Category: Memories

I was already getting lazy from backing up files and all that shizz that I almost didn’t want to blog…again. I totally need to invent something that reads your thoughts and blogs them into a draft until you proofread it and publish it later. If I had something like that, my blog would ALWAYS be updated.

I’ve got so much stuff to write about. Most is the usual crap I write about: talk about the kids, bitch about the husband, describe my day. But this past week things got a little crazy. And I did something I never thought I’d do.

(No, I didn’t cheat on Mario.)

I’ll start from the last day I updated. Let’s see…as hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of resentment towards Mario for what happened — or didn’t happen — on Friday. The next day, Saturday, Mom, the kiddos and I had plans to go visit Gramma, then stop by a few thrift stores and then Target later on. It starts to rain, which was totally unexpected, so we have some lunch and leave the house at noon (we were ready 2 hours before that).

We visit Gramma, but only Mother gets down to see her since it was still raining and I didn’t want to risk any of the kids getting sick. I’d taken my book with me, the boys had their DS’s, and Alaethia was asleep so we had a pretty relaxing 45 minutes. Mom comes back and tells us Gramma’s doing much better and said hello.

We go to the thrift store and look around. After half an hour there Mom found some pots for her flowers and found me another Primrose custard cup!

Just beautiful. I haven’t had any luck finding anything else unfortunately.

Mary calls us and asks if we’d like to go to a movie, the new Ninja Turtles one. I’m not too keen on it, but the boys have been dying to see it so I agree. Then, as Alaethia starts screaming, I automatically wish I hadn’t because the last time we went to the movies with her (Bridge to Terabithia) I was standing in the stairway the whole time. I pray for the best and we meet Mary.

The movie’s much better than I thought it was going to be. It was funny and had an okay storyline. The boys loved it, of course, and Alaethia slept the entire time. Whew!

Mary takes the boys with her and Mom and I head over to Target, where she was looking for more pots for her plants. That’s her thing lately: plants and flowers. She’s always been into gardening, just never got back into it once we left McAllen — until now. She’s got a green thumb, that woman!

Well, she didn’t find anything at Target, so we went to the new H-E-B Plus! next door. It was the grand-opening, so it was full to the brim with people. So hectic. I did enjoy looking at the three-or-so scrapbooking isles it has! Granted, everything’s expensive, but super cute. Mom gets her plants (she bought, like, 10 different flowers) and we finally come home. I didn’t even bother grocery shopping there because it was that packed.

Mario left for work the next day, Sunday. He was supposed to have the day off but one of the guys he works with asked him to switch, so he did. I was incredibly bored, and while having some cereal I start checking my e-mail. I had a friend request from TheThriftShopper.com on Myspace so I added them (like, duh!), then started searching for thrift shops in our area that are open on Sunday. I found two, and I quickly got the kids ready and Mom, the kids and I all got into the car and went. There was nothing else to do and what better way to spend a Sunday morning? We had to be back by 2:30, for something Eenan needed to attend at church, so that was going to be a little annoying. I hate rushing around. And I also hate that they always wait till the last minute to let us know when something’s going on.

Well, we got some pretty good finds at the first one, Goodwill. Everything’s expensive though, much more than it was a few years ago when I’d frequent it. Right after Goodwill, we stopped by another thrift shop where I found a mint-with-tags Bright Heart Racoon and a Hello Kitty for Alaethia.

We were already late to the meeting at the church by this time, but Mary was already there (she and Yadira had been at the storage units organizing and putting more stuff in there so that Jorge can stay in the empty bedroom at Yadira’s. He’s officially resigned and is moving back to Texas!) so she said not to worry about it.

Since I was already in town I stopped by the pizza place to reserve the day for Jaylen’s birthday party and then stopped by the storage unit to give April’s payment.

As I’m handing the money over through the drive-thru window the guy asks if I’d gotten their notice yet. I tell him no and he says, “Um…it’s because we’re closing. Let me ask my manager if I should still take your payment.”

My heart sinks. All my crap. My assload of crap that I have stored in that darn storage unit. If they’re clsoing, where the hell am I going to put all that junk?!

He comes back and says he can take my payment, but that this is the last month they’ll be open. So…how nice of him to tell me with one month’s notice that I need to get my junk out of there. It took over 6 months to put all that stuff in there and now I have only a month to get it out!

