Category: Family

Started Monday by dropping John off at work and taking the kids to get haircuts. We totally forgot to take them on Friday and had things to do over the weekend so we didn’t have time. Most places are closed Sunday and Monday over here but thankfully Manny’s wife, Mayra’s, shop was open. She did a great job on the kids’ hair, thank goodness. Got them home and had them take showers and then I got to cleaning. I wanted to get together with Sally since it was her day off, but I knew if I didn’t start on the chores I wasn’t going to do them LOL.

The family drama that was going on over the weekend branched off into and got worse on Monday. So much so that big changes happened, such as the whole back yard got a thorough cleaning and Mario’s Chevelle is now parked in front of Mom’s apartment (the drama had nothing to do with Mario, however). It got crazy. I called Sally and we made plans to meet at 5:30. Crazy girl would not let me drive to McAllen–I feel so bad that she drives all the way over here when we get together!

I went to my appointment at 4, accompanied by John, who wanted the scoop on the drama since he had no idea what was going on. I figured once I’m done at my appointment, I’d get home and shower and blow dry/flat iron my hair so I can look decent for once. There was a big discussion going on about the drama over at Mary’s, and since I was too busy listening to the details I didn’t get a chance to get spiffy, heh.

Sally gets here around 6pm and we make plans about where to eat while on the road. We chit chat some more and then she tells me she has a surprise for me. She mentions something about “him” and I look at her, wide-eyed thinking to myself Woman, I am married!

Turns out she invited our childhood friend, Pete, to join us for dinner at Chilli’s. This was so awesome; I hadn’t seen Pete since 2001, when I ran into him at a gas station and I was a month pregnant with Jaylen, and before that, since I left McAllen in ’97.

We waited for him and got seated when he arrived. It was so nice seeing him and I kept thinking how great it was that after all these years, at the ages of 24, there we all were having dinner and great conversation. He’s the same Pete I knew back when we were little, albeit older and wiser :).

We reminisced about childhood and we laughed about how, in 3rd grade, Pete would come over to my house and he’d patiently listen to me sing Little Mermaid songs and we’d usually look for bones, because we were archaeologists don’tcha know? Who knows exactly what we were digging up, probably a chicken or possum, but darnit, we were determined to put them back together :P.

We talked about people we grew up with who are together now, what some of them are doing and those we haven’t seen. I don’t remember if I asked, or if either one of them brought it up, but we talked about Freddy S. and how I hadn’t heard anything about him. Sally couldn’t put the name to the face and I said, “Freddy, remember? He had a crush on me since like, Kinder, or something?” and Pete says, “Who didn’t have a crush on you?”

I was kind of shocked and flattered, but I’m still not sure if it was true or if he was being sarcastic LOL. If it’s true, do you know what that does for my self-esteem? Boys had crushes on me before I had boobs, so they had to like me for me and not my breasts!

Sally and Pete shared details about their recent breakups and asked me about parenting. We talked about life in general and here and there they’d mention a party that they’d attended back in high school, or the years after that. I felt a tiny pang of sadness, almost a jealousy that life had gone on without me after I left. At the time I knew everyone would move on, of course they would, but I still sort of naively wished life would be put on hold till I could somehow return to McAllen. It was a tad bit heartbreaking to hear about these parties, but I found comfort in the thought that now that we’ve gotten back in touch, we can have new parties where I’m included :). Pete said that maybe after I’m “on my feet” after I have the baby, we can get together for a bar-b-q or something with some of our old friends and so everyone can meet Mario. I can’t wait for that :).

We continued to have even more great conversation and I just had a really fantastic time catching up with my old buddies. Mario called around 8pm to let me know he was out of work. I told him we were at Chilli’s and would he like to pick me up so Sally wouldn’t have to make the long trip to our house and then back home. He said sure, he’d be there in 15 minutes.

The darn waiter took forever coming around (and may I add, he and another girl screwed up Sally’s order twice and he brought me really shitty mango tea), so we couldn’t ask for the darn check. Since Mario had already gotten there, and the waiter hadn’t, Pete offered to pay for my meal. I told him no, I just needed to remember how much it was. He said he planned on paying for both our meals but I felt so guilty. Since Mario was already there and I felt a little rushed, I agreed to him paying for my meal, but darnit, I still feel guilty LOL. How very nice of him, though. He’s always been a gentleman.

Sally walked me out and she and Mario said hello and we had a bit more chit chat before cars started lining up behind us.

