Twilight the Comedy....er, At Least on My Row, Anyway

Remember how excited I was for Twilight to become an historic movie event?

Well I was informed by some friends that its presence was gracing the dollar theater {and by dollar I mean $1.75, because that's how much our dollar theater charges these days}. So the 4 of us packed up and headed out for a night on the town.

As predicted it was deliciously terrible.

Entertaining it was, but for all the wrong reasons. It's been a long time since I've laughed so hard watching a movie. Thank you, Twilight. I think it was worth the $1.75, but I wouldn't have paid a penny more that's for sure.

Of three things I am absolutely certain: a terrible script combined with horrible acting makes for a very poor movie, even worse cinematography and make-up will make you tear up, combine all of them and you have the makings for a movie that will surely bring tears to your eyes - even if it's because you are laughing so hard you think you might pee your pants.

Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy

Louis CK was on Conan and here's his interview. It's pretty dang funny, and oh so true. I remember long conversations with my friends and you had no privacy because the phone was attached to the wall in the kitchen. That was awesome. Your legs would fall asleep after a while and you'd be forced to hang up.

We had a rotary phone too, and it's so true. I remember thinking it would take forever to dial because you had to wait for the disk to spin all the way back.... Awesome.

I also remember when we got our first family computer. No Internet. Just a computer that I'm sure was sooooo slow. I remember being so proud of my reports - all typed up and with color cover pages that I designed with clipart. ha ha. I didn't have an email address until college.

Man times have changed. On any given day we have 3 computers in our house and only 2 people who can use them!

Enjoy!

If You Want Your Life to Fall Apart, Just Promise Yourself You Will Blog More

Ok. My life didn't really fall apart - I just got buried, thus have not blogged like I promised myself I would.

I've had requests for more vids of Adjoa. I will try. She has suddenly become a little camera shy. She'll be looking oh so cute and I reach for the camera and she just won't cooperate. Gotta love the 2-year olds.

So. Back to my excuses.

Robert got sick. I started getting sick {luckily I managed to fight it off early - probably because I slept with Adjoa instead of Robert while he was sick). Adjoa got sick {probably because I slept with Adjoa instead of Robert while he was sick}.

Soon after Adjoa was feeling better, she started complaining about her armpit hurting when I lifted her. I checked it out and didn't really see anything. Same thing the next day. I checked out her armpit again and I noticed these little bumps. She had the remnants of a rash or something when she came home, so I thought maybe it was coming back. I put some Cortizone on it and called it good. The next morning when she woke up she had like 5 1/4 inch bumps on her armpit. They were so swollen and warm to the touch. She was also running a little bit of a fever.

Great. Probably an infection. I called a friend to get the name of the pediatrician she likes {based oh what happened on our last appointment, I wasn't going back to the same doctor}. I set an appointment for that day.

The other, not good, doctor's office called me a little later with the results of Adjoa's stool sample. {I spared all of you the horror and drama of collecting THAT. You are welcome.} She said the results were negative. {I had wanted them to check for worms, parasites, that sort of thing because she just came from Africa, after all, and she's a toddler, so I'm guessing sticking things in her mouth and eating whatever is around was part of her daily habits}. THEY DIDN'T CHECK FOR ONE THING I ASKED THEM TO.

I understand doctors went to medical school and I totally respect that. But when I come to you with a concern and ask you to run a simple test that is valid {she also exhibits some wormy-type symptoms} and I am paying for it, I think it should be done. Needless to say, we are NEVER going back to that doctor again.

Sorry for the tirade.

We went to the appointment. It. Was. Terrible. Everything started out well enough. Adjoa was happy and playing and wasn't concerned at all. Then, during the course of her showing off for the doctor, she bumped her head and started crying. She was inconsolable. They wanted to stick a needle in her armpit and try to get a culture.

It took three of us to hold her down so she stayed still. She tried to bite the doctor and the assistant. Ok, it didn't REALLY try, but she acted like she was going to - to sort of warn them. She kicked. She screamed. You get the picture.

She wouldn't let the doctor look in her mouth or ears. And she screamed bloody murder when it was time for shots.

They gave her 4 shots - 2 in each leg. Gave us a prescription for some antibiotics. And the doctor said she thought Adjoa probably had a staph infection.

So now I'm wondering if her habit of scratching and fingering her armpit while she sleeps needs to stop. She does this thing while she sleeps - or when she's trying to fall asleep where she sticks her right hand in her left armpit and does a little scratchy, massaging thing with her fingers. Her left arm is draped across her face and she sucks on her forearm. It's a little weird. Anyway, I'm thinking now I should probably try to break her of that, but I'm not sure how.

The next day her little legs were so sore she couldn't walk {from the shots}, she wasn't really eating, and she had a higher fever, but the boils were decreasing. She was sick all day, poor little thing.