I told Mary about this and she was, naturally, upset. She and Yadira had just been there earlier in the day and nobody told them anything about it closing! Now they have even more stuff to get out of there and spent all morning organizing it for nothing!

I decided that I want to sell most of the junk I have in storage. Most of it is, after all, absolute junk that we stuffed into bags because we were too lazy to get everything together for a garage sale. I don’t want another storage unit, I just want to bring my collections back home and store them in the living room closet that’s currently being occupied by even more shit. That’s easily $45 that we’ll be saving a month. Probably more, since that was the cheapest storage unit we could find in our area. The other one nearest to our home charges $54 a month and it’s 5 square feet smaller than the one we have.

Mario got out at 6 Sunday night, but had more work to do here at home so I didn’t see him till it was time to go to bed. It was becoming the norm seeing him only when I was passing by the living room making my way to the bedroom as he was watching TV. And I know he was working and all that, but I was quickly getting annoyed. Didn’t help that it was that time of the month and every single thing either pissed me off or made me cry. In Mario’s case, it was both.

The next day was the usual. I was going to take the kids to school myself but Alaethia didn’t go to sleep till 1am and then was up at 4am for a bottle. Needless to say I was exhausted and overslept. The boys had about 20 minutes to eat breakfast and get ready and be ready for Elda to take them for me.

I don’t remember much from that day, but when John got home from work he looked defeated and sick. The rash he’d developed on his hands in the previous weeks had gotten much worse overnight and they noticed (finally) at work. They sent him to the doctor and prescribed some medication. He asked if I could take him to H-E-B to get it after I picked the kids up from school so I took him. We get to the pharmacy and, just as I suspected, it was a 2 hour wait. I needed to get groceries, but I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to need 2 hours to do that so we decided to go to Target to waste time.

I actually didn’t want to go to Target, but John bribed me into it. He said he’d get me my birthday present if we went. And he also said he wanted to blow some money on something, but didn’t know what. We go to the scrapbooking section, where I quickly find the two storage boxes I wanted and then we wander over to the electronics section. John was looking at games as always and as I’m passing by the cameras, I notice lots of orange clearance stickers. I tell him, “Why don’t you buy a camera?” and he says, “Because I want one that’s better than yours,” — typical John constantly trying to get “better” stuff than mine. That gives me an idea and I wander off and look for the camera that’s just like mine. It’s got a clearance sticker of $195. John gets all excited, because it’s $13 less than when I got it (except I also got a 1G SD card for free). We wait for an employee and I tell John, “What if they don’t have it?” and he says, “Shut up!”

The employee comes around and looks for the camera and says, “No, man, we don’t have it.” then, “But we can sell you the display?” I tell him, “Do we get a discount?” and he says, “30%?” I get my cell phone out and calculate it. He’d get the camera for $136!! We checked it out, made sure it was okay and John buys it. For much less than I got mine!

So he was happy and I was happy that I got my scrapbook storage stuff. We went to H-E-B to pick up his prescription and do my grocery shopping. We got home, and I made dinner, fed the boys, and spent the night trying to console Alaethia. When she was sleeping I put my storage cubes together and watched a show on TLC about a young couple who had trouble having children, so they tried fertility drugs and ended up with twins. When their twins were 4 they wanted to try for another child so again, they used fertility. They say that with fertility drugs, you can bet that you won’t just ever get one child — it’s usually always multiples. Well, they weren’t kidding. They conceived and ended up with 7 heartbeats at their first sonogram! They ended up losing one, but had 6 healthy babies. So they had 8 kids under the age of 6, can you believe that?! They spend $1,150 on groceries and house cleaning supplies right now that the kids are 5 (twins) and 16 months (the sextuplets). This poor woman’s whole life revolves around the babies, but she’s extremely organized. She’s got lists and labels all over her house. They’re going to start a series about them on Discovery Health, but I don’t have that channel!

As I was speaking to Mayra that night, I get a call on the other line and it’s Mario telling me that he’s staying late after work to help Albert with a car. Lovely. That meant that he wasn’t getting home till really late, just like the last time when they worked till 3am and he didn’t get home till 6am since they delivered the damn car to the customer I-don’t-know-how-many cities away. I was annoyed, so I just hung up.

