Things that are different: I hate mosquitoes more than ever!

We love our new home, but we are struggling with mosquitoes more here than we did at the other house.  Jonathan gets the worst of it.

I was happy this morning because Jonathan slept through the 4:30 am call to prayer and the 5 am sermon broadcast from our local mosque!  We got to sleep in until 5:30 am and it was WONDERFUL!  But my joy quickly turned to dismay when I pulled Jonathan out of his bed and his face looked like this!  Aaaaugh!

And this is just the right side of his face!

Jonathan sleeps under a mosquito net, but one evil mosquito got inside the net sometime yesterday.  I found that evil bug engorged on Jonathan's pillow this morning, too full of my child's blood to even fly away.  It fluttered it's wings feebly before meeting it's just end.  That thing feasted on my child's face no less than EIGHT times.  

Now we are trudging through our day with pain and suffering, as Jonathan's bites swell up horribly and they are so itchy for the first day or so!!  There are some nice remedies out there...but Jonathan is notorious about rubbing his eyes and none of them are eye safe.  I found a natural remedy on the internet this morning -- oatmeal water mixed with plain yogurt.  I mixed some up and dabbed it on -- he just scratched it right off.  The best thing to do is just cut those fingernails as short as I can and then distract, distract, distract!  I do resort to Ibuprofen and Benadryl at naptime.  It puts him to sleep for about an hour, but that's it.

The scene of the crime:  It looks like a princess bed, but it is Jonathan's Pak-N-Play with mosquito net installed.

We have done so much to try to combat the mosquitoes:  mosquito net, fans on at night, discovery and coverage of mosquito-entrance openings, bug repellent while out, removal of low lying foliage, avoiding being outside at all during prime biting time .....it's so frustrating that they still are getting in after all our hard work! So now we have some new things to try:  Keeping the mosquito net securely closed day AND night, and keeping Jonathan's bedroom door shut when workers are at the house and frequently opening the door.  Also today we installed filter paper over the ventilation window over Jonathan's bedroom door.

On the bright side, we are very fortunate in this part of the tropics that malaria is very rare.  Other mosquito-born illnesses, such as Dengue Fever, are also uncommon.  So it's likely our only problem is a day and a half of itching and swelling and a week of healing.  

If anybody has a great natural remedy for bites in young children, please pass it on!  As much as I'd like to think this will never happen again, I know it will.