Itchy !

Since he sleeps for close to ten hours through the night, his hours of wakefulness during the day are long, and he needs constant diversions and outlets for his abundant energy. I think he will grow into an active and intelligent kid, who would gets bored quickly. We will need a lot of creative talent to keep him amused.

This week Robert finally discovered his feet. He now pulls at them while sitting or lying, especially on his changing table, which adds of course to the fun of changing his diaper. He moved quickly from razzing to sucking on his bottom lip, to make a smack-pop sound, which is quite funny. He also sucks occasionally on his thumb hooking his forefinger over his nose. The first time I saw him do that he was trying to calm himself down to get to sleep, and he was lying on his side. Now he goes to sleep regularly on his side, with the consolation of the thumb or a fist, and sometimes even without them.

We had some storms and fierce winds during this week, followed by a boiling hot day without any winds. Robert was tired after a visit to the mall but could not get to sleep at all in the heat, and cried in frustration until the temperature cooled down with nightfall. That night the mosquitoes feasted on his exposed limbs and face, and just looking at him made us both feel very guilty (and itchy). The mosquito bites made him very irritable, pulling the stiff leg, and red face trick many times during the day.

We immediately bought a length of gauze-like fabric which I joined together to form a mosquito net. To salve our conscience we also bought a topical cream that the pharmacist recommended for bab. The cream proved useful, but the net was the proper solution, I now throw the net over his crib just after I put him down, and he hasn’t had any bad mosquito bites since then.