Alaethia and I went to bed around 1am. She woke up at 3am (she only does this once in a while) for a bottle and I notice that Mario’s still not here. Grr. I feed Alaethia, burp her, change her diaper and try to go back to sleep. All these thoughts are running through my mind, like what if he was drinking and got into an accident? What if something happened to him at work and the hospital just hasn’t called me? What if he’s with someone else?!

I tell myself to shut up and try to sleep again. This time I start thinking about how anti-social I’ve felt since I’d been so angry with Mario the past few weeks for not spending time with us. I was avoiding everyone just so I wouldn’t have to talk about Mario and I. I hadn’t returned any of my friends messages, hadn’t called anyone, like Juan, my friend from elementary and middle school whom I’d just found on Myspace after 10 years! I tell myself that the next day I was returning everyone’s Myspace messages, text messages and calling whoever needed to be called.

I look at the clock and it’s 4:10am. I’d been thinking for an hour. I hate when Mario’s not home, not in bed; I can’t sleep. So, with every fiber of courage I have, I call him and ask where he is. I hate being one of those naggy wives who’s calling all the time asking “where are you? what are you doing? who are you with?” but I hadn’t called, had I? It was perfectly fine if I called. He says he’s already getting into Palmview. I say ‘fine’, and hang up.

He gets home and I pretend to be asleep. I’m so angry that he’s kept me up worrying that I don’t want to talk to him at all. He gives Alaethia a kiss on the cheek and gives me one on the forehead and within 10 seconds of his head hitting the pillow, he’s asleep and I’m still awake. I could have smacked him.

The next morning Alaethia’s moody and awake right after I’ve sent the boys off with Elda to go to school. I don’t have a chance to make Mario breakfast, so I know for sure he’s thinking it’s because of the night before. At the time I didn’t care, and was hoping that’s what he was thinking. I got a chance to get his lunch together and as he’s getting ready to leave he gives me a hug and says, “God, I hope they let me out early today.” The audacity. I bite my tongue, because I totally want to yell, “If THEY let you out early? You mean if YOU decide to come home early!” but I just roll my eyes and nod in agreement.

I didn’t go anywhere Tuesday. I tried to not go anywhere so that I could force myself to be home and start going through all the crap in boxes that Mary’d gotten out of her storage unit that belonged to me. It was the boys’ baby clothes. I’d already had a garage sale once, where I got rid of a LOT of their baby clothes. I’m such a packrat that I still kept 4 boxes worth of their stuff. I guess I hold on because I feel that if I let go, that means I’m letting go of their babyhood as well :(. But I have the memories and I have pictures (although I did lose many due to harddrive crashes) so I got rid of almost everything. I just kept their Baptism outfits, their first shoes, and a few little t-shirts that I fondly remember them wearing. Then I was left with 2 empty storage totes!

I also got some messages sent out on Myspace and just as I was going to call Juan, he called me! We spent most of the day catching up and it was great. Truly refreshing to hear his voice and have him in my life again! He says I sound exactly that same, laugh the same and that I’m still sweet and well-mannered, like he remembers me when he last saw me in 6th grade. Aww :). He still laughs and sounds the same to me and is still incredibly sweet, but he’s so crazy LOL.

I talked to Mayra again and she told me she found the Special K Red Berries cereal at her H-E-B and was bringing to me the next day, Wednesday. She’s the best! I was just telling her the day before that I could never find it and that I wanted to do the 2 week Special K diet to lose the 6 lbs. you can supposedly lose. I was excited. I was finally going to get to see her after forever!

Aunt Nora called that night to let us know one of our uncles passed away. We got into talking about family and I told her I had something to tell her. I know I mentioned it last year sometime, when my Gramma asked me to do it, but I can’t find the entry at all. She’d asked me to look for my grandfather, my Mom’s dad, and to tell Mom about it if he was still alive. See, all these years my mother didn’t know that her father’s still alive. She thinks he’s dead and that he used to live in Chicago or somewhere in California, because this is what my Gramma would tell her. Just in 1991, Aunt Nora found out that she and Aunt Sylvia are Mom’s half-sisters, when all that time they thought they all had the same father. My Gramma had been hiding all this from them because you know how it was back in the day: 3 kids, 2 dads? You’d be labeled a slut immediately. It’s not like that now, of course. And that’s what I tell Gramma. It’s okay. She doesn’t have to be embarrassed about it.

