extra clinginess is driving me round the bend!!!

I keep telling myself he'll outgrow it, but Lucas has been so clingy lately that I can't get anything done, and feel like I am just an extension of him. And to top it off, he has also started refusing !!! At first, I thought it was because he was poorly, then he has teeth coming through, now... I am not sure! Maybe it's separation anxiety, as he will cry like the life is being sucked out of him and calm down if I pick him up (even off his daddy!). But it has meant he has not slept properly in about a week (and we are both exhausted!) or two, and my arms are about to drop! Thank God for slings, as he will sit happily in that (on me!) but after spending the whole day carrying Lucas in some way, shape or form, I am tired to the bone, only to have to get up several times in the night to feed him, even when he is sleeping with us!

Any ideas on how I can deal with this? Should he be doing this? He is almost one, I was expecting the independence thing, not the dependence one!!!!!!

Ben recently got worse and wanted me over everyone, but there have been some underlying colds which explain about half of it, being a Mummy's boy about the other half.

I know that feeling.
We got Kayleigh standing on a chair in the kitchen so she could reach the bench when she was steady on her feet. It meant that she could be there next to me 'helping' in the kitchen, and I didn't constantly have to carry her round. Before she was old enough for that we had her in her highchair in the kitchen, so she was up at my height, and I'd take the highchair up to the kitchen counter. It seemed to get better and worse depending on when Kayleigh was a bit ill or teething, so it is partially a phase.