Lil' Old Man Face

But I AM smiling, dad!

My dad taught baby E this scrunched up grimace months ago and he's been doing it ever since. Especially when he's tired but wants to keep on playing with whoever is interacting with him.

We were at Cafe Epicurious at The Rail Mall having breakfast and it was fast approaching baby E's morning nap time so he kept giving my hubby the lil' old man face when asked to smile for the camera.

Gotta love my silly baby boy!

Bites Round 2

Left knee

So baby E got bitten again before Christmas and this time I was keeping a close watch on him. The weather had been (and still is) wet and humid which seems to create the ideal environment for mosquitoes to come out and play. I noticed a few small bites on his left leg when he came back inside after his usual morning stroll around the garden with grandma but they were normal sized mosquito bites.

Left thigh

Then in the evening, I noticed the bite on his knee and thigh seemed to get bigger and more red. He also had a fever overnight so we took him to the pediatrician the next day and was given more antibiotics to help with the inflammation.

Couple days after that, found that baby E had a rash on his body that seemed to spread to his limbs and face, went back to the pediatrician and found that he also had false measles. It's caused by a virus so no medication necessary. In retrospect, the fever might have been caused by the false measles.

Poor baby E, in the span of a week, he lost his appetite due to teething, had infected mosquito bites and then false measles. Luckily he recovered in time to attend some family Christmas gatherings.

Technically it's his 2nd Christmas but we did not bring him out last year as I was still supposed to be under confinement.

Merry Christmas baby E!

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Look at me dad!

Baby E LOVES anything with a steering wheel on it.

Earlier this week, we'd taken him to see the pediatrician for a rash that appeared on his body and spread to his limbs. Baby E was on antibiotics for an infected mosquito bite so I thought he might be allergic to the medication, the hubby thought it was a heat rash.

Before this photo was taken, baby E was tired (he'd skipped his morning nap to see the pediatrician) and feeling poorly. Apparently this was the perfect combination for a tantrum / complete meltdown while mommy waits in line with the pre-Christmas crowd at Toys R Us to pay for a toy steering wheel that sings which daddy thought would help baby E feel better.

So in an effort to head off baby E's meltdown, the hubby took him for a walk outside while I continued waiting in line. According to the hubby, baby E went from crying / yelling with big tears rolling down his face to the face you see in the picture above.

Water Baby

Bath time!

So baby E loves his evening bath.

He loves sticking his lil' hands under the shower as I fill up his bath, swishing his face towel under the bath water and smacking the surface of the water with his palms. He loves it so much he won't get out of the bath without a fight (and sometimes a bribe, which oddly enough is his seawater nasal spray, he loves that thing).

Baby E would sit in his bath until his fingers and toes turned white, wrinkly and eventually fall off if I let him.

Happy Bagel Boy

Bagel!

Excuse my crazy hair, have lots of new hair growing back after the post-partum hair loss phase.

Baby E really liked the toasted bagel he tried during breakfast on our last morning on board Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas. He was gnawing away and refused to give it up after breakfast so we took it back to the room with us where he continued to play with it.

I can see why some moms recommend giving a teething baby a bagel to chew on, baby E loved it!

Stop Biting My Baby!

2nd bite

Something's been biting baby E and causing big, scary allergic reactions on his skin. The last time I'd seen something like this is when a spider bit me on the leg one summer in a cottage up in Muskoka, Ontario. The bite swelled up, itched like mad, turned red, purple, green then yellow before fading out.

The first bite was on his big toe but I did not get a photo of that. According to his pediatrician, it's an insect bite and baby E is having an allergic reaction which we can't do much about other than to wait for him to grow out of it. 

Until that happens, we were given some cream and anti-itch medication which causes drowsiness to help the inflammation go down and for baby E to get some sleep. Then it happened again and he was bit on the ankle. Which swelled up a little bit but seemed under control with the cream from the pediatrician.

4th bite

And then he was bit AGAIN, on the same ankle but on the back rather than the front. This time I took a picture, the swelling was horrible and baby E was horribly itchy and his sleep was all over the place.

The anti-itch meds seemed to help the first night, but from the second night onwards baby E would sleep for a solid 3 or 4 hours then he'd be extremely awake the rest of the night. 

I'm not sure if it was a side-effect but we decided to stop the meds and just continue with applying the cream on his bites.

Then double whammy, he was bitten TWICE on the SAME DAMNED LEG! Momma was not happy, momma was ready to hunt the godforsaken insect down and 'crrrrrrrrrush it like a cockroach!' (Masters of the Sea reference here, line made famous by Margaret Chan's character, wiki it here)

5th & 6th bite

By this time, baby E's night time sleep was shot to hell and I was desperately trying to keep him from gouging chunks of flesh off his leg with all the scratching that he was doing. I gave in once and fed him the anti-itch meds which let him sleep for a few hours then he was up and about the rest of the night.

Thank god for being able to nurse baby E while lying down at night, it helped to calm him down and distract him from the itch at night and gave the both of us a few precious hours of much needed sleep.

My poor itchy baby

Even so, he still looked like this for a few nights -->

But I'm happy to write that with a round of mild antibiotics (given on our third visit to his pediatrician when the bites became infected due to his scratching) and diligent cream application (no steroids, I checked 'cos I'm paranoid like that), baby E is good as new.

And momma can breathe a sigh of relief. After we called a cleaning company to clean and sanitize our mattresses and pillows.

The first bite

UPDATE: Hubby found the photo of the first insect bite on baby E's big toe.