Well, I tell Aunt Nora how Gramma wanted me to find my Grandfather, and that last year, when all this first happened, I’d found that he was still living in McAllen. I’d told Mary about it and she’d found more info for me. He’s actually living down the same street where Gramma’s nursing home is located. I’d found his phone number in the phone book and clutched onto it. Aunt Nora told me to keep her updated and give her a call if I ended up speaking to him.

It took me forever, but I called. I was calling my grandfather. A man who didn’t know I existed. And I didn’t know at the time, but he didn’t know Mom existed either. I called and an old woman answers and says he’s not there, but takes a message and says my number came out on her caller ID.

Mario got home early that night even though it was Wing & Beer Night. I actually thought he’d stay for Wing Night to tell you the truth. I felt he didn’t really care if he was home at all anymore.

He got home, ate dinner, and then we watched TV. I don’t know how it happened, but we got into a conversation about how I’d felt lately and although he kept snapping at me and raising his voice, I kept my calm (even though I was bawling) and just let him speak. I felt like we didn’t make much progress, but at least we got to talk about it. Then I told him about my uncle, the conversation with Aunt Nora and how nervous I was to speak to this man.

He gets into the shower and the phone rings. My heart skips a beat as I look at the caller ID and see my grandfather’s name. My grandfather. Up until last year I didn’t have a grandfather. I answer the phone and he says he’s looking for the young lady who called him. I introduce myself and ask him if he knew my grandmother. He said yes, that long ago he knew her. I didn’t know how to slowly break it to him, and I was fumbling all over my Spanish so I just said what I knew: he and my grandmother had a daughter and I’m his granddaughter. Hi, nice to meet you. He’s super quiet and I can tell he doesn’t want to say much because his wife’s in the room and obviously, if he didn’t know he had a daughter, she didn’t know. He asks how he can get in contact. I feel a rush of happiness and ask, “With who? Me?” and he says, “No, no. With…”

I ask, “With my Mom? Grandmother?” and he grunts, “Yes.” I tell him that she’s in a nursing home, one down his street in fact, and he says, “That’s fine. That’s all I need.” Which sort of scares me because he sounds a bit threatening. My hearts beating in my ears and before I lose the nerve I ask if he’d like to keep in contact with me. He says a plain: no. I thank him for his time, appologize for bothering him and hang up. And I bawl my eyes out.

I didn’t know this man even existed till last year and here I was crying over him. I felt so disappointed. I sort of had this happy picture in my mind that he’d find out he had a granddaughter and that he’d accept Mom and I with open arms and that we’d spend our first holiday, Easter, over there getting to know him and all these Christmases and what if I had more aunts and uncles and cousins!?

Mario gets out of the shower and asks how it went. The knot in my throat that I’d tried so hard to swallow down came right back up and I cried all over again. I was sort of hoping Mario would pull me into a hug and just hold me, but instead he said, “He hasn’t been in your life this long and you don’t need him. Fuck him, Babe. You don’t need that shit.” My husband, the romantic poet.

I got everything ready the next day. Alaethia slept till 9am(!) so I got a chance to iron and made breakfast and everything. It was hilarious that morning — I’d left my jeans and the boys’ jeans draped on the back of the couch and Jaylen accidentally grabbed mine instead of his. My jeans were HUGE on him and yet, there he was, trying to button them up LOL. We all had such a good laugh that morning.

I made Mario and myself some omelettes (that were delicious!) and made myself some coffee so I’d stay awake. I had some cleaning to do before Mayra got home, which didn’t help the look of the house anyway since I still had garage sale stuff all over the place.

Mayra arrives at 11:10am and hands over a bag of cereal (yay!) and we coo over Alaethia. While she’s holding her I give her the lo-down on my family drama. I told her I have his address and right after we pick up Jaylen from school, would she mind stopping by my Gramma’s to warn her that my grandfather might go over there? She says no, she’s all for it, and I’m so glad, too. I feel braver since she’s with me. If it were just me and the kids I think I would have chickened out and not gone at all.

We pick up Jaylen and she gives me the update on her current situation. We arrive at Gramma’s and my heart literally feels like it’s thumping in my throat as I’m getting down from the truck. Mayra, bless her, offered to stay with both kiddos in the car since they were asleep. I promise not to be long and run into the nursing home.

