Category: Doh!

Feeling My Age…Or Older Perhaps

So. I haven’t posted an entry in pretty much: forever. Again, I blame the social networking sites. And the fact that every time I seem to open up WordPress a child needs something, the cat’s climbing my legs (more on that later), the husband’s calling or I feel guilty being in front of the computer and not with the babies, heh.

I’ve been sick just about this whole darn week, first with a stomach bug or something related to my blood sugar–I don’t know which one–and now I’ve caught the cold that’s been skipping from kid to kid. GREAT.

Thank God Mom’s here to help me with the girls. Alaethia’s pretty much independent, only needing to be put in the high chair for meals or assistance in the bathroom, but Emily still completely needs someone so it’s tough being sick. Thankfully this is one of the only times I’ve been sick since she was born, but my gosh, I hope this is it for the rest of the YEAR.

I guess I shall emphasize:

I started going to Taekwondo about…3 weeks ago. Norma, Aaron’s mom (Jaylen’s best friend’s mom), had been trying to convince me to go since two weeks before that. I finally decided to give it a try. The first week I went Wednesday night and Friday night. And my God. I hadn’t been that sore since…ever! I’d hurt in places I didn’t even know I could hurt!

Norma didn’t go that first Friday night, and I asked Maggie if she’d go with me but at the last minute she had a client stay late. I was already at the building by the time I found out so I braved being the only girl and went on my own. Luckily there was another girl there that night; unluckily she was an 18-yr-old champion Black Belt LOL. I felt mediocre compared to her, but I was there to exercise so I didn’t let it get to me. It was weird that, until I told her, she thought I was younger than her. That made me feel a little better, heh.

We had a bar-b-q for Noelia’s birthday that Saturday. We chilled out till late evening. The lights went out and you could hear kids screaming randomly throughout both houses LOL. We collected all of them, brought them to my living room and Mario and I began lighting candles everywhere. See? I told him all those scented candles would come in handy!!

We went outside and chilled out under the party porch. Emily was feeling sickly & NEEDS to be in the air conditioning or else she throws a fit. She wasn’t a happy camper. She began a screaming fit that caused us all to go bananas. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was a mixture of developing a diaper rash, being hot and being sleepy. When the lights and air came back on we dipped her in the bath and she fell right to sleep!

We went to town the next day. I saved $12.50 at Target by using a whole heckload of coupons they sent me! Right after that we went to Walmart for grocery shopping and…piercing Emily’s ears! I’d been meaning to do it since she was 4 months old (she’s 6 months now for those who don’t know), but something kept coming up. Mom wanted to get them done for her like she did Alaethia’s, so did. We met Yadira, Tommy and the kiddos at Walmart and Angela got her ears re-pierced too. She went first. Emily went next and my heart almost thumped out of my chest when I held her on my lap. Yazmin snapped away with my camera for me. The girl sanitized and put the little earring gun to her ear and she was fine…until I whispered, “She didn’t cry!” And all hell broke loose LOL. Poor baby couldn’t stop. By the time she’d calmed down enough to get the other ear done a crowd had formed to witness what was happening to the poor baby LOL.

Emily & her newly pierced ears!! Poor baby was hysterical :(.

She calmed down and seemed like nothing ever even happened once we started walking around the store and shopping. Thank goodness. I felt like an awful mother LOL. But at least we got it over with, and before her Baptism, too.

We spent the whole first week of September’s evenings at Taekwondo practice because the belt test would be that Saturday. The boys were doing magnificently; they were totally ready except for a few tiny things they had to work on. I, on the other hand, was NOT getting the darn form! I couldn’t understand why we had to turn the way we were, or why we were doing this block or that punch. I felt like an idiot and I just wanted to quit.

Didn’t help that Monday night, while getting out of my extremely high (well, for me) van, I hurt my darn left foot! So I couldn’t kick as well as I had been just the week before. Mario went to see me that night and I felt shy and embarrassed LOL. He said I was doing really well, though!

