door. Next thing I know, Lucas squeezed his tiny hand into the closet door and started walking, all the while pushing the door. If only I could have gotten picture of his face, he was so exited. It was like a brand new world for him to discovery and destroy. Which he did. He took out every single gift bag that I have in there, all the wrapping paper, and tissue paper. He took out a couple of books, and tried to pull clothes off the hangers.





I love my boy, and even when he makes a huge mess, it is totally worth it to watch his face as he discovers new things.

Update

I first wanted to apologize for my last post. Like I had said I was venting, I just wrote what I was thinking. And afterwards Matt told me "People are going to think you hate the world." So, in case you thought that, I love this world, I love my life! I wouldn't change any part of my life (except maybe taking away sickness). I also need to say I am sorry for my writing, spelling, and grammar. I do not claim to be a good writer and that just shows you why. Now time for the update: Lucas threw up for 6 days! After that he was still so weak and tired for a couple of days and the sickness has totally changed him. Lucas has never been a cuddly baby, it always made me so sad. But now, he cuddles all the time! Matt says it is Luke's way of thanking me. I love that idea. :) Lucas was at the point of pretty much walking by himself. It was so exciting to watch him to walk so well. But once he got sick, it was like starting all over again! He is re-learning to balance, and walk with help and by himself. It is really sad, he used to walk all over the house, and now its hard for him to walk a couple of steps. It makes me so sad. But at least we are officially over the flu - finally!! Now the problem is trying to get Lucas back into his routine. He has done a pretty good job with it, he is just really struggling with his 2ND nap. And I am not ready to go to one nap a day. But, hopefully soon we will get it worked out! :)

The worst holiday weekend ever!!

Can I just say this has been the worst weekend ever! First it starts with Thanksgiving, most of you know that Lucas is very particular about his naps, he rarely sleeps in the car or pack n' play. He only sleeps in his crib. It is nice, he goes right to sleep most of the time in this crib, but its very difficult on days like Thanksgiving, when we are gone all day. So, on the way to my parents for dinner, Lucas finally fell asleep in the car, about 2 minutes before we pulled up. So I stayed in the car while Matt went with my brothers to play football. Lucas only slept for a short while, about 10-15 minutes. So it was time to go in. Lucas is also scared of my family, I guess he thinks its too big and too loud (can't blame him, there is 27 in just my immediate family). So we go inside and he won't let me put him down. Finally it was time to eat, and Lucas wouldn't eat anything, he just kept crying and throwing food. So I decided to try to put him down for a nap, which i should just give up trying, it doesn't work. He continued to cry and cry and cry. Then we went to the Andreason dinner. And Lucas was better there (less people, less noise). But he still wouldn't let us enjoy talking and eating. Instead we had to go walking all over the church, nonstop. So we decided it was worthless, and we went home. That night, while most people are munching on left-overs and pie, we heated up some frozen chicken nuggets.

Friday: This was a good day. I woke up at 2:15 AM and went shopping, got almost everything done already. I just need to get 3 more gifts. Then came home and Matt let me sleep while he watched Lucas.

Saturday: Here is starts: Matt went to play ball at 9 so it was just Lucas and I. Around 10 Lucas started to throw up. He continued throwing up and having diarrhea for the rest of the day. Matt got home around 1, and he started to feel sick. We all went to bed early that night, cause we were worried about what the night might bring. And it was pointless. Matt woke up about 1 throwing up. Lucas woke up about 3 and couldn't sleep anymore. So, of course I couldn't sleep. We all were up until about 7. Then we were able to get a little more sleep.

Sunday: Of course we stayed home from church, and found out that, my whole family is sick! 17 of the 27 are sick, so far. Luke started acting better on Sunday, so I thought for sure on Monday, we would be back into the swing of things. But I was totally and completely wrong!

Monday: Matt was fine, his was just a 24 hour thing. But on Monday morning, Lucas threw up 3 times in 1 and a half hours. Then he fell asleep on me, woke up, threw up then he passed out on me. The poor kid, had no energy he couldn't even sit up on his own. He had a drs appt that day, so the dr said if it got any worse to go to Primary Childrens ER. So later that day, he got worse. He was doing pretty good in the early afternoon, he even ate a couple of crackers, and kept it down. So, since I was going crazy being inside with the smell of sick people, I decided to take him outside, and walk around. Of course we were going to stay far away from everyone. So we walked about 15 steps, then Lucas started acting strange, I knelt down, and then he vomited all over the both of us. I had to strip him down, and some of my clothes, and run inside. My sweet friend Cyndi, followed us in with the disgusting clothes. So I put him in the bath, and I pretty much gave myself a bath too. I got him out of the tub, was getting him dressed, and he did again, but even more!! At this point he had already dirtied 4 outfits of his and 3 of mine.

So we decided to take him to the ER, we were concerned of dehydration. When we talked with the dr he said that Lucas was borderline, we could do IV fluids, but it wasn't absolutely nessecary and it wasn't unreasonable. He said if it was his kid, he wouldn't do it, 'why poke him and make him really mad if you don't have to?' So we decided to come home. When we got home Matt gave Lucas a blessing, it was so sweet. In it he said that our Heavenly Father loves him, and other family members, and those who have passed on before love him, and "they are here to help guide you, and teach you." It was amazing, right when he said that, I got an overwhelming feeling of love. I feel so lucky to be trusted to raise this child, it is such an honor to me his mother. So yes, there was one good thing about this whole event.

Today, Lucas was acting better again, so he had a few bites of some toast, and then 30 minutes later, it happened again. And today Lucas was very lethargic. He was alseep most of the day, very weak, and it seemed at times lifeless. So I called Matt and he came right home and we were gathering things to go back to the ER. Then Matt had the brilliant idea of giving Lucas the gerber diced fruit, soaked in juice. And he actually ate it! At this point Lucas wouldn't eat anything, I kept trying to offer it, and kept giving him water, otterpops, and pedialyte. But he wouldn't take it. Lucas ate the whole thing of fruit, and some baby food we had shoved in the back of the pantry. It was so weird, almost immediatly he started improving. He was getting color back, and he started talking more, and playing, and he even smiled! I hadn't seen a smile in 4 days!!! So, we need to keep our fingers crossed that this was the turning point, we pray that its over by tomorrow!

But one more thing to add to the story: now, after 4 days of taking care of Lucas and Matt, and not getting anything done, I am now sick! Can you believe it? It is just never ending!!

As you can all see, I have totally just vented, but my heck, I needed to. I am excited for this to end, and to forget about Thanksgiving weekend 2008. Sorry this is so long, but its been a long weekend, and sorry no pictures, but I am sure that no one would really want to see them.

Thank you Cyndi, for carrying gross clothes in, and thank you for dinner, and for all the pedialyte, disinfectant spray, and otter pops. Thank you Heidi for your concern, and help holding Lucas while I cleaned up the carpet. I have awesome neighbors and friends!