Category: Doh!

I’m still alive, but just barely. Kidding…Sort of…

I’m still trying to get used to waking up at 5:30am. That’s really the only thing I dislike about working: the exhaustion from lack of sleep thing.

I totally thought Alaethia was sleeping through the night since she’d done so well Sunday and Monday night. Sunday night we went to sleep at 10pm and she didn’t wake up for a bottle till after I left at 6:20am, mom said. That was the most restful night of sleep I’ve had in a year!

I told my boss and just around everyone around me how happy I was that she was sleeping through. I spoke way too soon. We went to sleep at around 9:30 last night (EARLIEST I’ve slept since I was pregnant with her!). She was up for a bottle at 2:20am — and stayed awake, playing and cooing happily, till 3:43! I joked with Mario about calling in (he actually stayed up with us!) and set the alarm for 5:50 instead of 5:30.

I wake up at 5:28 and sigh with relief because I still have a few more minutes. I wake up again and look at the clock: 6:47!!! I had just woken up and I was ALREADY late to work! Stupid alarm didn’t go off! I’d never gotten ready so fast. Thank God I’d already packed my lunch the night before and just grabbed everything and ran out of the house. Mom was already waiting outside to watch Alaethia and for the first time ever I wish she’d knocked, loudly, on my window or something! As I’m fumbling with my junk, I’m getting my cell out to call my boss and tell her I’m super late and the phone rings in my hands. I’m panicking, because I think, ‘She’s going to scold me!’

I answer, it’s her and I start babbling 100 miles a minute about how sorry and late I am and she says, “Well, that makes two of us.” LOL I was SO RELIEVED.

I joked with everyone about it all day. I’m so glad they bring me breakfast along with our two student aids. I don’t know how I would have survived till lunch at 12:30! I’m even going to get to make up the 39 (!) minutes I was late tomorrow, so that’s cool. I thought Veronica, the girl in charge of punch-ins, punch-outs was going to yell at me, because just yesterday she was praising me for what a good job I was doing about being prompt. We laughed that she’d jinxed me and all was good. I’m so glad!

It was an overall good day, although I’ve been doing the same thing for about 5 days straight: inputting students into the Reading Renaissance system and the library system. 700+ kids, every-single-one. It’s cool though, I don’t mind being on the computer and it makes time pass quickly.

As for the weekend, it was the usual cramming everything into two days thing. I finally went to Goodwill on Saturday and scored two awesome brand-new frames from Target and 2 sets of glass tumblers, which we needed! All for $12! We visited Gramma and then went to Target.

Sunday was Mary’s 50th birthday so we got together at Yadira’s to celebrate. We all pitched in to give her a surprise party and it actually worked out! We had a really nice time. I hope she did, too :).

I spoke to Sally after almost a month because her phone messed up. We’ll hopefully meet up this Saturday with Carmen and Karina. I’ve also got to cram in getting the boys’ tuxes, mom’s and my dresses, and Yazmin’s necklace sometime this weekend too!

Alaethia started standing all on her own on Monday (9-10-07), right when I got here from work. She just stood up in her playpen to greet me :). She’d been trying since she was 6 months old and finally got it. We already lowered her crib down, just to be on the safe side.

I took Eenan to the doctor that day after school to get his Varicella vaccine, finally. He didn’t even cry! He was so proud of himself, and so was I of course :).

I had to pick up Jaylen’s Singulair since he’d run out and was already starting to get a runny nose and had that funny cough he does. I wonder what exactly he’s allergic to? I wouldn’t want to put him through the test though–I hear it’s brutal on them :(.

Eenan had UIL practice today so I picked Jaylen and Brandon up from school. I spoke to his teacher and she said he’s incredibly smart *beams*. I’m so darn proud of all my kiddos :).

Okay, it’s 10. Time for bed! Gotta make sure that alarm’s working first!

Alaethia is finally taking her before-bed nap so I thought I’d update real quick. (She’s also finally better, thank you for your comments!)

I’ve been way too enthralled in my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book that I haven’t had the urge to get online. That, and I’m afraid I’ll go into a random site and the end will be ruined for me. That site I linked in one of my previous blogs — the one they mentioned on CNN — was the real thing, pictures and all (which is why they probably took them down. I went back the next day after I linked it and it wouldn’t show the pics, then the site wouldn’t load at all.). So…I know who’s going to die since I saw the very first line when the site loaded. I’m on pins and needles, anxious to know when this character will meet their untimely death. *sigh* It’s been great so far; very action-packed. I can’t wait to finish reading it.

I’m writing mainly to document Alaethia’s 6-month-birthday :). (I shall update about this weekend later.) I can’t believe this little lady’s already been with us this long, and at the same time it feels like she was never missing from our lives.

My poor girl’s already had her first virus and has had at least 3 different colds. I’ve learned that when she’s at her fussiest, when her bottle nor rocking her will put her to sleep, slipping a blanket or wash cloth over her eyes will put her right to sleep. She never took a pacifier, which is great since this is the month I would have weaned her off it anyway. She maneuvers her walker with ease now that her feet lay flat on the floor. Her crawling is getting much better, but it’s still not a true crawl — yet. She likes to “feed herself” when it’s time to eat. She gets food everywhere so it’s a good thing she loves her bath time.

And separation anxiety? I didn’t know they could suffer from that at this age; she screams as soon as she loses sight if me. Even if someone else has her and she’s being walked around (which she absolutely loves), she won’t stop crying until I get her. Then she’s all fine and dandy as if nothing ever happened.

She’s still taking 4 ounces of milk, loves water in sippy cups, and is going through an I-don’t-want-to-eat-anything-stage. Before that though, her favorite food was squash.

