"operation: no pacifier" and other stuff

We are on day 4 of "operation: no pacifier" and so far so good. I'm not going to say it's been easy but it hasn't been just awful. The first night was pretty bad in that it took us about 45 minutes to get him to go to sleep. The most he has cried since then is about 15-20 minutes...wait, screaming is more the appropriate word most of the time. But, mostly, he just screams or whines for about 10 minutes and then just lays down and goes to sleep. If he wakes up during the night or during his nap, he goes back to crying, whining and sometimes screaming but, again, after about 10-15 minutes, he's back asleep. He will ask for it during the day and sometimes at night and I just tell him, "paci's gone gone." He repeats "gone gone" and accepts it.

Charlie has progressed a good bit with his vocabulary. He sure talks alot for someone who doesn't have many "words". I guess one of these days we'll figure out what he's saying. We're still trying to figure out "dah-bah" and "eee-dah". Let's see...I'll try and think of the words he knows. I'm sure I'll forget some. Bye. Buh-bye. Puppy. Dada. Daddy. I'm still Baba. Papa. Pam (Gram). Man-Man (Bran-Bran, his cousin). Nay-Nay (Aunt Stacey). Uncle. He calls both my parents "wee". I have no idea why. ool (pool). beach. ball. buh-buh (bubbles). bye (bike). gone gone. uh oh. keys. waw-ma (wal-mart). puh-buh (publix). mailman. no. yah (yes). baby. ar (car). uck (truck). beep beep. honk honk. that's mine (thanks, branson). bite. uh (up). auck (off). bible. book. whee! He learned Emma and Mo (Morgan) at Horizons last week. He has a sound for Kathy but it's not clear yet. Charlie's got alot of the animal sounds as well. He's starting to mimic words too and will try and say words if you ask him to. The other day we were walking down the stairs and he stubbled a little and of course went "uh oh". I said something like, "Be careful now. Don't fall down the stairs cause that would hurt." As soon as he heard the word hurt he said "ow." I couldn't help but laugh. So we're seeing lots of progress. Someone told me that once the pacifier is gone that his words will come even quicker. We'll see. I know that once he starts to his Mother's Morning Out program in a few weeks, we'll see a dramatic change.

I keep having these moments where I turn around to check on Charlie and he surprises me. He's climbed up (and sometimes standing) on something or is somewhere I wouldn't expect. Here are a couple of them...Charlie is taking another round of antibiotics. He woke up from his nap on Saturday with a bloodshot right eye and a runny nose. It wasn't better on Sunday so Charlie and I missed worship. He then developed a little cough. I took him to the pediatrician on Monday and...pink eye in BOTH eyes and an ear infection in his left ear. Luckily, you wouldn't ever know Charlie was sick by the way he acts. He's just up and playing as usual.