Category: Events

So I guess it’s safe to say that it’s going to take me forever to “catch up” on my backed-up entries. I update almost daily, believe it or not, but I update to a super-long Word document since I’m trying to keep the entry numbers in order. Screw that, I say. I’m just going to update again starting from today and worry about adding the backed-up ones when I have a chance (which isn’t too often because of Emily and Alaethia LOL).

I guess I feel like I *have* to remember everything 1) because Emily’s my last baby and 2) because I was so caught up with work and life in general when Alaethia was a baby and I feel like I missed out on a lot, entry-wise and milestone-wise. I don’t even think I ever got to add the entry about her first birthday party! 🙁

So far, things are going really well. The boys are wonderful with Emily, especially Jaylen, who’s a really confident big brother. If she starts crying while she’s in her bassinet or swing and Jaylen notices that I’m busy, he’ll gladly unfasten her from the swing and carry her or pick her up out of the bassinet. It’s amazing watching him with her. Eenan’s good with her too, but he gets a little more nervous when she cries.

Alaethia’s also very good with her. She has her moments when she gets over-excited and starts patting her a little too enthusiastically on her head (ack, the soft spot!) but for the most part she’s great. I think she’s finally realized that Emily’s a real baby and not a dolly.

Emily’s pretty awesome at night. She has these little bouts of complete awakeness sometimes for about 2-3 hours straight, but she’s getting better. She’s my first baby to actually have a pattern. I know exactly when she’s going to be awake and asleep at night and during the day. She’s really happy and easy to care for for the most part.

The only problem we’ve been having is that, yes, a week after I stopped breastfeeding she started having trouble pooping. She’s 5 weeks old this week, as of yesterday, and she’s finally doing much better in that department.

Speaking of, she turned a month old on the 24th!

Isn’t she a beauty?? So far, everyone says she looks like me, but I don’t really see it except for maybe our noses LOL. And maybe the skin color, but she’s still lighter than me. She’s light like Mom and Gramma.

My dad-in-law was going to surprise us with a new addition to the house, a bigger living room! He decided to tell us about it because he thought we’d get a bit suspicious when new walls started going up LOL.

I’m so excited! Big Mario designed the room (it’s part of the old party porch, heh) and Mario’s designing the whole entertainment part of the room. That corner where Mario and his dad are standing in the photo is where the built-in entertainment shelf will be and there’ll be another on the opposite side (the south wall) for books and picture frames and whatnot. I really can’t wait to see it done, though there’s a lot to do, like leveling the floors, removing that darn tree stump:

and sanding the hardwood floors and varnishing them before the insulation and drywall goes up.

Mario and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary on the 27th. We didn’t get to do much because he was working tons of overtime (they were having this pain-in-the-ass show at the convention center that his boss waited till the last minute to tell them about) and of course we didn’t have much money. But we did go to one of our favorite restaurants, Kumori, for sushi.

As for yesterday, I took Alaethia and Eenan for check-ups at the doctor. Alaethia had her 2-year physical. She was such a good girl! She was excited about her appointment. She was very quiet and well-behaved when the doctor was checking her chest for her heart-murmur (she still has it so she’ll have another appointment with the specialist) and she didn’t even cry during her shot!

Eenan’s been having trouble with squinting at school so I took him in just in case and sure enough, he’ll be needing glasses again. He doesn’t want to wear them, I think mostly because there’s a class bully and he’s having enough trouble with him already. He hasn’t singled Eenan out; everyone has trouble with him. But still.

I got home and literally carried Emily around for about 2 hours. That’s the only thing about Emily: she’s a wonderful baby, but it’s hard to get things done because she wants to be held. And not just by anyone–it has to be me. It makes me feel great, that she knows when I’m holding her and that she wants to be with me all the time, but I do have to cook and clean the house once in a while!

I gave her to Mom to hold and started dinner. Jorge, Maggie and the kids were coming over so I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and deviled eggs. It was the first time in a long time that I actually got to make a nice meal.

We chilled out eating inside and then we went out to talk with Mom and Elda. We sat in the new living room–well, whatever’s built so far of the living room LOL. Then we joined the guys (Mario, Jorge and Adan) outside and talked and joked till around 12:30am.

I was supposed to go to the doctor this morning so Dr. C. can assess the cyst I need removed from my wrist, and I did, but I went late since I didn’t have anyone to watch the girls while I showered. Mom came over around 9:45 and I left around 10:30. The office was packed and they weren’t seeing patients anymore so I’d have to wait till after 2 and go to Mission. I figured I’d pack up the router we’d just gotten last week (that really, really sucks) and return it at Target while I was already in Mission.