The hallway feels like it’s much longer than it is as I’m walking towards Gramma’s room. She’s having lunch. I almost want to turn on my heel and run out of the room because I know, once I tell her everything I have to say, she’s not going to want to finish her meal. She’d already seen me, so I say hello and have a seat on her bed. I tell her, “Remember how you wanted me to find my Grandfather last year?” she says yes and asks, “You found him?”

I nod and tell her everything that happened, including the fact that he might go visit her. I tell her, “Would you mind if he came to see you?” She gets a sparkle in her eye, smiles coyly and says, “I don’t mind.” Gramma, you flirty girl you.

I next tell her something I probably shouldn’t have, about Aunt Nora, and to cover up my mistake I quickly tell her about our uncle, her brother, Dionel. I don’t know if it’s because she’s so overwhelmed with the news about my grandfather or that she’s that distraught over her brother’s death, but she starts sobbing loud — shoulders shaking and all. I was so scared — I had no idea what to do. I felt terrible and didn’t know what to say. She never cries when her siblings die, not even when Tio Lupe passed away and he was her closest sibling! She says, “We’re all dying. There’s only 3 of us left.” I tell her, “Oh, Gramma, don’t say that,” and gently pat her leg. She calms down and takes a deep breath. I look at the time and realize I need to get back to the truck before the kids wake up and all hell breaks loose on Mayra. I tell her I’ll see her on Saturday and to worry about herself, not everyone else and finish her meal. She says she will and I kiss her goodbye.

I felt a huge weight in my chest after I leave the room. I was saving Aunt Nora the trouble of telling her about her brother, but I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have. I’d never seen Gramma get that way, ever.

I tell Mayra everything and then we make our way North. I have my grandfather’s address, and even though he completely rejected me I have every intention of checking where he lives, buahaha. We’re both looking for the house and then realize we’ve gone too far. We turn back and there’s his little house. Not what I expected, but you can totally tell he has a wife because there’s huge butterfly decorations hung on the walls of his yellow brick house.

I try to push everything to the back of my mind because I’m taking Mayra to my favorite thrift store to search for books! She’s excited, and I’m excited. We arrive there, get Alaethia in her stroller and wake Jaylen up from his nap. He goes straight to the toys and finds a brand new Triceratops plush, makes his way to the couch in the library and goes back to sleep. That was easy!

We, Mayra and I, walk around the shop and search for books. I’m picky, so I’m having a hard time finding stuff but Mayra’s got a whole stack! I ended up finding two books: Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding and Local Girls by Alice Hoffman. For those two and the plush I pay $2.50. Had the other ladies been there I probably only would have spent $1.50. Mayra ends up spending $9 for 8 books and a water globe. That was pretty darn good.

We wanted to go check out the other thrift shop but we’re starving so we come straight home to have some enchiladas and rice I’d made the night before. Mayra has to get home so she leaves and I have to go pick up Eenan. It was a great day out, well, besides making my Gramma cry :(. I hope we get to catch up again soon!

While I’m waiting for Eenan I call Aunt Nora and tell her what happened. I even brace myself and tell her how I messed up and told Gramma something I shouldn’t have, but she said maybe she’ll forget. Thank goodness. I thought I screwed up so bad!

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and got the kids bathed. Mario calls and says he’s coming home, which I was really excited about because the first thing he says is he wants to watch The Holiday. Great! We snuggle up on the couch with Alaethia and around 9pm we get the boys into bed. The Holiday is even better than I thought it was going to be. There’s a part where they’re eating and I tell Mario, “You know what I want to learn to make? Meatball soup.” He nods and says, “Sounds good. That’s why I love you.”

I laugh and say, “Because I cook?”

“No — well, yeah because you cook, but because you’re always trying new things. I never get bored.”

“Thanks, I’m glad. I love doing it.”

“That’s why I brag to my friends.”

“That makes me feel good. You pay attention.”

“Of course!”