She's pretty much all healed up now - still a few little bumps, but they are almost gone. She still says it hurts when you push on her armpit, but she doesn't complain about it hurting when I lift her up. She's been sleeping a lot. Which I have mixed feelings about because she won't sleep if I'm not there.

Today she took a 4 hour nap and I had to lay there the whole time. She would cry and grab on to me if I tried to leave. She was obviously so tired I didn't have the heart to just leave anyway. I wanted her to sleep well.

Oh, and throw into that the work drama I dealt with for several days. {Too long and probably to boring/involved for blogging}.

I also tried, in between Adjoa getting sick, to put yarn braids in her hair. It was mildly successful. I was able to attach them, but they just wouldn't really stay. Her hair was too short, and too tightly curled, for me to divide it {if you know yarn braids, you'll understand this} so they would pull out really easily. They were in for about 3 days, and then I just took them out because every day I was having to replace 2 or 3 anyway. I'll just wait until her hair is a bit longer and then do them again. Thanks for the tips, though Laurel!

So that's how the last week or so went down for me.

Sorry I slacked in my blogging. And picture taking.

You All Are Going to Get the Wrong Idea; I Swear I Was Watching My Child

Adjoa had a pretty rough day. Poor little girl.

It started when I was working on the computer and she was about a foot away from me driving her 'car.' {It's one of those awesome scooter-type deals but you don't need to use your feet to propel you - you just start steering and it goes. Pretty Awesome, thanks Pa!}

Anyway, I think she was trying to turn around and, well...she fell down the stairs. Car and all. I was really close, so I was there lickety split. She was more scared than anything else. The terror stricken scream that little thing emitted could have been lifted from a horror film. Seriously.

Then the crying started. Poor thing. I checked her over. No real damage, a bruise around her eye has starting appearing, though.

Then, I was chopping various veggies for a soup. Adjoa was helping me {don't worry, it's not going where you're afraid it is}. She was putting the cut veggies into the crock pot. She picked up a potato and was pretending to eat it. Her silly vigor turned to tragedy when she bit her tongue and lip. {I'm still not exactly sure how she managed that, but I saw the blood that proved it} No scared crying that time - it's pure pain when biting your tongue and lip.

Shortly after recovering from that, she was wanting a piece of cake. To get a better look at the piece I was serving up for her, she decided to use the counter for lifting leverage. Except it wasn't the counter. She put both hands on the hot stove. It wasn't on, it was cooling down from when I browned the meat for the soup, but still. It was pretty hot to the touch.

More crying.

Needless to say, bed time was earlier last night. Both to avoid any more trauma and to get some much needed rest from the eventful day.

{In between much of this, I had to get my blood drawn to check my thyroid levels} This concerned Adjoa greatly. She insisted on checking out my wound as we were leaving the doctor's office. She clicked her tongue a few times, said "ow-uuuu-ch!" quite empathetically, patted my arm, and comforted me with, "Home, Ma! Let's GO!" And then turned to the door and marched right on out of the office.

It was an ouchy filled day, for sure. But so lovely that we were able to comfort each other. Mom might be awesome at bestowing the comforting touch, but I think a child knocks mom out of the park!

Thanks to My Hunky Husband, I had a Birthday Filled with Music, Dance, Costumes, and Food

I had a great Birthitine Day this year.

Robert bought me a 3-disk CD, Radio, and iPod player that attaches under the cabinet for the kitchen. We don't really have a CD player {since we both have iPods}, and I was getting tired of firing up the computer every time Adjoa wanted to dance and sing to her Kindermusik CDs.

He also took both of his Valentines out for dinner to my favorite place: Mazza. {It's this local Lebanese restaurant, although they also have other Mediterranean style dishes}. Soooo Yummy! {Are you jealous, Lois? Well that's what you get for going on a cruise without me!}

And to top it all off, he planed an evening out - just the two of us! Aimee's awesome sister, Erin came to babysit. {Side note here, Erin is a totally awesome babysitter. She had all these fun activities planned - some were even educational. I love her. She is my favorite. And she tops the list for Adjoa, too!} Adjoa thought it was totally awesome to have a friend over to play with her!

While Adjoa and Erin were learning colors, making Valentine cookies for 'Ma' and 'Da-dee', Robert and I went to Ballet West's performance of Madame Butterfly.


It. Was. Amazing.

There were actually 2 ballets performed: Gong, and Madame Butterfly. Gong was interesting and fun, but Madame Butterfly was amazing.

I loved the music, the dancing, the costumes, the performance. Robert isn't much of a ballet person, so it was really great that he did this for me. Very much appreciated.

He's so good to me!

Love you, babe!


Ok. So whatever your feelings are about ballet, you have to recognize that this is both amazing and beautiful. How could you NOT want to see a couple hours of this AND beautiful music? This is a new dancer, Romi Beppu, from Hawaii at rehearsals. Yes. I am that cool. But no, I didn't take this picture. I swiped it from Ballet West's blog!

