Category: Health

So first I wasn’t around because I was shutting myself away from everyone so Harry Potter wouldn’t be spoiled for me. I’m so happy that the site I went to didn’t write about what really happened! After finishing the book I still haven’t been around much due to having a life LOL.

Friday, July 20th

♥ Mario got paid and it was a lovely amount. We cashed his check, paid our bills and saved money for Eenan’s birthday party.
♥ Ate at Wendy’s.
♥ Mom stayed with Aly while the rest of us watched Meet the Robinson’s at the Dollar Movies. It was a steaming bowl of ADD…and I loved it! Why didn’t anyone tell me how awesome it is?! Eenan (who is most like me) and I both cried like babies at the end.
♥ I thought Aly was all better but her fever started up again that afternoon.

Saturday, July 21st

♥ Woke up at 7:30am to get my Harry Potter 7 book at Target. Mom went with me, Mary stayed with kids. The store was EMPTY. I got my book and some Starbucks went home.

♥ Saw a cute family of brown ducks — two adult ducks walking side-by-by-side and a trail of about 15 ducklings behind them — happily walking beside the median wall of the expressway. Too bad I couldn’t get a picture!
♥ Read for one hour.
♥ The boys and I went with Mary to her 1st annual company picnic at the lake. It was hot and humid, but there was a nice breeze at least. It was an overall nice day — when the boys weren’t swimming deeper into the lake and scaring the crap of out us. There were lots of fun activities for them (water balloon game, obstacle course, a pi&ntildge;ata and they even gave them huge bags with goodies) and it was fun watching Mary’s co-workers trying to drench each other with bottles of water.

♥ Read as much as I could the rest of the day.
♥ I know I reluctantly went somewhere else, but I can’t remember where now.

Sunday, July 22nd

♥ Slept in.
♥ Mario ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. Something we hadn’t done in a while and it’s always nice to get a break from cooking!
♥ Andy and Noelia came over. We had a 3-hour class to attend for Alaethia’s Baptism.
♥ Alaethia got her last fever that afternoon at 2pm. Thank God!
♥ The class was excruciatingly long and boring. We had to watch videos that had nothing to do with Baptism and then come up with reasons they did have something to do with Baptism. The man who was in charge of our group was kind of odd. He said things like “All the good things that happen are because of God. Everything else, the bad stuff like bad weather, happens because of the devil,” then contradicted himself by saying, “God loves us. More than anything. But he can hate you, too. I can go into the bible and show you where he wiped out cities full of people with storms.” I still can’t believe he said God could hate us.
♥ I read some more.

Monday, July 23rd

♥ Spent the whole day running errands; paying bills, grocery shopping and getting all the stuff we still needed for Eenan’s birthday party. This time I wasn’t bothering with spending $40 on candy. We filled the goodie bags with crayons (Crayola, of course), little notepads, erasers, a drink, chips and nutter-butter wafer thingies.
♥ This was around the time my desktop computer died, and along with it went my Adobe programs (idiot that I am, I didn’t back those up) and my favorites. Very sad day indeed. It gave us 4 wonderful years. Thank God we had everything else on our external harddrive, though.

Tuesday, July 24th
♥ Alaethia turned 6 months old!
♥ Spent as much time as I could reading HP7. I vowed to finish reading it that night (partly because the rest of the family wanted to discuss it already!). It was a perfect night for reading. The kiddos slept over at Mary’s, Aly fell asleep early, Mario was over at Chris’ and it was storming outside. The perfect background noise for the end of the book. I read the last word at 1:36am that night (or Wednesday morning, whatever). If I have a chance (Aly’s on my lap making this very difficult) I’ll give my opinion on it under “more” at the end of the entry.

Wednesday, July 25th
♥ Sat around feeling numb and bored. What the hell was I supposed to read now?!?
♥ Made a tuna casserole for the first time, ever that night. It was alright.
♥ Yadira and Matthew were here while I was making it. Most of our conversation revolved around Harry Potter.
♥ We watched a movie (I can’t remember which one at the moment) and Chris and Nancy came over for a little bit.

Thursday, July 26th
♥ I don’t remember much about this day except that I finally got around to looking through a plastic bin I had in the hallway and only kept what I needed from it. I also looked through all the junk I had outside that was left over from the garage sale. I threw out a whole bunch of crap, almost died when I realized my 80s Care Bears, Rainbow Brite and Popples books had gotten wet and moldy from a few corners; and made a Goodwill and Dump pile.
♥ I still need to clean up the hallway some more. I’ve got the boys’ artwork in boxes from last school year that still need to be scrapbooked!