By the time Wednesday came around my left foot was still hurting and since I couldn’t balance very well on it, I wasn’t kicking (pi-chagis) correctly with my right foot and was hurting my toes! But the workouts were really intense. I’m not very big on running, because I have boobs of course, but I like the type of workouts we do. You work everything out. I wasn’t going to weigh myself till Saturday, because I’d weighed myself the Saturday before (weighed 130.5), but I couldn’t wait. I weighed 126.5! I hadn’t weighed anything in the 120s since before I had Emily and right after I did (but gained a lot back, unfortunately)!!

So that was my new motivation to keep going. Ever since I’d started Taekwondo I began really watching what I ate, because I kept telling myself I worked out too hard (REALLY HARD) to fuck it all up by stuffing my face with everything I saw.

I remembered taking video of the boys with Ernesto, the older teacher, when he taught them the white belt form step-by-step, number-by-number. And I found it! I studied it and within 30 minutes I learned it!!! I wasn’t a failure; just needed to understand the rhyme and rhythm behind it!

I was so ready to show off my form that night and when it came down to it, I messed up a step LOL. I just get nervous. Which is why I decided I wasn’t ready to take the test that Saturday. Norma’d been going 4 weeks already and she was ready. The only crappy thing was I didn’t want to be the only adult white belt left!

Oh, I forgot to mention: that Tuesday Mario and I finally went to the credit union to get a personal loan out to consolidate (on our own) our credit card bills. We were paying up the ass a month for them, especially now that every single one had upped the interest rate a month before Obama’s new law goes into effect. It was becoming ridiculous. It took some doing, but in the end we’re paying about half a month for 4 years now, fixed rate and everything. I feel so…liberated!! No more credit cards for us. It was the stupidest thing we’ve done as a married couple to rack up those darn things. From now on, if we don’t have the money for it, we’re not buying it!! Except for Home Depot…we always need that one! And it’s easy to pay off!

Since we didn’t have practice Friday I took the afternoon to pay off all the bills that could be done at the stores. I even ended up finding two size 8 red polos for the boys. I returned two of the medium ones they didn’t like because they were too long.

We had Annie’s sister’s (Marci’s) baby shower to go to on Saturday. We got to chit-chat with Annie, eat and then had to run and pick up the boys on time to get them to the belt test. I was so nervous for them! Poor Eenan was really nervous. He kept putting his hands in his face and even asked for a bathroom break. They did really well, though, I was so proud! They even had to break a board at the end of the test, which took all of us by surprise! Jaylen did a Chito-chagi kick (a straight up and down kick) and broke it. Eenan did an open-palm punch and broke it. It was amamzing! I wish I had the pics up to show you guys! I’ll post them here when I get the chance.

I started feeling like I could do the test, too, but there was no way I’d get to talk to anyone about it. I began to feel silly because I was actually becoming a little emotional about not testing LOL. Jaylen had gone over to Norma’s to play with Aaron so I went to pick him up and her hubby told me I should inquire about testing. I couldn’t do it, though. I quickly made dinner (enchiladas) and went to see Norma test. I totally could have done it!! The yellow belts testing for yellow advanced had to spar and I got a little scared when one of my former students was sparring and kicked another kid in the teeth! It chipped his tooth; sounded like someone had snapped a twig or something. I’m not so sure I want to be doing that part…

Andy and Noelia came over Sunday morning. Andy was going hunting with Mario’s uncles and Noelia, Mary, Mario, the kiddos and I actually went to church on Sunday. Well, the girls stayed with Mom. We’re going to try and start going every Sunday. Mario came to me one day and told me he’d like to try, and I’ve always wanted to so we’re going through with it. Mario had some work to do, but I went to the movies with Emily, the boys, Mary and Noelia to watch Aliens in the Attic. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! Alaethia had a fun day of shopping with Mom, Elda and her mom LOL.

Monday was another normal day. Mary went with us to the boys’ Taekwondo where I asked Luis about possibly testing during the week for my yellow belt. He said sure, we’d practice that night and if I was ready maybe I could take the test the next day. Awesome!

