Category: Bitching

Death Warmed Over

I’ve always wondered what people mean when they say they feel like “death warmed over” and I think I’m finally experiencing it for myself.

I can’t believe I was healthy this whole pregnancy (well, if you don’t count the slight cold I had at the beginning) and ended up sick as a dog just a few weeks before giving birth. Totally bringing back memories of the nasty upper respiratory infection I had while pregnant with Jaylen.

I’d go to the doctor, but see, the last time I went in for something like a cold, I was waiting to be seen for 3 frickin’ hours, just to be prescribed some purple cough medicine that worked the same as Robitussin DM. I have Robitussin DM…I just don’t want to take it because it’s an expectorant and that means it “makes coughs more productive” to get rid of phlem better. I’d hate to feel what it’s like to have a more “productive” cough. My cough’s being quite productive on it’s own; feels like my back and chest are going to cave into each other.

I woke up so many times last night. I woke up to pee at least 3 times, woke up at 3am because I was ravenous–that’s never happened before during any of my pregnancies. I seriously felt like I hadn’t eaten all day. I grabbed a baggy of trail mix and ate till my intestines stopped trying to eat Alaethia.

Take into account the slight storm that was passing over us and add about three more abrupt awakenings because of the darn thunder. I’m surprised I’m concious enough to even be typing this up. The coffee I’m drinking (to help soothe my shredded throat) is probably helping me stay awake, but that’ll wear off in like, 5 minutes.

I’d LOVE to take a nap, but I know as soon as my head hits that pillow the phone will ring, Mom and John will be at the door coming over to “visit” (which means they just want to sit on my couch and watch my TV [mom] and use my internet [John]), and one of the kiddos will smack the other and they’ll run into my room to tattle.

Yeah, I think I’ll stay awake. Feeling sleepy is probably better than the pounding headache I’d develop for waking up even more during my nap.

Coffee’s wearing off. Going to try and…clean or something.

Christmas Shopping 2006 Pt. 3

Like I wasn’t feeling moody enough already, stupid, unreliable Internet Explorer + my ailing computer decide to get an error and shut the darn browser down halfway through my darn entry. Today has not been a nice day.

I didn’t go to sleep till 2am last night because I was wrapping the last of the presents and then remembered to send out the Paypal payment for the keyboard I won on Ebay for my cellphone (SPH-i500). (That’s my present from John, BTW.) I had to be up at 7:30 to wake Mario up for work and iron his clothes, make breakfast, etc. I figured I’d get a good 5 hours of sleep at least, but nope. John’s stupid boss calls at 7am on the dot to call him in. I call him and tell him about it, but he fails to call me back and tell me he told her he wasn’t going in till his scheduled time, which was 10. I stupidly stayed awake waiting for his ass to appear at the door so I could drop him off, but that never happened. It was 7:45 by the time I called him and asked him if he was ready. When he said no I told him he better get ready and then I dropped him off. Didn’t even have time to make Mario breakfast or coffee before he had to leave.

So after having breakfast with Jaylen (Eenan slept over at Mary’s and then went with her to town this morning) I decided I’d take a little nap. Mom showed up just as I was clearing our dishes and she said she’d watch Jaylen while I napped. Awesome, I thought. It was 9, so I set the alarm for 11; plenty of time to shower and get ready if John was let out at 12 so we could visit Gramma around 12:30.

I sleep for a good hour and hear my door open and then close. Must have been Jaylen checking on me. I squint at the clock and realize I slept for a good, uninterrupted hour. I’ve got one more to go.

10 minutes later though, I’m awaken by the bastardly sound of the phone. It’s Elda, wondering if Mom would go with her to Target. I stay awake after that, because with my luck, if I tried going back to sleep John would call 10 minutes later so I could pick him up from work. So far, it’s almost 12 and he still hasn’t called. The vein in my forehead is throbbing so hard it’s impairing my vision.

I have no desire to clean whatever I didn’t get to clean yesterday. Jaylen is hopefully taking a nap right now because he was as moody as I am for waking up early. If he’s not, I fear for my sanity; he’s not pleasant at all when he hasn’t had a nap. Kind of like me.

The one good thing about today: I don’t have to be in traffic with all the crazies who are doing their last-minute shopping! I’m so glad we finished yesterday night. Jorge arrived yesterday, about half an hour later than planned because he had an incident with his dog. Killer, a very hyper, skinny Doberman Pincher, pooped in the truck on their way over here. Jorge stopped on the side of the road to clean up the mess and hit what he thought was the unlock button. It wasn’t. He’d hit the lock button and had locked his keys, tools, dog and cellphone in the truck. He waited around for 45 minutes, hoping a State Trooper would pass by and help him out, but no such luck. He ended up finding a rock and breaking one of his back windows. That’s where Mary, Eenan and Jorge are now–getting the window fixed.

When he’d arrived here yesterday, we ate Menudo, which Mary usually makes when he’s coming over. Mom watched the boys, since we still had some shopping to do for them, and Jorge, Mario and I left to town. Picked up Mario’s check, went to Academy, Target, JC Penny and then Toy’s R Us. I was quickly becoming frustrated since I felt rushed. They kept asking when we were going home, so I didn’t get to look around as good as I wanted to. I didn’t feel any better when we realized all of Mexico had already taken all the video games that were on sale in the ads. So now we had to figure out what we’d buy the kids instead.