I don’t know what it was about that night, but it just felt like every frustration, every feeling of sadness I’d had never happened. We were back to our old selves. There was a part in the movie (SPOILER! DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE MOVIE AND WANT TO!) where Cameron Diaz visits Jude Law at his house and she finds out he’s a widower and father of two little girls. I’ve got a lump in my throat, absolutely falling in love with the thought of two little girls maybe later in the future and how cute their bedroom is with all their girlie toys and that tent! It’s the cutest, girliest tent, ever! They’ve got the most lovely names: Sohpie and Olivia, which I’ve always liked. And their voices — aww, they sound so cute and I can’t wait to hear Alaethia speak! I find myself getting teary-eyed and say, “Oh. They’re so cute. I’m getting teary-eyed here.” And Mario replies, “I got teary-eyed five minutes ago,” and flicks a tear from the corner of his eye. So he was serious. He does want another daughter some day. Do you know what that would mean? That my dream of having a large family, with two boys and two girls that I’d decided I wanted since I was in 10th grade, would come true. But we’ll see. Again, maybe spacing them like we did with Jaylen and Alaethia. That would be ideal :). I like even numbers :). And of course I really want to have our own house by then, which I’m sure we will. 2 parents, 4 kids, 2 bedroom apartment? Not really.

Eenan lost one of his bottom teeth, finally since his adult teeth already broke through completely behind the baby teeth. He called himself a little shark, because sharks have two rows of teeth LOL. He’s saving up his money to buy a video game. What’s new?

Eenan took his cookies, candies and Easter eggs they’d ask him to take yesterday morning for their party. Jaylen was thrilled when I picked him up, since he’d won some magnetic numbers for knowing what plants needed to survive, aww :).

Mario wanted me to drop our camera off to him so I had a quick lunch, got the kiddos in the car and we left. He’s doing a custom job at work so he wanted to take pictures of his progress. Since we were already over there, heh, we went to Goodwill. Jaylen got himself 3 books that he promised he’d share with Eenan and a large Chomper plush, from The Land Before Time. I found a book that sounded interesting and a beautiful brass serving dish, which I think matches the decor in my bedroom. I’m using it to store my perfumes and it was only $1!

We made a quick stop at the RGCH thrift shop where I found 4 good books: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks, The Deep End of the Ocean by Jaqueline Richard and a colorful dream book. And I only spent $2.17!! See what I mean? The other lady charged me $2.50 for a plush and two books. The lady yesterday charged me $2.17 for 4 books! Grr.

After picking Eenan up I spent the afternoon looking through the crap in the living room closet and I guess I can say I did pretty good. Ricci called around 6pm and told me she was checking out my website. She said she wanted to come over and would bring some food with her so I didn’t have to make dinner. Awesome! We caught up and she told me about how well she’s getting paid. I’ve got to say I’m really happy for her, albeit a little jealous! I’m glad she’s doing so well for herself and her girls. That’ll show her crappy ex!

Mario came home sort of early and ate dinner. We were so tired we went to sleep somewhat early. Alaethia woke up at 4am for a bottle and we both quickly went back to sleep after that. The alarm went off at 8:30, so I ask Mario what time he wants me to wake him up since this week he goes in at 10am. He freaks out and jumps out of bed and says, “I had a car staying overnight, Babe! I’m supposed to be there at 9!” *gulp* He got ready super quick. I didn’t even get to pack his lunch, poor thing. I hope he got there safely and on time. I was so out of it I didn’t even remember he’d told me he had a car staying overnight.

I’ve got so much crap to do today. Clean, get the rest of the stuff out of the closet, go to storage and bring more things to look through (I’m running out of places to store the garage sale stuff!), get invitations from the pizza place, order Jaylen’s cake, buy Cokes for the bar-b-q on Sunday, and Mom’s in charge of buying some pork and chicken for Sunday. Oh yeah, add to that laundry and dishes. Blah!

I’ve seriously got to get some kind of written schedule going to help me stay on track. I’ve got piles of folded laundry that need to be put away in drawers stacked on the futon, half the dishes that were in the sink are still in there, and I put the toilet cleaner in the toilet, but I’m just now remembering I was supposed to clean it. I can’t just do one thing and finish it. I get bored and absentmindedly move on to something else.

I need to shower, but Mario’s at a seminar and won’t get here till who knows what time. I don’t want to go to sleep stinky :(. I think it’s about time I rearrange my routine and bathe while Mom’s here during the day. I bathe the boys around 6-6:30pm, so maybe I should bathe them at 6 and take a shower myself at 6:30. Then get dinner started at 7 like I usually try to. But then when am I supposed to work out?! At 5:30? Darn John won’t go running with me. I totally need a running partner and nobody wants to join me :(. I’d feel silly jiggling running out there all by myself.

