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.