He taught the boys the yellow belt form that night. Jaylen, who’s much more eager about learning Taekwondo that Eenan, wanted to watch the video I’d recorded of them doing the form so I found it and everyone watched him practice. He learned it! I realized it was 7:30 and got in to take a shower really quick. No time for dinner, but I felt good enough to wait till after practice. Big mistake. We were doing Moola kicks, which require you to spin and I was dizzy halfway through class! I was grateful when we got our water break and stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth. I didn’t feel any better by the end of class. Couldn’t even finish doing the lunges or jumping jacks–so embarrassing. I took a seat and tried to collect myself. The room was spinning and turning colors and I was shaking like a leaf. A chihuahua’s actually what I imagined myself like that night, LOL.

I got into the car and sat there, shaking, for 10 minutes, until I saw that just about everyone was leaving the dojo. I don’t know how I drove home, but I did. I just wanted to get home and rest, but Eenan couldn’t find his backpack anywhere so we searched and searched. It was nowhere to be found. We got ready for bed and I just didn’t feel good. Sure enough, an hour after I laid down I started vomiting. Like there was no tomorrow. And other unpleasant things. I did so 3 times during the night, which is crazy because it takes A LOT for me to throw up.

I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water or Gatorade. I still don’t know what the heck happened. Food poisoning? My sugar being too low? A stomach bug? I don’t know. But it was awful.

I felt horrible the entire next day. Thank God Mario was off work. He had a lot to do that day though, so he wasn’t around very much. Mom was thankfully here to help me with the girls. Luis had also called to set up a test time for me, which would be the next morning but I told him I just couldn’t. Maybe next week?

I’m not even sure I want to go back. I got scared. If this did have something to do with my sugar, I don’t want to have another episode like that AGAIN. And this is the 3rd time I go to Taekwondo without eating before. But we’ll see. I’ll finish off the month, maybe test. I definitely don’t want to get into sparring, especially with the guys! Call me a chicken or what have you but I have enough problems with my teeth without having them be knocked out. And my 4 children need their mother in one piece. I just wanted to lose some weight!!

The next day was Mary’s birthday and we went to Andy and Noelia’s to celebrate. I’d kept down some crackers and a Ramen noodles so I figured it was ok to eat. Well, I ATE. Shrimp, corn on the cob, steak and chocolate cake I’d made. Needless to say I felt gross the entire next day, but I didn’t get sick at all, thank goodness. I just couldn’t eat till the evening because I was nauseous.

It’s been raining like crazy lately and with rain comes power outages, all the time. We had a thunderstorm that day that brought along with it a power outage and power surge that shorted the modem’s power supply, the HDMI cable, Alaethia’s TV, our phone and our DVD player! Thank GOD my laptop was okay!

I felt well enough to go to the store with Mom and walk down the block with Emily to take a picture of a rainbow we’d seen. I ate chili and that went well so glad that’s over!

And then I woke up this morning with a damn cold!! Emily’d gotten sick a few nights ago and the three other kiddos already had colds so it was bound to happen with my immune system being so weak right now. I’ve got tissues stuffed up my nose as I type this. Not really how I imagined spending my Friday night, but beggars can’t be choosers *shrug*. At least I’m not puking!!

The First Half of Mother’s Day

Tues., May 5th – I got the boys ready for school and stayed awake to search online for the perfect new upgrade to my Kodak Z650. Mario had been trying since Christmas to get me to find myself a new camera but I just felt way too guilty. Since Mother’s Day was coming up he told me, again, to pick out a camera for him to buy me. He said this time he wasn’t going to stop bugging until I got one so I said fine, if you insist, heh.

I originally wanted a 12MP Kodak with 15x zoom like Noelia and Andy’s (I forget what the actual name was), but I found an even more awesome one searching through Walmart.com! The Kodak Easyshare Z980. I fell in love. 12MP with 24x optical zoom?? Heaven!