*whew* This feels good. To post an entry on the actual day OF the entry. I hope to keep up from now on!

The day of Emily’s baby shower!

I woke up around 10am and went over to Mary’s to help with potato peeling and whatever else they needed help with. Mona, Elda and Mom were already there helping. We started putting everything into the trucks so Mary, Mona and Elda could take everything to the hall.

Once I was done helping out I came to shower and straighten my hair. I thought I was going to have enough time to do everything, but as always, I ended up having to rush. Noelia got here around that time. I bathed Alaethia and got her dressed in the cute yellow bumblebee outfit Sonia bought her from Gymboree for her birthday. She threw such a fit while I was trying to do her hair—she hates for anyone to mess with her hair—so it took around 20 minutes to do her hair alone.

So I’m getting all her stuff together and finally start getting dressed myself when Noelia and Mary come in to see what I need help with. They were both dressed in cute dresses and cardigans…and I looked at my clothes and I was in a (really cute, but still) blouse and jeans. I decided to completely scrap the jeans and put on my black and white giraffe print dress and black cardigan. But then I looked down at my legs and realized I didn’t shave during my shower. Great. I hiked up my dress, used a washcloth to wet and lather up my legs with soap and started shaving. I cut myself in 3 different places, which is really weird because I have that Lady Shick razor and never cut myself, but I guess I was in that much of a hurry. I re-rinsed my legs with a clean washcloth, slapped on my makeup and Mom, Jaylen and I were out the door. Eenan went with us to Alaethia’s baby shower two years ago but decided he’d rather go with Mario to Jorge’s (Mario’s Nino) to start prepping for the Superbowl Party.

We arrived about 8 minutes late. Mona, Elda, Noelia, Mary of course, Sonia, Yadira and kids were already there. I walked around saying hello and aunts of co-workers of Mary’s started showing up. The aunts that said they weren’t going to make it because basically, the Superbowl was more important, really didn’t show up. Sally and Carmen had already told me they couldn’t; Sally had prior plans and Carmen’s little girl was sick, plus she had to get ready to ship out for the Army (!), so they didn’t make it. But all my other friends…they didn’t show up either. It was pretty disappointing. They didn’t even have to bring a gift…it would have been nice just to see them.

Aunt Nora at least got to go, and that’s because I let her know at the last minute because I’d sent the invite to Justin and he forgot to tell her about it, heh. The games were fun. Mary had them make a baby out of Bubble Yum bubble gum. It was between Norma D. and Venessa’s baby, so they both got a prize.

They also played a word scramble and then The Price Is Right. That one was a little difficult, but around 4 people ended up tied with 1 right each LOL.

We had bingo and the food that Mary made herself (chicken in celery sauce, corn, mashed potatoes and a roll). It was delicious. Everyone kept asking if she’d gotten the event catered!

Jaylen took his DS so he was entertained for the most part. He did get a little teary-eyed when bingo was over and he hadn’t won anything LOL. Alaethia was running around with all the other babies, especially Belle. And when she’d get bored there was always someone who wanted to hold her, so she was happy.

They had a few more games and then Elda, Yadira, Mary and I served dessert, while Natalie, Yazmin and . The cake was great, even though, as always, the lady messed up on the colors. The grapefruit pie and everything else was awesome. Everyone started leaving around this time, except for close family. They waited patiently for my slow butt to finish my dessert and then they made a huge circle of chairs around the gift table to watch me open gifts

There were so many cute, tiny things! Emily has tons of new clothes, plus her hand-me-downs for Alaethia and Vicky—this girl will NEVER run out of clothes!

I was amazed at everyone’s generosity! I had to really cram everything into the back of the Equinox to make everything fit! Aide was a doll and helped so much with putting everything up. She said I shouldn’t be doing anything because I’m pregnant. As she was walking away with a ton of bags I’m thinking, “Hello?! You’re pregnant, too!”

Yes, she is! They’d told us the day before. We’d just been talking about how they’d been trying for months now and still nothing at Jorge and Mona’s housewarming party the week before. Annie said that pregnancies usually come in 3’s, so she was surprised that no one else was pregnant along with me. She said it’ll either be Aide, Noelia, Elda, or Mona along with me. Aide had texted me, “Guess I’m one of the three!” LOL Let’s see who else is next!

