Diaper Rash and Super Bowl

Over the last week or so, Luke has developed a HORRIBLE diaper rash. His poor little bum is all raw and bleeding :( And unfortunately, it coincides with (or was caused by) him now pooping 5-6 times per day, when he had been down to a more reasonable 3 per day before. So his bum never gets a break from the irritation of poop and wipes, and any benefit of the "bum cream" is quickly negated by the next poop. Poop little guy :(

Needless to say, it is REALLY hard to change his diapers because it hurts him so much that he keeps trying to get away. And he's very strong! It brings back such vivid memories of Kyle right around when Jared died. He had an equally bad rash that just went on FOREVER, made worse by the fact that Kyle would constantly claw at it (queue the "hand socks"). Fortunately Luke isn't doing that...yet.

And then it occurred to me that Luke is the exact age, to the day, that Kyle was when he last saw Jared. Luke still seems like such a baby to me, which sort of makes me feel better about Kyle's stage in life when it happened. He really was just a baby. And in some ways, I think parenting without Jared will feel a little less sad going forward now...all of Luke's stages and milestones up to this point have so vividly reminded me of Jared and I going through them together with Kyle. Now all new "kid stuff" will have only been experienced by me alone, and won't trigger any memories.

I do have the Super Bowl on right now. When I let myself get at all into it, I just start crying and feel so sad...I can hear exactly what Jared would be saying, and picture his concentration/facial expression as he'd watch. Patriots football was by far his #1 sports passion, and football in general was absolutely his favorite sport to watch/analyze/discuss. So now I have the game on mute and will do work, laundry, etc while keeping tabs on it. This is literally the first game I've tried to watch since he died, and I guess it proves that I am still a long ways off from being able to enjoy sports again. Watching/following sports was literally my one and only hobby, so there is definitely a void in that department.

And while my heart isn't into the game today, I still wanted to dress the boys appropriately, in case the Pats win the first championship of their lifetime tonight. So here they are, looking absolutely thrilled..go Pats!