Even though I shouldn’t have, I applied for the Walmart credit card because I’d feel better (i.e. not guilty for buying myself something so extravagant) giving monthly payments on it (with no interest!) than just slapping $400 on the counter in the store. Mario pushed me to get next-day shipping, which added $14 to the final purchase of $400.16. I loved the reviews I read all over the web about this camera; people compared it to Nikons and Canons that cost $1,000 more!

Emily was kind of grouchy that day and wouldn’t stay with Mom for anything. I don’t know what it is about Mom, or if it’s just that she is that attached to me, but she just doesn’t like Mom sometimes LOL.

Since it was Mario’s day off I went with him to Home Depot to get a few more “final” things for the living room; this time the materials for the doors. How many times have I said that already; that we’re getting the final things? LOL It’s never-ending with home improvement projects. Anyway, Mario was having a fit because he couldn’t find the proper door jambs and thresholds we needed for the doors. His way to do things is: if you can’t do/find something, you give up and stop/leave. That’s not how I roll. I searched and searched until I found the right parts, even though he kept threatening to leave me. Grr.

As for the potty training, Alaethia did somewhat okay. I feared leaving her behind with Mom while we went to Home Depot because I was afraid Mom would be too busy with Emily and Alaethia would have an accident. I sort of banned her from the living room because I was afraid she pee/poop on the sofa or rug LOL. She did have a few accidents, about 2 while we were at Home Depot and 1 poo accident. She left a nice dollop next to her potty chair. Lovely.

I spent that night updating my entries from the first week of April (right now, it’s July 9th and I’m barely updating for May, ha!) so I went to sleep pretty late. It was becoming the norm to sleep late, though. I’m just glad the girls are on my schedule and that Emily’s a pretty darn good sleeper for being 2 1/2 months!

Wed., May 6th – At this point I don’t even remember if I even got up to make Mario breakfast before he left to work that morning, but I do know for sure that I slept in till around 11am. I only woke up at that time because Elvira, my old co-worker and good friend, called my cell telling me she was driving around La Joya looking for my house. I literally sprang out of bed and washed up, brushed my teeth and hair, put on some decent clothes and frantically picked up toys and clothes and flung them into my bedroom. My dishes from the night before were in the sink and the floor wasn’t mopped. Why do I always get company when the house looks like hell, yet when I clean no one bothers to come over?!

Anyway, I apologized for my mess and was so glad for her company. We caught up on goings-on at work, I told her about labor/delivery and how wonderful Emily is and she told me about her daughter’s appointment in Houston about her seizures. Unfortunately the news wasn’t what they’d hoped for, so Sabrina would have to continue with her meds, which Elvira wasn’t happy about giving her since there are so many. I have to say, I admire Elvira; she has so much on her plate yet she’s always doing for everyone else and is always cheerful.

Elvira visited for 2 hours and left back to work so she could pick up Sabrina on time. Alaethia was well-behaved during the visit and even hammed it up and took pictures with Elvira and Emily.

She had two pee-pee accidents that morning. I didn’t know what to do to get her to stop peeing everywhere. I even went so far as to read back my old entries from when I was potty-training Eenan and Jaylen to see if I could get any ideas! I tried being patient with her, but oh my gosh, I was boiling inside. I didn’t know what to do!

As I was checking my e-mail I heard something on Headline News about Jon & Kate. I turned up the volume and couldn’t believe what I heard: he really was cheating! I followed this show from the first episode–no, from the first special they had about the sextuplets. I never really get into celebrity news, but I just love this show because it was sweet and it showed them doing regular family stuff and discipline (her kids actually stay in time out, what?!) so I was really heartbroken when I realized their marriage might just not make it with all the tabloid fodder and Jon’s behavior in general. See what I mean about getting into it? LOL

Anyway, upon checking my e-mail I noticed my camera would arrive sometime that afternoon! Woo! I took Emily with me to Mary’s house since I’d see the UPS truck better from over there and waited. Alaethia stayed here at home with Mom since her potty chair was in her room since she wasn’t making it all the way to the bathroom when it was in there. I was at Mary’s for about half an hour when I asked Mom to come over and wait with the girls (and the potty chair, heh) at Mary’s for the UPS guy because I had to pick up the boys. I asked Mom how Alaethia was doing and she said she’d gone in the potty each time she needed to pee and even pooped once! I guess she just needed a break from my “OH MY GOD!’s” when I’d find her drenched in her pee. Mom’s got a more gentle approach LOL.

