The duo is together again....

I'm not sure we've ever separated the girls for a few days like this, except for when G's been in the hospital. Even then A could go visit.

Wood and A just got home, toting a pizza. A was more excited to see G, then me, actually. She told me that "this should be G's special day". I asked her why. She said "because she came back".

There's no place like home.....

I'm exhausted - G is doing very well. She's already logged her new Ty beanie baby pink pet cat onto the internet and is playing happily.

I, meanwhile, am about 3 hrs overdue on having my salary budget done for the next few weeks for work. And I'm NOT happy to discover that they've eliminated home access to some of the reports and functions that I need. I just cannot fathom going into work tonight to get it done - I've been gone for 4 days and I know I will get sucked into all sorts of things - I have about 40 people who report to me, and the chances that no one has had a major crisis, issue or something that requires my immediate attention is slim to none.

Didn't quite make it...

We are just short of the Wisconsin/Upper Peninsula border. We stopped for the night, even though we are only a few hours away from home at this point. Once we cross over into the UP, we no longer have many choices until we get home. G is doing great, but was having difficulty being in the carseat up against her stitches. In the morning, we'll only have a few hours to go.

Edit: A is having a hard time with G and I being gone. She had trouble falling asleep last night, and Wood eventually went into her room, and laid down on G's bed. He heard a rustling under the pillow. When he looked, A had drawn a picture of her and G, holding hands, and put it under G's pillow waiting for her return. While we were in Milwaukee, G insisted on buying a present for her little sister. Tonight, they talked on the phone. G told A about her stitches. Not to be outdone, A told G all about her new "papercut". They commiserated together - it was cute.

G is now in a fair amount of pain - we went out to the pharmacy to get her two new meds filled (if you are counting, this makes 9 prescriptions that she is on - all at the same time). It took them forever to fill them, and G got shaky and felt very unwell. I have no idea how single mothers do it - all I can think is how I really could have used Wood around for the past few days.
In case you haven't guessed, not a single dr out of the many we saw while at Children's agreed with our ped at home about the so-called eczema fiasco. None of them even considered it - one even rolled her eyes when I related it. At this point, however, I'd happily deal with eczema.

I was thinking tonight about the many posts on the forum when prospective adoptive parents on the forum are contemplating the medical checklist, and what they are "open" to. There just are no guarantees - no matter what you list, you may end up with something completely unexpected. That's just part of being a parent, adoptive or otherwise.

When we accepted A's referral, she was an extremely malnourished child, who wasn't walking independently at age 18 months, didn't talk or express herself and had multiple opportunistic infections indicating a poorly functioning immune system as well as the malnutrition. She is now the healthiest child I have ever seen in my life. She never gets sick, willingly eats an incredibly balanced and healthy diet and is the picture of health. Meanwhile, her older sister, who was an incredibly healthy infant and toddler, had every advantage, was breastfed until age 14 months, never had even an ear infection - got sick around the time her sister came home from Ethiopia and has incredibly fragile health ever since. Crazy - you just never know.

To head home or not?

G had a biopsy today, and has an incision and stitches on her back. I'm unsure if we should try to head home or not. She's got some swelling in the area, and if we leave she'll be in her carseat for the next 6.5 hours. The local anesthetic is wearing off, so I'll see how she's feeling when it's worn off. The dr did give us some pain meds, but I'm not sure I want to use anything stronger than Tylenol with her in the backseat and me not being able to check on her. The anesthetic also contained a blood vessel constrictor, so when that wears off, the dr said it may started bleeding or oozing. Boy, I'd really just like to be home with her right now. 7 to 10 days for biopsy results. I'm thinking that's just the standard medical reply - no matter what you have done, it's always 7-10 days.

Here in Milwaukee....

Made it here, however, the hospital accomodations program couldn't find a single place for us to stay. Ronald McDonald house was completely full, and so it seems are every local hotel is completely booked. Apparently Milwaukee is a hot spot during the summer.

The hospital took much longer than expected, and very unexpectedly, we have to go back tomorrow. Things are never simple with G - Dani, you were exactly right on that one.

At the last minute, the hospital found us a place to stay at Kathy's House, which is a hospitality house similar to Ronald McDonald house, only not just for kids. It's very nice. We have a nice room, and there is plenty of space to move around in the shared commons area - a full kitchen, living room, outdoor play area, and game room with puzzles and board games. What a blessing, because late this afternoon I was envisioning us sleeping in our car. Really.

I'll post tomorrow, when there's more to tell.

Off to Children's Hospital

Children's had a cancellation for tomorrow with G's dr. G is still reacting to something, possible her new (and effective!) meds. Wood, having just started a new job, has no time off. G and I will head off in the AM, Milwaukee bound.

I don't relish the thought of making such a long trip by myself. Actually, I'm incredibly nervous. Hopefully, we'll get some good answers. And it's good to get our visit done before the snow flies - it's a horrible trip to make in the winter with all our snow.

A will be staying home with Daddy - Wood thinks it would be best if she had her normal routine, and I didn't have the added responsibility of trying to keep up with her at the hospital, especially during tests.

Edit: We are currently waitlisted for a spot at the Ronald McDonald House - so we are traveling without actually having a place to stay - the other accomodations that the hospital uses are all full. Not making me feel much better about the trip, but I'm hoping it will work out.

How the bike riding went...

G did great - she is riding just fine, but has trouble still starting the bike and needs a tiny push. We'll practice more today and I think she'll get it fine :)

Miss A was another story. We bought her a new bike a few days ago, so she wouldn't be left out of all the fun. She had previously been riding a big wheel type vehicle. She was excited about her new bike. She was looking forward to riding it, and understood that we were taking G's training wheels off today....or so we thought.

The event pushed all her "buttons". First of all, both Wood and I were paying almost exclusive attention to G. That triggered all her insecurities. We were both on either side of G, so A was left to ride her bike (which had training wheels) herself. We explained how G needed us because she had no training wheels to hold her up, but all A saw was that we obviously loved G more and she was all alone. Although this issue has gotten substantially better since our first year as a family, I realized how much we still manipulate situations to ensure that this never happens. And that really isn't fair to G. Sometimes, the attention DOES go all to one child - that's life. Sometimes it will be her, sometimes it will be a sibling - it depends on their needs.

So A stopped riding her bike, and began to pout and sulk. Which really irritated Wood and me, and we became short with her. Which only made the situation worse. She started tipping her bike on purpose or riding it into things, just to get attention. And crying. And bringing up every injustice that she could think of, involving either us or her schoolmates. Finally, I took her off her bike, put it back into the car, and told her that until she could behave, she couldn't ride. How's that for compassionate? G always get the short end of the stick because she can "handle it", but this time, it WAS about G.

So now I'm guilt ridden and feel like just a terrible mother. I was trying to rationalize with a 4 year old about the times when we spent time exclusively with her, and this was G's turn. But it was all about emotions and feelings for her, not about reason. And I really dealt with it with MY emotion, and not very effectively.