Friday, July 27th
♥ Mario and I woke up early and went to toss junk at the dump while Mom watched the kids.
♥ Mario sprained his wrist, badly, while hauling a box spring mattress into the dumpster.
♥ Met Mayra at McDonald’s for lunch. Mario stayed with the kiddos. It was nice seeing her after so long.
♥ Chilled out at home with the kiddos for a while.
♥ Mario and I decided to go on a date. Mom watched the kids. We ate at Taco Bell then watched Knocked Up at the Dollar Movies (LOVE the Dollar Movies!). It was a great movie. There were lots of boobs, but other than that it was hilarious. Reminds me of the Mario and Yajaira from way back when LOL.
♥ Got back home and went to Yadira’s with Mary, Mom and the kiddos. All the women sat around the table like we usually do and looked over ABC books and talked.

Saturday, July 28th
♥ Mario had a hard time sleeping and his wrist hurt so much in the morning that he called in. It takes A LOT for him to call into work. He didn’t even want to call in when we had Mono last year.
♥ Sally and I missed each other’s calls, so we didn’t get to go to Goodwill together, unfortunately :(. I finally decided to leave around 11am. Mom and I left the boys with Mario and she, Aly and I left. We dropped the crap off at Goodwill, then went inside to shop a little. I came home with a new Pyrex pie pan for $.50, the book French Women Don’t Get Fat which I’m currently reading (I found life after Harry Potter!), a jumbo frisbee for the boys, a telescope for their clubhouse for $1, a whole bunch of scrapbooking magazines, a huge pack of paint brushes, a bar-b-q wire brush, and a pillbox and some other thing for Mom. Everything was brand-new except the Pyrex pan and came out to $8.60! I love Goodwill!
♥ We ate at Taco Bell. Aly melted the heart of a tattooed, septum-piereced, tough-looking guy. She also stuck her whole hand into Mom’s nachos.
♥ We finished running errands and picked up Eenan’s cake from the cake shop. I’m never going there again. They charged me an extra $5 for the Transformers toys for the cake when I ordered it. I was livid to see that they’d put in some crappy dollar store robots. They gave me my $5 back and I went to Family Dollar, which is one of the only stores in my area, and prayed they had Transformers toys. They did. And they were much better than the darn ones they put on there.
♥ Got home, started on the party bags. Had to make a last-minute run to Joy Dollar to get a few things we’d forgotten. Mary later went to Dollar General to get us some more of the Little Debbie wafer snacks because I miscalculated and didn’t get enough.

Sunday, July 29th

♥ We all got ready and left to Peter Piper Pizza. Since we had to reschedule Eenan’s party for 11am because we had the Baptism meeting at 2:30, we were quite alone for a good 15-20 minutes before anyone started to arrive. Our kiddos played by themselves and once everyone got there, it was still only our kids playing out there.
♥ I saw someone I did not expect to see.
♥ It was a nice intimate party. The whole family made it. Maggie and her boys went, and Sally and Pete made it as well, yay!
♥ Eenan had a great time and loved his gifts. Jaylen threw a fit shortly after present-opening because Eenan wouldn’t lend him a new video game he got from us.

♥ We got home and chilled out before leaving to the Baptism meeting. Another 3 hours of videos and confusing talk about why we should baptize. The man kept going off subject and even got told off by a new girl when he told them God would hate us LOL.
♥ Mario got me some Hot Cheetos with cheese. I had to add that one in because it was really sweet that he went from one side of town to the other because one place had the chips but not the cheese and vice versa.

Monday, July 30th

♥ Met Sally for lunch at a new deli called Hagen Baks. I’d never had a more delicious sandwich. The bread alone was amazing!
♥ We had a good, long chat about pregnancy at the deli.
♥ We went to Auto Zone for a bulb for her headlight and dropped her car off at Mario’s work so he could switch it for her.
♥ Next we walked around the mall and looked at clothes and tried on make-up at Sephora. It was so fun! Took me right back to when we’d chill out at the mall in high school!
♥ Dropped her off at Mario’s so she could get her car. I came home and started on Eenan’s birthday cake, since the 30th is his actual birthday. My boy is now 8 years old!. I can’t believe it’s been so long that I’ve been a mother!