We drove over to Jorge and Mona’s and met up with all the guys, who were already bar-b-q’ing and drinking. Mario and I went to Dollar General a few blocks away after a while to get dip, cheese and some of those 3-d glasses for the half-time show, or whatever it was. I ran into one of my students, Eric, when we were walking out the door. Once we got back we watched the game and ate and then the 3-d show started. It sucked. We couldn’t see a damn thing with those glasses LOL.

Most of the girls got bored and went inside to chat around the table. Then we moved our congregation to the living room where I copied the pictures Mona took at the baby shower to my SD card. Technology’s lovely.

As I was copying the pictures, Mario goes over to the sofa I was at and sits next to me. He tells me he’s tired and he wants to go home. I tell him okay, I’m almost done transferring the pictures. I’m into my conversation with Mona and Annie so I don’t notice that he leaves. I mean, really leaves. He doesn’t tell anyone anything, just stealthily disappears like a ninja. He calls me like 15 minutes later and tells me that yup, he didn’t want anyone to stop him from leaving so he just left. When we got home the old man was already asleep! Oh, but when I was working he was up every night till 2am!

I looked around and decided that I’d wait till the next day to put everything away. I had a long day!

Tues. Jan 20th – I don’t remember much from this day, oddly enough. It was probably another hectic day in the morning, downtime from 10-11, lunch at 11:30 and organizing the rest of the day.

I know for sure I didn’t want to go anywhere that evening. Mrs. Ruiz had brought me a huge bag-full of grapefruits from her trees at home a few days before and I had every intention of eating/using them. I decided I wanted grapefruit pie that night and I made it with Mario’s help. I hate making it because peeling the grapefruits is so tedious and it takes forever. I’d only made it once before this and I wasn’t too happy with the results at that time. As we were peeling the fruits Alaethia kept running over to us like a little puppy, opening her mouth for some grapefruit and running back to her room. She loved it. If all she could eat is fruit all day she’d be such a happy baby.

When the pies were done I stuck them in the fridge to cool. It was torture knowing I’d have to wait till lunchtime the next day to eat a piece. I’d be leaving one at home and taking one to work.

Wed. Jan 21st – I knew we’d be Benchmarking that day but I had no idea we’d be closing the library and testing kids there. We had a total of 3. Mrs. V. asked me to finish up the bulletin boards, and I really felt a sense of panic because Friday would be my last day and the bulletin boards were still not done. It’s not really like I could have done much anyway during the previous two weeks since I was busy with the usual every-day work, but still. I happily took my packs of construction paper to the copy room and got started using the die-cut machine. Mrs. V. called me from the copy room about 15 minutes later and asked me to sit with one of the kids testing in the library. I said sure. The cool thing was I could read while the student was testing and I actually got a bit further with my Twilight book.

The student I’d be sitting with was Orlie, one of my kids who usually came to visit me at the library. Or should I say who’d try to skip at the library LOL. He wanted to go at a faster pace than the other two students so he wanted to be separate. He reminds me a lot of Eenan. Eenan has to get distracted for a little bit with drawing or talking because he gets bored, or else he’ll become disruptive. So I let Orlie have some breaks and draw and then get back to work. He did my last name in these awesome graffiti letters and I laminated it. I kept all his drawings from that day, to remember him. He used to drive me nuts since last year—he never did what he was told and would roll his eyes or just plain ignore me when given a directive. He made a complete 360 from last year. He actually asked me not to leave, aww.

Since the library was already closed Mrs. V., Mrs. Ruiz and I all ate lunch together. We ate with the dance teacher, nurse, and a substitute. I offered everyone some of the grapefruit pie and they all loved it. I promised I’d type up some recipes and hand them out the next day.

The social committee had a baby shower after school for Mrs. Saenz and me. There were so many co-workers who couldn’t make it because they had afterschool activities, but they promised to get me a gift. I felt so odd and humbled at the same time. I wish they’d gotten a chance to actually be there and just have fun and not worried about gifts. They got to play 3 games and we ate and just talked about the babies and pregnancies. Mr. Dennett stopped by when everything was over and he, Mrs. V. and Mrs. Duty all stood around talking. Eric, one of our students, showed up later and helped Mrs. V. and I take things to the library and he took some cake with him to his guitar class. When I got home I opened my gifts and found out Mrs. Ruiz had given us a very generous gift! I couldn’t believe it; I even called to ask her if she’d maybe made a mistake! Of course she said she didn’t. I couldn’t believe how generous everyone was. We’re truly blessed to know such amazing people.