Well, one pediatrician, three dermatologists, one allergist, one naturopath, and two visits to the university hospital in Portland later, I think we finally may have Felix’s awful eczema under control. We saw the pediatric dermatologist in Portland again yesterday, and he says Felix has responded well to the most recent treatment, and that it’s now a matter of maintaining until (one hopes) he grows out of it sometime between now and adolescence. (We’ve gotten varying opinions on when “growing out of it” might happen -- some doctors suggest by age 2, others by age 6, and others say breezily, “oh, he might grow out of it as a teenager.” You can imagine which prediction we’re hoping is correct and which predictor we wanted to throttle.)

In case anyone’s wondering, the best treatment we’ve been able to find for a baby who’s shrieking and scratching madly at 4am is to wake him up, fill both hands with crackers, and watch a Baby Einstein video until the itching subsides enough to go back to sleep. “Things That Go” seems to work best. Thankfully, we haven’t had to do this in well over a month -- knock on wood.