Tuesday, July 31st

♥ Aly had her 6 month checkup. I ate breakfast as quickly as possible and Mom watched the boys when we left.
♥ She weighed 15.6 lbs. and is 25 1/2 inches long. I was told she’s tiny for her age, but perfect for her height and weight. She’s a bit advanced for her age, too :). She got three immunizations, poor girl, but she did really good. Dr. C. confirmed that she has eczema and prescribed some cream for her. Her skin feels so much better to the touch now.
♥ Went to H-E-B to get a few groceries and get her prescription.
♥ Went to Jorge and Maggie’s that night. Both boys actually went for once!

Wednesday, August 1st

♥ I can’t believe we’re already in August! The kids start school on the 27th.
♥ Went with John to check out a gym. My payment for taking him in my truck was lunch at Kumori’s. I had the same sushi I had when we went for Sally’s birthday in April. It was delicious. John felt, as he said, “like a cat in a brand-new environment; ready to run up the curtains and hide” — he was really uncomfortable but he finally tried real sushi like he’d always wanted! I’m craving sushi now…
♥ I really want to join the gym. It’s awesome because there’s no contract and now starting fee, just $35 a month! I’m feeling incredibly fat and unhealthy, and I’m not just saying that. I need to do something about it. We just have so many things going on right now that I’d feel…guilty using $35 we could put towards something else.
♥ Went to Maggie’s to pick up my cellphone since I’d forgotten it there the night before.

Thursday, August 2nd

♥ I spent this whole afternoon cleaning the house from top to bottom. Or trying to, anyway. I only got to do the kitchen, bathroom and part of the living room. I still need the two bedrooms, part of the living room and the hallway.

Friday, August 3rd

♥ We had breakfast and Mario left to his Grandpa’s for a while. We got ready and the plan was to take the boys to pick out their school clothes, but instead they stayed with Mom while we went to pick stuff out. They just said to, “pick good stuff!”
♥ The boys were replaced by Jorge and John.
♥ Cashed Mario’s paycheck. Deposited money for bills. Went to Big Lots where I found some cute scrapbooking stuff.

♥ Went to JC Penny to get a few things for the boys and buy a blouse for Mom for her birthday. I needed to find one for myself for the baptism, but didn’t have any luck and the three men were getting tired of waiting around (grr!). We found shoes for the boys, too, some cute Vans, and a back pack for Jaylen.
♥ Ate lunch at El Pato.
♥ Went home. Construction on the way over was hellish. I think they’re repaving the roads because of the new Wal-Mart. I can’t wait for them to finish this thing and to see what other stores are coming to the area!

♥ Andy and Noelia invited us over for dinner at their house. Noelia made Chicken Pamesean and garlic bread — it was delicious! The boys had a blast playing with Curtis, their hound. He tried to lick Alaethia at one point and she screamed her little head off; it was unexpected and SO cute!
♥ Eenan left with Mary and Jaylen, Aly, Mario and I went to Walmart to get a few things.
♥ We went to Jorge and Maggie’s and chilled out for a while. Maggie and I talked about stuff we’d never discussed before.

Saturday, August 4th

♥ Woke up early and Aly and I went with Mary and Noelia downtown McAllen to find Aly’s baptism dress. We found a beautiful one at the first shop we went to. Got Aly a “lighter” stroller than the one she has at JC Penny (she loved it, mostly because she could suck on the long straps LOL) and I found an Optimus Prime backpack for Jaylen. I called him and he told me to return the Power Rangers one for that one. On our way to the car I found an Optimus Prime one with wheels for Eenan!
♥ Picked Mario up and had lunch with him at Taqueria el Zarape.
♥ We went to a Payless next door where we found shoes for Aly’s dress and Mario actually found some shoes for himself! He has the hardest time finding shoes because his feet are wide.
♥ We made a few more stops then got a few groceries at H-E-B.
♥ The boys slept over at Mary’s; Mario and I finished watching 300, which was really good.

Sunday, August 5th

♥ I didn’t want to go anywhere, but had crap to do. All my kiddos and my mom and I left around noon.
♥ Went to two different stores to buy CDrs (Comp USA) and DVDrs (Office Depot).
♥ Went to Rue 21 — where Maggie told me she bought blouses for $4 each –to find something for the baptism. Fell in love with so many things but nothing for the event. Ended up buying a cute pink shirt in size large since I feel fat. It was too big.
♥ Returned a lamp at Target.
♥ Ate at Luby’s.
♥ Saw Mario at his workplace.
♥ Returned Jaylen’s Power Ranger backpack and found a blouse for the baptism at JC Penny. Returned an outfit of Eenan’s at Bealle’s and he ended up with two more shirts and some jeans.
♥ Boys were terrors everywhere we went. Only Mom got down at Gramma’s.
♥ Stopped at H-E-B since Mom needed stuff.