She’s my only child who’s slept in a crib and before catching the Roseola Virus, she’d been sleeping anywhere from 5-7 hours a night (if she’d fall asleep at 2am — her usual bedtime), would wake for a bottle and diaper change and would sleep another 4 hours. Now we’re back to her waking every 3-4 hours, but we’ll hopefully get that fixed along with getting her to sleep earlier (she’s been crashing at 1am now. Mama needs more sleep!).

Her temperament is just wonderful. She’s even more sweet and beautiful than I ever imagined she’d be.

I had a morning of broken sleep yesterday, and it wasn’t because of Alaethia. It was because of that damn phone. I leave it on in case of emergencies but I’m seriously going to start disconnecting it until I’m ready to wake up. I gave up on sleeping after the third call and made Alaethia a bottle since I heard her stirring in her crib. I get a call 10 minutes later from Maggie. She’s in the area and stopping by. Mario was already up and gone by the time I got up. He arrived a few seconds before Maggie did with McDonald’s — lovely breakfast of cheeseburgers.

(Okay, I’m watching Scarred Trauma Live on MTV and they just showed this guy named Kenny Hughes trying to grind down a rail and ripped his butthole up and had to get stitches between his butt cheeks. Seriously. That’s just wrong. This show makes me PRAY that my sons never take up skateboarding. I actually had half of this whole entry written and I got so grossed out with this other guy who totally cracked his CALF BONES in two that I pressed something and it wiped my entry clean.)

Anyway, Maggie and I searched for jobs online and then we just chilled out. Mom got home from her doctor’s appointment in time to make it to the movie, so we got ready an extra hour early (not counting the other hour we were keeping open to get good seats) to get extra tickets for Maggie and John. And by “got ready” I mean getting everyone dressed, getting Alaethia’s diaper bag ready with her things plus stuffing two Hi-Cs for the boys inconspicuously under an extra onesie and her formula; and stuffing a few candies in my bag. The men left in the Equinox, the women (and Eenan) in Maggie’s car. We got the tickets and still had about an hour and a half to waste so we went to Home Depot since Mario needed to get some tools. Maggie and I oohed and ahhed over stuff and discussed painting. Mario got what he needed and we got a rug for the boys’ room, finally. Thank goodness for our HD credit card.

We went back to the theatre and bought popcorn and drinks for the adults. The boys play at the arcade for a while and when they start seating for Order of the Phoenix, we get in line to get our tickets checked. My worst theatre nightmare began to unfold in front of my eyes. Mom, Maggie and the kids get through, I pass, and then they hold John and Mario back. Mario’s holding the diaper bag. I’m assuming it looked suspicious (A MAN holding a diaper bag? What?) because they tell him they need to check the bag. He looks up at me, startled, and I stare back, wide-eyed. I’m thinking, I’m not going to get to watch Harry Potter because I sneaked Hi-Cs into the movies. NO…I’m not ever going to be allowed back into the theatre, ever!

I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. Maggie turns her back to us and says, “I can’t look!” They zipped open the bag, in slow motion, and gave Mario a nod to go ahead. WHEW! I asked him, — when we were a good distance away — “Did they see the drinks?” He looks totally in awe and said, “No. I guess they were really hidden!” He told me later during the movie that his heart sank when they stopped him LOL.

All in all, the movie was awesome. It’s Harry Potter, what can I say. Alaethia slept the entire time, except for the last 10 minutes. The boys were great — well, Jaylen fell asleep for a little bit. Eenan came to sit with Mario when the action started and he only got mildly teary-eyed. I won’t give my opinions out in the open because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but if you’d like to read what I thought scroll down to the “more” section.

(I think I might pee myself or vomit if I keep watching Scarred. This guy just tore open his NUTS. But I can’t turn away!)

We went to Mario’s work so he could pick something up and then we just chilled out at home. Mario left (or escaped, like John says) and I had break from the boys since they went over to Mary’s. They came back and we had a simple dinner of sandwiches. I fed Alaethia and bathed her. The boys ended up sleeping over at Mary’s and Mario and I had a lovely evening of surfing the web, playing with Alaethia and eating ice cream while watching Talladega Nights. Intimacy? What’s that?

As for today, I would have liked to stay home and thoroughly clean this place, but I wanted to go to Target to get the boys the Transformers bedding sets since it was the last day they’d be on sale. We got two sets of sheets and only one comforter at the first Target we went to, plus two tank tops for me (I only like the Mossimo ones from there and they were on clearance!), a cereal storage container, and a game that the kids bought with their combined money. Mom got Eenan his birthday gift, too. We ended up having to go to another Target in McAllen, since that was the only one that had comforters in twin-size. target is going to raise my credit limit on my card up to $10,000–we’re such good customers.

We got a bit lost on the way there since I took the “back road”, thanks to Mario’s shoddy directions. I eventually found the place. We got what we needed then had lunch at Chick-fil-A. Yum. I’d been wanting to eat there since forever. Mom’s treat :). Alaethia was such a good girl, even though she had me carrying her the whole time we were there. She’s been such a good girl in general lately, though. I love her to bits!

We visited Gramma for a while, where Alaethia was having a blast playing hide-and-seek with Gramma. Gramma was laying down and I was sitting at the foot of her bed with Aly on my lap and Jaylen next to me, shielding Aly’s view of Gramma. Aly kept leaning back to catch a glimpse of Gramma and when Gramma would talk to her Aly would hide in my neck and giggle. She did this about 20 times till she got bored and made me stand up. We came home, I made dinner, we chilled out at Mary’s, I got Jaylen’s bed ready with his new sheets (I didn’t do Eenan’s yet since he’s sleeping over at Mary’s, again, and Aly quickly got bored with her toys in her crib), and now I’m here updating with a sleeping Aly at my side. I’m hoping I’ve gotten her to start sleeping a bit earlier. That would make life even SWEETER.

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