I talked Mario’s ear off all the way home about what a great night I had. Since Mom had fed the kids we picked up dinner for Mario at McDonald’s. We spent some time with the kiddos and then I got them ready for bed for school the next day. I prayed for the best since the night before Jaylen was still waking up with excuses why he couldn’t sleep till around 12am. I think they were so tired from being up so early and taking no naps that they stayed asleep all night that night.

I took a shower and then Mario and I watched TV in the bedroom. We snuggled and had Alone Time :). We have to get as much Alone Time in as we can since Alaethia will be here soon!

I slept really well that night, for once. I got up to pee one time and that was it. Wish that would always happen!

I got the kids ready for school the next day, Tuesday. After being on break for almost 3 weeks, they were exceptionally well-behaved and got ready in record time. After dropping them off and making breakfast for Mario I rested. I waited for Roadrunner guy. I would have updated about Monday that morning, but the friggin’ internet kept shutting off as soon as I’d sit at the computer (no kidding!).

I got a call from the nurse that Eenan had pee accident at 10:50. I take him a change of clothes and ask him, “What happened, Dude? Why’d you have an accident?” He says, “Well, I had an itch on my Weedos and I can’t scratch in class so I had to do SOMETHING about it!” I surpress a laugh and tell him, “Eenan! You can ask to go to the bathroom, you know! You don’t have to pee in your pants!”

After walking him to class and lecturing him on how it’s not cool to pee your pants to relieve an itch I go back home. The Roadrunner guy is already waiting for me when I get here. He works on the problem (an old wire he has to replace all around the house) and Mom stays here while I go pick up Jaylen. He had a great first day back.

Someone’s at the door and yay, it’s my new keyboard for my cell phone! I have an absolute fit with it since my phone’s cradle isn’t being read by the USB for some reason. I end up having to reinstall everything, install the keyboard’s drivers and sync everything to my phone and I finally figure the keyboard out at 3. I pick up Eenan and Brandon from school, where I quickly typed up an entry and it gets erased. Lovely. I try it out again and it works! I’m wondering if it works better on a flat surface since I was having trouble with it in the truck?

After making sure Eenan starts on his homework, Mom takes over and John and I leave to JC Penny. I have no desire to actually go, but I need to find something to wear for my baby shower.

I have the hardest time finding something nice. Scratch that, I have a hard time finding something that FITS! They don’t make extra-small in the darn maternity section of JC Penny (or so, I’ve never seen any) and size small just hangs on me and looks baggy.

After trying on two black dresses and stomping out of the fitting rooms John says, “What happened? Oh, they don’t make size midget.” Grr. I admit, I laughed, it was funny. But my hand was balled up into a fist at my side. He kept joking about how I was going to attach a hanger to his tear duct when I got tired of him and smacked him with one. It was so tempting!

After about an hour of moping around and looking through all the crappy clothes, I finally find size small in the only blouse I actually liked. And it fit! I had to get a tan colored cami for it but I had matching pants at home, so yay. I hated spending $35 on those clothes, though, especially since I’ll probably only get to wear it once!

I get some cute t-shirts for the boys and muscle shirts Mario needed. I’ll be returning them though, since they’re super long and he didn’t like that =\.

We walked around the mall. I told John I probably wouldn’t be able to walk too much since my back was killing me and Alaethia’s head was making it hard to walk these days. We go to Hot Topic. They had such cute onesies with cute skulls on them and I fell in love with some cute little hotpink shoes John said he’d totally buy her. We get John’s Proactive stuff and continue to walk around. I can’t stand the pain and realize I’m an hour late in taking the antibiotic for my ear infection. John wants a Vanilla Caramel Avalanche from Gloria Jean’s so we go. I didn’t want to wait any longer to take my medication so I buy a raspberry tea. Grossest tea I’ve ever had in my life, but oh well, I needed to take the darn pill. As we’re walking back it dawns on me that I might not make it back to car–my belly feels really low and heavy and my legs feel like they’ve turned to stone. We slow down, a lot and I somehow miraculously make it to the car, which was parked on the other side of the mall. As I’m driving I feel pain whenever she moves. It seriously feels like there’s no room left in there.

I pick up and take Mario some junk food he requested from Stripes. I get down and go to the truck he’s working on since he never turned around to notice we were there. I joke around with him about losing his tools since he just dumped them there on the floor of the customers, Cesar’s, car. Cesar approaches the car as I’m lecturing him (playfully mostly) and Mario tells him, “This is why I work, man–so I don’t have to hear her nagging.” Dork. I chill out for a few more minutes while he teases a co-worker who he calls Frodo. He’s the one who bought the Prelude off of us. He’s already done stuff to it and is getting ready to paint it!