And that’s been my two weeks. I’m tired reliving it all while I write about it. We’ve got a hectic week ahead of us, what with Aly’s baptism coming up this Saturday. I guess my Harry Potter review will have to wait. I’m so tired. Aly’s already woken up for her first bottle of the night (after only half an hour of falling asleep) so hopefully she’ll sleep the rest of the night till I have to wake up at 7:30. I’m totally going back to sleep after Mario leaves to work! Well, if the children let me!

I thought Alaethia’s fever had finally broken and gone for good, but then we woke up at 7am and she was back at 102.4°. Mom came over to watch the kiddos while I showered and then Aly and I left to the doctor’s office. I told the doctor about my concerns; how I thought she may have strep and that she developed this weird rash on her back. She said the rash was just dermatitis and there were no signs of a cold or Strep. I told her how the diarrhea and vomiting happened only that one time. She probably had the virus Rachelle had the first day, then she caught another virus since her immune system was already compromised. She said the only thing she could have would be a virus called Roseola. To summarize: it’s a virus that lasts anywhere from 3-7 days, but usually only 3 days. After the 3 days of having fevers of 103°, she’d develop a rash. It wouldn’t be itchy or painful, but it would mean that she’s at the last stages of the virus. The rash would show up in little spots or patches, some with a ring around them. She told me to keep doing what I was doing, only instead of alternating Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours, to give her her usual dosage of Tylenol, then give her the Motrin 15 minutes later. Her fever’s actually subsided twice today!

I kept an eye on her body all day just watching out for the spots. I gave her her meds at 7 and 7:15pm and started getting worried when the fever wasn’t going down. Then, almost in front of my very eyes, the spots started showing up:

When her fever was still at 102 half an hour later I gave her a nice bath (while answering a survey about fruit…stupid telemarketers!). She felt cheerful and much cooler afterwards, thank goodness. She’s been doing pretty good and actually sleeping for longer than 10 minutes again, poor baby. I’m waiting up till 1am so I’m sure to give her her medicine.

Other than that, I did laundry and helped the boys clean up their room. It was a disaster. They let it get so bad that they just don’t even feel like tackling it anymore (kind of like when I’d let the dishes pile up, heh). I’d gone into their room and Eenan was sitting on the floor surrounded by toys. He looks a little sad, so I ask him what was wrong. He sadly waves his hands over the mess and says, “I can’t find Jaylen. I don’t know where he is.” My heart stops, even though I clearly saw him leaving with my dad-in-law. I wouldn’t put it past one of them to get lost in their pigsty of stuffed animals.

They kept fighting and whining, so I sat in their tiny red chair watching them until they’d done a little over half. If I hadn’t done that, they would have strangled each other. We moved some stuff around and every thing’s much more organized now. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of it in it’s clean state…it won’t last long.

The boys are both sleeping over at Mary’s tonight. They usually take turns but they both went today. Mario’s finally home. He’d actually been getting home early every day this whole week, so I cut him some slack and tried not to complain when he said he was staying out with Chris and Jorge. Tried being the key word…I’m clingy when I’m PMS’ing =\.

Okay, gonna start getting ready for bed so I can give Aly her meds in a bit. Goodnight!

I’ve got to start off with these stories I heard on CNN when I woke up this morning.

First, there’s one where a mother was driving recklessly and was way over the alcohol limit. When they stopped her they discovered that her children were surrounded by crap…and cockroaches!

Police said more than 100 roaches were crawling all over Nava’s Ford Mustang and that amid the trash, open food containers and alcohol bottles was a 1-year-old child and a 3-year-old child.

“They were soaked and covered in urine and their own feces, and there were cockroaches all over the car. The officer says when he reached in to unbuckle the child, three roaches ran across his hand — they were just everywhere,” said Jacksonville Beach police Sgt. Thomas Bingham.

Full story here.

I don’t understand how a CAR can become infested with roaches. And to have the children in that filth?! Ugh!

