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Published: January 22nd 2009
Bao Thumbsucking Peacefully
In Rocking Crib in Happier DaysToday was the day of reckoning, the second scabies treatment. The doctor said he didn't have scabies after we applied the first treatment, but we decided to apply it again as a preventative measure. We had to keep the cream on all of us for at least 8 hours. As you recall, Bao's favorite thing besides feeding time is sucking his thumb(s). Therefore, we had to swaddle him with arms at his sides. Luckily, the family next door had already checked out. Bao delivered two lessons to us today.
The first is that you have to multitask with children. We thought we could handle the triple challenge of changing the poopy diaper while applying the scabies cream and keeping hands out of mouth and poop, when Bao suddenly projectile gakked onto the bed and then wanted to throw his face down into it (sorry for visual). First challenge met with competence and grace (ok not really grace).
The second lesson is that when children cry because they don't have what they want (i.e. hands in mouth), you can get them to stop by entirely diverting their attention so that they forget (momentarily) that they can't do the thing you don't want them to do. This did work pretty well. First we watched the time tick by, literally, as Bao had a brief fascination with the clock. Then he read the news of the day, finding of particular interest stories with headines such as "Cambodian Delegation Cements Legislative Ties", "Garment Exports Rise to Czech Republic", and "City to Target Tet Price Gouging".
We bribed him with food, first formula, then prunes, then had to deal with the aftermath of likely said prunes.
Then, when nothing else seemed to work, we once again gave him some of the toys we promised he wouldn't get until we got back to the U.S., this time two short on plot books that are in both English and Vietnamese - "Tho Bunny" and "Meo Kitty". He was riveted, even suffering through my weak attempt to read the Vietnamese parts, while Allen suffered through 12 readings of each book.
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nancy fontaine
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Welcome to the wonderful world of parenthood! You now have been officially initiated with throw up, screaming fits, poops, and unending story readings. But it is worth it!