John and I joke and laugh all the way home and I’m super exhausted when we get here. I’m surprised to find a Target package on the table. It’s from Diana!! She got Alaethia some adorable receiving blankets from my Registry. You don’t know how much I appreciate this, hun!! I’m so touched I still can’t find the words to express myself correctly. Thank you so much, you’re the sweetest!

Mom was still here when I opened the package and said, “How nice! You need to send her a thank you!” She was so shocked and interested that someone I met online and lives a continent away could possibly send me a gift. She’s as touched as I am :).

Later in the evening, when the boys were in bed and Mario was going to go for a drive to have a cigarette, he went into the closet and pulled out his old No Fear sweatshirt. I loved that sweatshirt; he’d wear it when we were back in highschool. Only before, he was so buff he filled it out. It almost looked like it was too tight. He’s stopped working out since then and has reverted back to his cut, but skinny self.

He emerges from the hallway with his arms at each side–the thing is hanging off of him. I surpress a laugh and say, “It looks…alright,” when he asks me how it looks. I can’t hold my laugh in anymore when he looks in the full length mirror in the bathroom and has a sad expression on his face. I’m wheezing from laughing so much and he turns and scowls at me. I stop laughing long enough to say, “Aww, look at your little neck!!” He bursts out laughing too, turns and goes back into our bedroom. He’s wearing another sweater and stands in the hallway to ask for approval. I say, “That looks better!” and he throws the No Fear sweater at me. I say, “Hey! I’m just saying it’s more flattering to your…physique!” We both laugh hysterically, only he’s laughing at how amusing I’m finding this and I’m laughing at how hard he’s taking it. He starts poking me in my sides and says, “You’re supposed to be my wife! Till death do us part!”

I wish I’d been taking video. It was so hilarous. My little skinny husband LOL.

Ooh, I’m having a contraction. And I need to start on dinner so I’ve gotta run!

Before I start complaining about my weekend 😛 I’d like to thank everyone for the well wishes :). I’m finally feeling much, much better. I can breathe through both nostrils!

I’m hating Roadrunner right now. For the past 3 days we’re connected for about 10 minutes (sometimes only 5) and then it’s out for about 20-30 minutes. Argh! A technician’s supposed to stop by sometime today but of course you never know when they’ll actually get here. With my luck, it’ll be while I’m out picking up the boys. Grr.

The last time I updated we were about to leave to visit Gramma and run all these errands. (Didn’t get the chance to vent about that evening when I wanted to since RR was off and on all darn night.) We visited Gramma for a good, solid hour. It was nice sitting there with her, chatting. The boys were incredibly well-behaved; they even shared her breakfast table and drew pictures while she watched.

We took her Christmas decorations down and put them away. Mom was looking through her clothes, putting stuff back on hangers when she notices this maroon velour hoodie sweatshirt that we hadn’t seen before. She asks if Aunt Nora gave it to her and Gramma says, “No. Yajaira gave me that one.” I tell her, “No Gramma, we gave you a solid red one.” I pull out the red sweatshirt we’d given her for Christmas and she says, “Oh…well, I guess just put the other one there.” Mom tries it on her and it’s a size too small. All the years I’ve known Gramma, she’s been a size Medium. She’s put on some weight the past few months since she’s been at the nursing home and she’s now a size Large. It thrills me to say this since she was so thin and fraile back in 2004 when she first moved to the nursing home. She’s our little linebacker now :).

We left Gramma’s and went to Walmart, where I got a few things we needed and we walked away with yet another Beta fish. Eenan was jealous that Mom had gotten one for Jaylen, so he asked her for one and of course the woman said she’d get him one. He got a red one and I got them some new glass bowls and pebbles. The cool thing is they both fit on the little “hutch” on their desk so they hopefully won’t knock them over. They’ve been doing pretty good so far with feeding them once in the morning and once at night :).

Mario called while I was at Walmart and asked if I could drop some money off to him at work. I had the darn Senta and Mario failed to tell me that it’s really hard to turn the wheel to the right. Something having to do with the transmission. When I’m trying to turn to the right to get on the frontage road, I get stuck there! I can’t turn the wheel, so there I am, sticking out several feet into the frontage road while crazy Shary Road traffic is turning in. I step on the gas as soon as I get a chance before someone slams into me. Stupid car. If it’s one thing that gets me into a bad mood is being seconds from getting killed because of that damn car.

I get to Mario’s work and lo and behold, he’s out to lunch. I call him, frustrated, and he tells me to leave the money with one of his friends. Fine. I look at the clock and it’s 1pm. I’m starving and so are the kids and we still need to go to Aunt Nora’s. We stop by Taco Bell and get some tacos, nachos and drinks and I call Aunt Nora when we get on the road again.