Anyway, going off on a tangent there.

Tonight would totally be a great night to update from bed. I’m crossing my fingers that there’s a fantastic sale on awesome laptops in this Sunday’s ads so we can get one already.

Alaethia slept in her crib for the very first time Monday night. My sore throat was awful and my nose was between running and being stuffy so I was certain I’d end up having to sleep with my mouth open that night–you know, to avoid suffocation and all. Since Alaethia sleeps in the crook of my arm I didn’t want to get her sick so I placed her between her little wedge thing in her crib and prayed for the best. I was super paranoid even though her crib’s right next to my bed. I closed my eyes and felt like I’d woken up just as quickly when I heard her little “I’m hungry” cries. Look at the clock; she’d let me sleep for 4 hours!

I fed her, burped her, changed her, cuddled her and put her back in the crib. It was no-go that time though. I was too tired to continue to try and get her to sleep in there. I like holding her and breathing in her baby smell anyway :).

I tried putting her in her crib on Tuesday night after giving her her bath (the last piece of belly button scab fell off Saturday night, so I can bathe her freely now :)!) and feeding her. It takes so long to burp her. Most of the time she doesn’t even burp and she’s gotten into the habit of spitting up a little bit after her feedings. I placed her in the crib and she stayed asleep. I curled up in bed while Mario was making copies of CDs and fell asleep. I could hear something far away, something like a gasp and then I heard gurgling sounds. I realize that it’s Alaethia and I spring out of bed to find her gagging on her spit up. I freaked out, picked her up and turned her onto her stomach and patted her back to help her stop choking. I was so scared I scrapped the idea of putting her in her crib for now. Maybe after she starts learning how to burp correctly =\.

I had absolutely no idea what we were going to do for Valentine’s Day. I’d asked Mario and we both just sort of shrugged it off since we knew he wouldn’t be getting out early enough to celebrate. I tried not to be excited, and I tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t be disappointed if something incredibly romantic didn’t happen.

The boys were little terrors the morning of Valentine’s Day. Eenan eventually got the point that I was quickly getting frustrated, so he shaped up right away. Jaylen on the other hand continued to lazy around on the couch and talk back to me when I told him to get ready. He left me all of 5 minutes to get myself ready. I told him he was grounded since he never listened and then began the waterworks. He wailed and cried all the way to school and once we parked in a parking space, he magically stopped crying. Just like that.

I got them both to their classrooms and made sure they had their large Ziplocs containing their Valentine Cards for their classmates. Rushed back home since I needed to get Mario’s stuff ready and then drop him off to pick up the Sentra at Whataburger since John had taken it in the morning to get to work. First thing Mario does is start complaining about how he only had one pair of tube socks left in his drawer, how my coffee was watered down and how tired he was of having to rush to pick up his car. He was all ready to go by 8:30, but Noelia wasn’t ready till 8:45. Not my fault he was rushing, even though he didn’t have to be at work till 10. We’d made plans the night before to have lunch together for Valentine’s Day. He continued to make little complaints about the car and when I’d finally had enough I told him, “You know what? Forget meeting for lunch. Just forget the whole thing.”

When we were about to walk out the door he tells me, “Are we meeting for lunch or not? If not, so I can pack something.” I roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, we’ll meet. Whatever.”

I tried napping with Alaethia when I got back but I got about half an hour worth of sleep since she wanted a bottle and then wanted to stay awake. Picked up Jaylen then got home and flat-ironed my hair and put on some make-up. I call Mario and ask him what time he’d like to meet and he said he was at a service call with Albert, so he’d call me whenever they were on their way back to work. This causes me to quickly become annoyed, but I was trying to be civil so, through gritted teeth I said, “Okay. That’s fine.”

He calls back not long after that and tells me to go ahead and take off so we’d get there around the same time. I give Mom a quick run-down of what Alaethia needs and how Jaylen’s not allowed to play video games and I take off. Traffic was terrible, but I made it over there in half an hour.