Another one was one John brought to my attention two days ago, before it even came out on CNN. He found it on one of the gaming websites he frequents. I thought it was a joke when he told me. A mom and dad neglected their 11 month and 22 month old babies because they were addicted to video games, namely Dungeons and Dragons. I didn’t even know people could be so…stupid, for lack of a better word.

Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts each of child neglect. Each faces a maximum 12-year prison sentence.

Viloria said the Reno couple was too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing “Dungeons & Dragons” series, to give their children proper care.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.

Full story here.

I can’t believe that. The little girl weighed 10 pounds and is 11 months old! Some babies are born at that weight! God I can’t even believe it. I hope they serve the full 12 year sentence. And that they’re never allowed to play video games or reproduce again!

And the last one…I still don’t know if it’s true or not, but CNN.com linked two websites that supposedly have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows spoilers. One of them was shut down, but the other is alive and kicking and looks to be legit. My curiosity overcame me and I clicked on the link…and regretted it instantly! I only read the first line, but if it’s true then I figured that was going to happen. I hate it though :(. I scrolled down and supposedly the person’s scanned the chapter titles and chapter art. I browsed through a few of those because it was too tempting. I saved the link and AFTER I’m done with the book I’ll check out the site and see if this person was for real. It looks real, but you never know. John is dying to scream out all the “spoilers” he’s seen so far, but I threatened his life so he’s keeping his mouth shut.

[EDIT @ 12:07pm] I’d linked the wrong site…I only linked the CNN one, instead of the “ZOMG SPOILERS” one. Again, BE CAREFUL! I’m not posting this to ruin the book for any one, by any means. I’m posting it, so that, like me, you can check the “facts” of this site AFTER you read the book! [/EDIT]

If you’d like to view the site or save it for later like I did, here’s the link. I’m warning you though, BE CAREFUL WHEN OPENING THE PAGE! The very first line (okay, the whole thing) contains a major spoiler, so watch out!

I really can’t wait till Saturday! I won’t be waiting in line with everyone else in my family at 12:01am at Walmart, since I reserved mine from Target and I’m sure they’re not going to be open at that time. Poo. I wouldn’t want to be driving around at that time anyway (I keep repeating this to myself as consolation, kthx).

I had planned to spend at least two straight days reading. I was even going to have meals cooked and ready for microwaving so I wouldn’t waste any time and Mom had agreed to babysit since she’s here all day anyway, but all that went out the window when I remembered I’d agreed a few weeks ago to go with Mary to her company picnic at the lake. Damn! And on Sunday Noelia and I have to go to the Baptism class for Alaethia (which lasts for 3 hours). Double damn!

As for my little Alaethia…she’s the same. Her fever went only as low as 100 last night but at least she got to rest. I’ve been alternating Tylenol and Motrin to keep her comfortable but this has gone on too long. I’m taking her back tomorrow morning. I bathed her around 8pm tonight and when I was drying her up noticed a bumpy rash on her back. Now I’m thinking she’s got Strep Throat, or Scarletina, or both. She hasn’t thrown up or had diarrhea at all since yesterday and she’s been eating very well, thank goodness. But the darn fever won’t break. She hasn’t gone below 100 today either. My poor girl :(.

I’ve been alright. I guess it was just nerves making me feel that way yesterday. I didn’t want to have Aly around town feeling the way she did so Mom watched her while John and I went to Walmart (where John returned some stuff and bought a game) and then to Target. I’d been planning to go and get the boys a few more school supplies — since they’re really inexpensive right now — and some T-shirts they liked (which were $5) on Friday, but we went today instead before they ran out. They were in love with their shirts. John owed me $5 so he paid me back with FOOD! Some chocolate chip cookie dough Pop Tarts and Dreyer’s brownie chunk ice cream. I know I said I was going to start a diet…but I’m going to start PMS’ing soon and I’m not a happy camper during that awful time without chocolate…

It was another rainy afternoon today and it was cool, so we took full advantage and everyone was outside enjoying the breeze. Alaethia especially loved it. Later on we went over to Mary’s since Big Mario bar-b-q’d. Then Jorge, Mario, Mary and I discussed Harry Potter LOL.

Well, my Aly’s asleep and is feeling really cool (!) so I’m going to take her temperature and hopefully we’ll have a few good hours of sleep. I haven’t slept more than 4 hours the past two nights, and last night was even worse because I kept getting up to check on her. Tonight, she’s sleeping in my bed. I love it…last time I tried having her sleep in my bed she clawed at and kicked me, so I couldn’t cuddle her. But now that she’s already asleep she has no choice!