She’d told me they usually go out in the evening, so we figured we’d go during the day. Turns out she was leaving the house at that exact moment and said she’d call me when she was back.

I’m fuming once again and am even more annoyed that I spent $10 (as little as that is) on Faux Mexican Food for nothing. Had I known she wasn’t going to be there we could have just come straight home and had lunch here.

I start hacking up a lung so I ask mom to pass me my drink. I feel something cold on my belly, but I assume it’s the cold cup so I keep drinking. When I start feeling really cold I stop drinking and look down; there’s a puddle of Raspberry Iced Tea on my boobs and belly. GREAT. We checked the cup and the lid’s fully on and there aren’t any cracks, yet I somehow managed to spill about a cup of it all over myself. Stupid thing.

We got home and ate and I tried my hardest to calm down and be in a good mood. Aunt Nora didn’t end up calling and there was no way I’d drive at night if she had, so we chilled out here at home and I made Chicken Alfredo Pasta for dinner. Eenan ate and then went over to Mary’s to sleep over and Mario, Jaylen and I stayed up watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets LOL. It was supposed to be night 1 of getting the kids used to falling asleep early but that didn’t happen. Not for Jaylen anyway. He likes to cuddle with us when we’re watching TV :).

We woke up considerably early on Sunday morning, again because of all the noise outside our bedroom. We got up, took showers and ate breakfast (barbacoa tacos) then we headed to Home Depot (with Jaylen only, Eenan was in town with my in-laws) and bought some materials so Mario would finish up the shelves in the bathroom, to get rid of the rackety, flimsy over-the-toilet shelf we currently have our towels stored in. (Of course, Mario never actually got around to building the shelves. Grr.)

We bar-b-q’d later on during the day and learned all about some family drama that’s still going on. I don’t want to air out any dirty laundry, but Jesus, people just need to grow the eff up! I can only see absolute disaster happening (more than it has already) if people don’t learn how to control their tempers =\.

I shall continue the rest of my entry about yesterday (Monday) when Roadrunner stops pissing me off. I wanted to take a nap, but I’m waiting for that darn technician. Ah! Speaking of the devil, they just called to confirm the appointment. Thank GOD.

I felt miserable all Thursday night. Didn’t help that I had to put away dinner since Mario failed to call and tell me he was going to be “out with the guys”. He’d forgotten his cellphone at home, and apparently couldn’t borrow anyone else’s to let me know he’d be late. Really late. It was 12am when he got here. I was already in bed, Jaylen sleeping soundly at my side, reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I decided to read since I couldn’t sleep. My back and ear were throbbing horribly. Mario walks into the room and smiles; not a regular smile, but one of those “let me test the water” ones. I slap on a fake smile and say, “Hi, Babe! I take it everyone forgot their cellphones today?”

He sort of smiles and says, “Actually, yeah–”

I interrupt him and say, “No: ‘I’ll be late, don’t make dinner’ or ‘Babe, how are you feeling?’ But if it were you that were sick, I’d be waiting on you hand and foot!”

He looks half guilty, half annoyed so he turns and leaves. His Godfather, Jorge, had tried calling him earlier, and I figure he wants to get some beers and talk since he’d be leaving Saturday morning and that’s exactly what they did.

Usually I’m pretty “awesome” (as I’ve been told by Mario’s friends) when it comes to Mario going out with his friends or having a few beers with the guys, but since I was deathly ill and would have LOVED to be taken care of, I was annoyed and frustrated and just didn’t want to see his face. I tried going to sleep after that, but ended up staying awake till almost 2am, which is around the time Mario finally came back inside. He ended up sleeping on the couch, since Jaylen had happily taken his place in our bed.

Mario’s way of trying to appologize and be peaceful is joking around. When I’m trying to hack down breakfast he says, “May I ask why there’s another man in my bed?” meaning Jaylen, of course.

I turn and look at him, and since I didn’t feel like being peaceful just yet and say, “Because he was the only one around to comfort me last night.” Buahaha.

I quickly got ready, figured I’d leave my shower for after my appointment, left the boys with Mario and went to the doctor before it was too late. I hate being a “walk-in” because they take long enough when you actually have an appointment, but I felt so terrible that I sucked it up, took my book with me and was totally ready to wait 3 hours to be seen.

It took about an hour for them to call me, and that’s because there were only 2 people waiting before me in the lobby when I arrived.

I get my finger pricked to check my sugar; there was 250 somethings of glucose in my urine and when they checked my finger my sugar was at 160, which is kind of high for me. Turns out the waffles with syrup and coffee I had in the morning weren’t processing too well. I ask if I should be concerned and not eat anything sweet at all in the mornings but they assure me that I’m fine and don’t have to change my diet at all. Good :).

