Adventures in Coloring and Pesky Mosquitoes

Recently Paul found his stash of crayons I hid when I realized he was more interested in eating them than coloring.  It seems that a few months later he is ready to use them!  On everything.  Luckily they are dry erase crayons and come off of everything pretty easily.  Paul likes to help clean up after, too.  I also took a risk and let him doodle with a pen.  That did not come off the counter as easily as crayons, and Paul had a little tattoo for a day or so, but eventually all was marks disappeared.

Around this time, we had an interesting episode with Paul.  One afternoon, when the weather was beautiful, we all went into the backyard to play.  Unfortunately the mosquitoes also thought this was a good time to play, and to bite.  So after a few minutes, I got tired of trying to slap away all the mosquitoes attracted to Paul (not to mention Michael, they are mosquito magnets) and we went inside.

About 30 minutes later, Paul was sitting in my lap and we were reading Curious George together when I noticed his ear, which he kept touching, felt hot against my cheek.  I looked at it, and it was swollen!  I had swatted a mosquito from his ear while we were outside, so I knew it was a bite that caused it.  It didn't seem to bother him much, so we left it alone and hoped it was go down over night.

As soon as he woke in the morning, I realized it had only gotten worse.  It was huge and red and hot!  Luckily we had his 18 month appointment that day.  Right away the doctor said, "Good on you for not bringing him in just for this!  It's totally normal."  At this point I had to admit we called in to the nurse and asked what to do.  Plus, we already had the appointment planned, so I didn't even have to consider it.  Anyways, I felt like I was walking around with Dumbo (really, more like Harry Potter after he is struck with the stinging spell by Hermione in the final book to escape detection by the Death Eaters....) for a few days.  I felt like I had to explain his swollen ear (and eye) to everyone we talked to. 

Still a happy boy even with his Dumbo ear!

At its worst.

My little ogre.

Posing with his Totoro I made for him (practice for the costume).

Two days later, only double the normal size!  We stopped paying attention to it after that, since it wasn't red anymore either.