This is what the curtain opened to - Amazing costuming.

Happy Birthitine Day to ME!

I made this post, like WAY, in advance so it would be a special surprise to me when I log into my blogger today to see what wonderful, awesome, make-me-jealous things everyone has done recently {and by recently I mean in the last 10 or so hours, because that's probably how long it's been since I've logged into my blogger}.

I was born at 4:50 in the P.M. {note the posting time, eh-eh *elbowing you in your ribs*, except it's AM but remember, this is supposed to be a surprise to me from me} AND my mom said I was the best Valentine she ever received. But she pretty much says that every year.

So how 'bout it Mom, am I still the best Valentine you ever received?

See That Cute Little Girl Down There in My Previous Post??? She Said I Must Beat Her.

Ok. So I have to give you a little culture lesson before I begin this story or I might get nasty comments and phone calls. In Ghana, they use the word 'beat' when they talk about spanking and disciplining children, etc. Granted, it is still sometimes hard to see, but it's their way of life, not mine. And part of adoption, especially international adoption, means you bring some of that back with you.

For the record, I never saw a child being disciplined {spanked, beaten, what-have-you} in anger. From what I observed, there were set punishments for certain crimes: late for school? a single swat on the hand.

So the other night I was putting Adjoa to bed. The process took nearly 2 hours. She was up every few minutes. A couple times to go potty, but every other time, she just didn't want to go to sleep. You know how it is.

Finally, I'm putting her back in bed and I give a nice, general threat because I'm such an awesome parent and there should be books written and lectures given regarding my break-through techniques that are oh so effective.

I said something like, "If you get out of bed again you are going to be in big trouble. It's time to sleep."

{To be fair to myself, I am certain a statement like that would have worked for me when I was a child - if I ever even got out of bed, that is. I was an angel! BTW my parents don't know how to comment so they'll never be able to refute that claim. Not that they would. Because I was.}

About 2 minutes after my vague threat, Adjoa comes walking into plain sight. When I spot her in the kitchen, she doesn't even take off running to her bedroom like a child in trouble should. Nope. She just gives me a big grin and laughs as I take her back to bed.

I ask if she needs to go potty.
No.
Does she need a drink of water?
No.
I ask what she needs in order to go to sleep.
She says "You must beat me."
Huh?
"You want mama to beat you?"
"Yes."
"How many times? Just once?"
"Yes."
"You want mama to beat you one time?"

{See how I keep asking because I can't believe this child is telling me I must beat her}

"Yes."
"And you will go to sleep if mama beats you?"
"Yes."
"Okay...."

I gave her a swat on the behind and put her in bed.

She started crying when I left the room, so I went back in and said, "I don't know why you are crying. You told mama to beat you."

She stopped crying and WENT TO SLEEP.

I told Lois about it and she laughed so hard. She said Adjoa knew she was being naughty and expected a beating because of it. Funny. I just hope we don't have to go through that every night.

Yeash.

Post script: We've had 2 nights in a row without any problems, and Adjoa hasn't asked for any more "beatings". What a relief! Of course, she hasn't been naughty again, either.

Celebrate Adjoa! {aka a Shower for Adjoa}

Some of our terrific friends are throwing a party for Adjoa. If you are in the area on Saturday, I hope you can stop by!

Mom Flew in on a Whim {and Super Cheap Tickets} and Aunt Cathy Celebrated by Taking Pictures

My mom was here all last week. I like to think that's why I didn't blog AT ALL for so long. I mean it folks, I didn't even look at a blog the entire week.

So Adjoa just loved 'Nana'. That's what she calls my mom. She took to her right away and had my mom wrapped around her little finger for the week. Nana spoiled Adjoa, which is the way it should be, right?

Adjoa keeps asking for Nana and wants to call her all the time. She informed me today that "Nana is coming!". hmmm, sure. But not for about another 2 months!

We visited Aunt Jill {Auntie Jull, to Adjoa} and Aunt Cathy {Auntie Caffy} pretty much every day last week. It was almost too much fun -meaning a lot of new people and not enough napping, but Adjoa was a trooper through all the excitement.

She played with Uncle Rod for a couple hours and had him running all over the place. He said he thought she only said one word: "Come!"

Anyway, here are some adorable pictures Aunt Cathy took of Adjoa.

Adjoa was playing dress up - so please don't ask what on earth she is wearing in the picture! I love this picture - isn't she so cute when she's pouting? I love it!

If you look really close, you might be able to see the Cheetos stuck to her teeth! Gross, but so much fun!

I think this is one of my top favorite pics of Adjoa ever.

Adjoa's sassy look

Aunt Jill gets that look from everybody, it says something like "You're Crazy, Aunt Jill!"

Being a ham.