I’m weighing 134.6 (or was it .8?) and my blood pressure’s fine. My luck would have it that I go in for a cold and end up having to be “swabbed” for the GB Strep test. I was supposed to have that done on Wednesday, but since this practitioner had me as 35 weeks 5 days (my actual doctor has be down as around 34 weeks 5 days and I had myself down as 36 weeks 4 days) she insisted I do the test that morning, since you’re supposed to do it at 35 weeks.

I didn’t want to get it done just yet (I didn’t shower, for Pete’s Sake!) so they told me it was super easy, I could do it on myself. My nurse, Laura, even drew an illustration for me, depicting what to do where. So I did it LOL. I’ve never been positive for GB Strep, so hopefully everything is alright.

What sucks is, starting this Wednesday, I start having lovely weekly pelvic exams done. I can hardly wait.

As for my cold: My right ear was terribly infected, my throat was red and my sinuses make my face feel like I’ve been hit by a train. They prescribed ear drops, antibiotics for my ears, and I was told to get Tylenol Sinus and Robitussin DM for my congestion and cough. So now I’m on 3 meds, plus ear drops, plus vitamins. I hate taking so many medicines during pregnancy. I know they wouldn’t be giving them to me if they were harmful to the baby, but still. It makes me uneasy. At least I stopped the doctor for prescribing Zithromax–that stuff gave me horrible contractions when I got the upper respiratory infection the last month of pregnancy with Jaylen.

We went to cash Mario’s paycheck and pay most of our bills. The first part of the month is crappy for us since we have the “big” payment (the truck) and most of our tiny, little bills. The tiny, little bills add up and we end up almost broke.

We did pretty good with our budget anyway. We (the boys, Mario and I) had lunch at Jesse’s, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, where we were serenaded by a wonderful singer/guitar player and had great food. I had shrimp enchiladas, which were delicious. That’s all I’ve been craving lately! Shrimp!

We went to the Pawn Shop to leave the 2nd to the last payment on the gun Mario’s buying himself and then to JC Penny make a payment and to get Eenan 2 pairs of jeans since these kids are still going through growth spurts! He’s passing all his size 5 jeans to Jaylen, so Jaylen has plenty of pants. It’s poor Eenan who’s been walking around in high-water pants for the past few weeks LOL.

Next stop was Target, where the boys were buying themselves some cheap video games; Eenan with his Tooth Fairy money, Jaylen with his Piggy Bank money :P. We got a few things we needed, and went to Walmart next.

I was going to leave my prescription, but there was a 20 person-long line. I did not feel like waiting; my feet were killing me already. I paid for my pictures I’d dropped off earlier during the week and we came home.

We chilled out here at home for a while. Everyone started to arrive around 6 to have one last “whole family” dinner before Jorge left this morning. Around 7 o’clock I remember we need to go to H-E-B to get my prescriptions (I couldn’t stand my ear ache anymore!) so we leave. The boys stayed here while Mario and I went.

They took forever with the prescription of course, so we grocery shopped while they finished up at the pharmacy. We only spent $66, which is a frickin’ record! We didn’t get any junk food, which could probably be why we saved so much, but I’m cool with that. I don’t need to be pigging out so close to delivering anyway =\.

We ate and talked with everyone when we got back and then just chilled out, bathed and went to bed. Mario put drops in my ears and I fell asleep pretty fast. Staying asleep was quite the challenge though.

At 3am I woke up sweating, coughing and with my ears throbbing again. I pointed the fan to the wall, to at least get some air without drying up my sinuses or making my throat worse. I took all my meds since they were already wearing off, and went to bed. At 5am I woke up with stomach cramps and finally I went to sleep and woke up when the alarm went off at 7:30.

I’ve got to drop John off at work, put gas in the car (because these men LOVE to leave it on extra-empty) then Mom, the boys and I are going to visit Gramma, go to Walmart real quick and then visit Aunt Nora for a while. John wants to go to the mall, but I don’t feel like waiting for him till whatever time they decide to let him out like last week. It’s getting harder for me to drive at night since I need new glasses. I haven’t gone yet because I’m afraid I’ll get glasses and then my vision’ll change again when I give birth. I’ve heard it can happen, so I don’t want to take any chances.

We have a wedding to go to tonight, but Mario will probably end up going by without me with Manny and his wife. I feel like crap, look like crap and don’t have anything to wear so I don’t feel like going at all.

I’m going to lay down for a little bit and then get ready before the madness starts. I just want to hybernate :(.