We took Jorge home and had lunch with Mary, Jose, Jorge and Noelia. We still had to deposit at the bank, so I was getting ready to leave when Mario said he’d go with me. I told him he didn’t have to and he said, “Yeah, right. So you can be mad at me later?”

I say, “It’s not like I don’t go into town on my own all the time. Granted, all the other times it’s not dangerous and I don’t fear for my life…”

Yes, it’s that bad. I hate holiday traffic.

We go to the bank first, then to Target in Sharyland. I called all the other Targets and none of them had the gift we needed to get for Jaylen. We ended up going to another Target on Nolana and finding something else there. I just hope he likes it =\.

We got the rest of the gifts we needed, plus the kids’ stocking stuffers and a DVD player for them since we stole theirs from their room :P. The one we had in our room doesn’t have a working remote, which can ruin a whole movie for Mario. We got some Caramel Fraps from Starbucks (no whipped cream for Mario) and went home.

We got home late and the boys hadn’t eaten dinner (darnit, Mother) so we fed them and I sat with Jaylen on the couch while we ate Jelly Bellys and watched What Not To Wear. Mario went over to Noelia’s to fix someone’s computer and to drop Eenan off since he wanted to sleep over at Mary’s again.

We finally started wrapping around 9:30, which is the reason why we were up so darn late. Mario went to Whataburger to get us some dinner, since we didn’t eat when the boys did. We ate, then wrapped. Well, I wrapped; Mario cut pieces of tape for me. He kept complaining that I’d use too much tape.

“You use so much tape. My mom uses, like, 3 for the whole gift.”

“I know this. Please stop comparing me to your mother.”

Not only do I hate wrapping, but I’m so anal-retentive about everything every single piece of paper needs to be creased, folded and smoothed out perfectly, hence the need for lots of tape. Mom always tells me I should work as a gift wrapper at a store, but I tell her I’d get fired for cussing and taking too damn long.

I just picked John up from work and Mother’s not here yet. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I hope Elda goes ONLY to Target and brings mother home already. I’m on a time limit here.

I need to put on some Christmas music, get cheerful mood and try to ignore that it’s been raining all morning. It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow and I shouldn’t be grumpy.

It Better Cure Him In One Drink

So it turns out that the “beeping” Jaylen was hearing in his “bwain” yesterday was due to an ear infection. I started getting a little suspcious since he kept saying his ears felt weird later on during the day. Then he said the sound “jumped” from one ear to the other and that it hurt every time he talked. I asked him if it hurt when he swallowed and he said no. He fell asleep just fine; I gave him Motrin just in case he felt any pain and some Triaminic Night Time since he had a runny nose.

He woke up in a pretty good mood. Well, I’m lying, since he gave me a hard time while he was getting ready and to top it off spilt his bowl of cereal all over the floor. Eenan was a bit more cooperative though, thank goodness.

I dropped them off, came home, dropped John off, ate breakfast and reheated some leftover barbacoa for Mario. Then I made an appointment for Jaylen, which couldn’t be set until 2 since the doctor was out till then. Thankfully Mary’d asked Sonia to pick the kids (Eenan and Brandon) up afterschool for me. Mom waited at my house so someone would be here when Eenan arrived.

Everything with their insurance went without a hitch and we were seen pretty soon. They were having problems with some audio test they were performing on him to check for infections, so they waited for the doctor. He was tested for Strep, which came out negative, but he definitely had a full-blown infection in the left ear and the beginning signs of one in the right. And the kid doesn’t even act sick. Dr. Z. prescribed some antibiotics, ear drops, Tylenol (which I wouldn’t be getting since I just bought Motrin) and some mild cough/congestion medicine.

We go over to the pharmacy next door and I ask the guy helping us how much he thinks it’ll come out to. He says he’ll be right with me, which I take as him actually checking and finding out, but instead he just has them filled and rings up my total. I get my Debit card out and to my horror, it’s $30. The co-pay for each medicine is supposed to be $5, $20 if there isn’t a generic. I assume it’s for the antibiotic but when I check the receipt, it says $5. I ask him what came out to so much and he says, “Oh, that’s the congestion medicine. There isn’t a generic.” My mouth drops and I practically yell, “For that, I could have just bought Triaminic like I have been!”

I wanted to tell him to keep the medicine and shove it, but I held my tongue and paid. Grr. Next time I’m going to stand there until he tells me what each thing is and how much it’s going to cost!

We went to see Mario really quick before we went to his mom’s office to drop some stuff off. I was introduced to his friend/co-worker Lenny and Mario spoke to Jaylen for a bit. I told him about how pissed I was that they charged so much for frickin’ cough medicine but he said it was fine–anything for the kiddos. I’m all for getting our kids everything they need, of course, but the fact that I was screwed really irks me.

We get to Mary’s office and she gives us a tour since we’d never seen it before. It’s gorgeous and the decor is so modern. John, Jaylen and I get drinks and then we come home. Then came the nightly routine of cooking, bathing the kids, eating and putting them to bed. I was ready to crash at 9:30 but I figured I should stay up a little since it would only make me wake up even more during the night to pee :(. Alaethia’s so active around this time. She’s been doing something weird where I feel like one of her limb’s going to rip right through my abdomen.

Totally random: I’m SO getting The Biggest Loser Workout 2 to use after I have Alaethia. Have you seen the people on that show?! They all look so damn amazing! If they can do it, I can totally do it. I *have* to!

Okay, talking to Mario on the phone, who’s finally on his way. I’m ready to sleep!