I spent 2 hours perched on Mary’s sofa waiting for my package. I’d just tweeted at 5:59 about how impatient I was becoming and how I had to get dinner started when the UPS truck drove up at 6:01. I was so excited! My baby was here!

*SIGH*

I couldn’t even walk the few feet it would take to get to my house; I opened everything up right then and there at Mary’s. Of course immediately after I stuffed everything back in the box and went straight to my room to start trying out the settings. This was shot from across my room, no joke. Look at how clear it looks!

Close Up From Across The Room

The macro feature was amazing, and even more-so because it’s got a macro x2 feature! And the video! It’s HD quality and you can zoom in and out WHILE filming!

OK, enough of that, heh.

I’d taken Alaethia’s potty chair into the bathroom to get her used to going in there. She’d been doing great that whole day, ever since she was with Mom in the afternoon. She got a little excited though and kept asking to go pee because she was liking flushing the toilet LOL.

We got some awesome news that night. Chris and Nancy, after 4 years of marriage and trying those 4 years, finally conceived!! I’m so so happy for them and wish them all the best. It’s going to be so cute when Nancy finally shows because she’s super tiny! She’s even shorter than I am and much thinner!

Before I went to bed that night I ordered more Re-Ment sets! My Mother’s Day gift from Mom. And of course she ordered some for herself LOL. I ordered the Strawberry Picnic set, Strawberry Breakfast set, Antique Japanese set and the Old Fashioned Tableware set. I can’t wait to get them!

Thrus., May 7th – I heard a noise in the middle of the night (well, around 4am, really) and saw Alaethia get up and very sleepily used her potty. I took the potty chair into my bedroom just in case, and thank God I did. She was so cute; she kinda swayed back and forth with her eyes closed while she sat on the toilet, did her business and stumbled back into bed. It was the cutest thing ever!

Who knows if I woke up and turned off the alarm and went back to bed or if it didn’t go off at all, but I woke Mario up late for work. I hate when that happens because he’s running around muttering under his breath and I just feel all guilty and uncomfortable. Then I’m worried that he’s going to speed to get to work on time and get into a wreck or something, God forbid. When I called him later, though, he said he was a minute late but nothing dramatic happened.

Alaethia woke up nice and dry, I’m so proud of her. She’s got the general idea of potty training already, which means that it only took her 3 days to become potty trained! Keep in mind that this was the third time teaching her, though LOL.

I picked the boys up from school and they gave me their handmade gifts :). Jaylen gave me a cute tea pot card with a Lipton tea packet (aw!) and this cute card:

Jaylen's Gift to Me :)

And Eenan gave me a poem with magnets on the back to put on the fridge and this awesome canvas painting!!

My Artist!

I need to find a nice frame for it and display it in the kitchen!

While I had all the kiddos there (the boys are hard to catch with the girls because they’re always outside playing) and took this picture with my new camera:

All My Children

I can’t even articulate how absolutely blessed I feel. I love my babies! And my husband! And just everyone!

Just as I suspected, when I uploaded pictures to Flickr, it took an eternity! I can only download 10 or so pictures at a time at 12MP compared to around 50 6MP from my old Z650 camera.

One of the times Alaethia had to go to the bathroom she opened up the vanity doors and started messing with stuff under there. Gotta remember to get some cabinet locks. She started screaming when I took my nail polish bag away from her. She crossed her arms and yelled, “I’m running away!” I watched her to see what she would do and she did indeed run away…to my in-laws’ next door just like Eenan did when he was almost 3 LOL. Hilarious.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning up my desk. It’s insane how much crap I have.

Nothing Yet

I was uncomfortable most of yesterday, but today, Saturday (well, Sunday now) I’m fine–back to normal and still big and pregnant.

I couldn’t walk the majority of the day because of the pressure I felt down below, my aching back and my aching legs. It was awful. Everyone kept trying to convince me to either go to my doctor or go to the hospital. I started doing research online and about 80% of the sites I visited stated that I was in labor. I had no idea what to do. One, I didn’t want to drive myself all the way to Mission, since that’s where my doctor was on Fridays and two, I didn’t want to go to the hospital and have them send me back. So I waited.

I tried doing chores around the house to distract myself, but I couldn’t stand around long enough to do much. I spent a lot of the day chatting on Yahoo with Maggie and looking at pictures on Flickr.

Rolando came by around 5:30 to play with the kids. I had a houseful of boys (Elda’s were here, too) and I kind of just sat around waiting again. Mary and Big Mario went out for dinner and when they got back, Mary went with me and Eenan to drop off Rolando. Mario got home right after we got back and we kind of just sat around in silence, waiting. I’d already packed most of my bags during the day; now all I needed was our cosmetic bag and for Mario to find clothes for himself, just in case.

Around 8:30 I told Mario I was going to shower. When I got out I started feeling worse and finally listened to Mario’s requests about calling the doctor just to see what he recommended. I kept telling him they wouldn’t be any help but called anyway. A guy answers and asks what I need, so I start describing everything to him. He cuts me off–the bastard–and asks for my name and number so someone can call me back. Grr.

Mary had all the kids. She’d volunteered to have them all stay with her overnight, just in case we needed to rush to the hospital. We were still sitting around, waiting for either labor to really kick in or the doctor to call back. When we’d been waiting around 20 minutes, we decided to pack all our stuff in the Equinox and go to Jorge and Maggie’s to distract ourselves.

We stopped by Stars first to pick up some dinner for ourselves. We got to Jorge and Maggie’s and they were eating also. The guys put on Sex Drive, possibly one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen LOL and they watched it while Maggie, Sandra (Maggie’s neice) and myself were looking through Maggie’s nail stuff. She got some new Fimo clay accessories and wanted to try them out. We decided what we wanted and she went to work on my nails first (proper ventilation and masks were provided). It took a while, but they came out SO CUTE!

Yummy Nails By Maggie

I love them. I couldn’t stop staring at them when she was done. I wish I’d stuck around to see how Sandra’s came out, but it was already 2am by the time we left.

Mario and I got home and spent some time together since none of the kids were around LOL. Maybe then I’d go into labor the following day.

But nope. I woke up after only sleeping 6 hours and felt just fine. Emily was moving around wonderfully in the morning and I felt nothing like I did Friday. We got up and ready and got the kids ready to go to Target so Jaylen could get the new game he was saving up for and Walmart for some sports equipment. Mario finally decided he needed to start playing some type of sport with the kids now that we’ve weaned them off their video games during the week.

We got the sports stuff (baseball gloves, baseballs and a soccer ball) from Walmart and then went to Target to try and find Jaylen’s game. They were all out. We went to Home Depot next, where Mario got some stuff to install a proper light switch and outlet outside.

We figured we’d give Game Stop a try for Jaylen’s game, and we did find it, although it was about $6 more. He didn’t care. He just wanted the darn thing already.

We got home and Mario started working on the stuff outside. He’s very handy, but even so I did catch the lights flickering and wondered if he’d electrocuted himself. It was a close call, but he survived LOL.

Alaethia took a nap and I plugged in the baby monitor and just surfed the web outside with Mario. The weather was so nice during the day today I had to take advantage.

Adan and Aide showed up and the guys decided they’d have another beer night. They went to get bread and chips to make sandwiches and we just chilled out all evening under the party porch. It started getting really chilly for the girls (Alaethia and Belle), and admittedly, for us, too, so Alaethia and I have been inside for a while. Thought I’d update while I was still conscious. I’m really tired now.

I’m starting to become a little anxious about when Emily will actually be here. I was hoping it would be this weekend but I guess not. I’m telling you, at this rate I really am going to make it to my due date!