I see him when I drive into the alley behind the shops and he gives me a huge smile and suddenly I don’t feel as resentful towards him as I did just seconds before. (I hate it how he can make me forgive him so quickly just by flashing a sweet smile. I’m so weak!) He gets into the truck and says, “Hey, Beautiful, where do you want to go?” We decide on a Chinese Buffet place since it’s pretty fast.

We get our food and have a nice chat. We discuss how the kids behaved (or misbehaved) in the morning and chatted about the cute things Alaethia does. He tells me how he told everyone that I was upset with him and it all becomes a huge joke. I tell him thank you for lunch; it made my Valentine’s Day. The hour went by too quickly. I dropped him off at work and gave him a smooch on the cheek. I was pretty bummed that I’m sick and couldn’t even give him a decent kiss. I won’t even get into the fact that we can’t be, erm, intimate for six weeks and Alaethia barely turned 3 weeks yesterday LOL.

The rest of the day’s pretty normal. Mom wanted to get the kids a little gift, so after we picked Eenan up we went to visit Gramma then to Target. Jaylen was acting up at first, but after a while he calmed down and behaved. We chatted with Gramma for a while and she swooned over Alaethia. We said our goodbyes after half an hour and set off to Target. I wanted to get home before it got dark, since I can’t see well at night and I was already feeling dreadfully sleepy.

Mom lets the boys pick out a toy each (Jaylen, a Batman action figure, Eenan, a Naruto action figure) and I get some diapers and a burgundy bed sheet set that was on clearance for $13. I’d been looking for burgundy sheets and hadn’t had any luck. Can’t beat $13!

I get home and do my nightly routine and Mary treats everyone to some McDonald’s. I didn’t even have to make dinner–yay! I get a call from Mario that he’s going to be a bit late, again, since he and the guys had a system to do. He appologizes, but I tell him it’s fine and I genuinely mean it. I put Alaethia in her crib and change the bedsheets. Alaethia starts fussing when I’m done so I pick her up and hold her and Jaylen joins me on the new, crisp sheets. We’re watching TV when I suddenly see a shadow on the door. It’s too high to be Eenan, who was in their bedroom playing. I stare at the doorway at to my surprise it’s Mario holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers and two packages wrapped in yellow paper. He has the cutest expression on his face and says, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” I immediately feel a lump crawl up my throat and my eyes welled up with tears. I croak, “Babe! What…you didn’t have to!” I place sleeping Alaethia on the bed and hold him, bawling my eyes out. Eenan starts to get worried, because he hates to see me cry and Mario tells him softly, “It’s okay, man, Mama’s crying because she’s happy.” The boys both come over and hug us and Mario asks me to read the card attached to the bouquet. And I bawled my eyes out again :).

He tells me, “Open the rest!” So the boys help me tear open the small package first, which is a DVD I’d wanted: Friends With Money with Jennifer Aniston. The second package is something I’d been wanting forever: a box of Whitman’s chocolates :). How he guessed I’d really wanted one of those is beyond me.

We put the boys to bed after that and then we bathed Alaethia. We cuddled in bed while we watched Open Season until I started drifting into sleep. I brought Alaethia back into bed with me, who’d been sleeping in her crib until she needed a bottle. She slept pretty well the first part of the night and then, after she’d woken up at 3:45 stayed awake till 5:15. I was so tired this morning. I was supposed to drop Noelia off at work but I didn’t think I would make it back, alive, afterwards. My throat also felt horrible, my ear ached, my Wisdom tooth is ripping my gums apart and I was afraid I’d gotten Alaethia sick. I called Mary to let her know I couldn’t drop Noelia off and instead I went to the doctor.

I weight 119 right now, which is pretty good but I’d LOVE to get to 115, and maybe even 110. That’s my goal. Alaethia is now 7 lbs. 10 oz. and is 20 inches long. She got a clean bill of health. Dr. C. recommended cuddling if she gets fussy LOL. I, on the other hand, have a throat infection but no Strep, thank goodness. My ear was clear of infections (and clear of everything else–Dr. C. said I maybe needed some ear wax since my ears were that clean LOL); he said, as I suspected, that the pain was probably due to my darn Wisdom tooth.

Mario’s been home for a while and Alaethia’s asleep so I should take the chance to take a quick shower and put some beef stew to cook in the slow cooker for Mario’s lunch tomorrow. I hope Alaethia lets me get some good sleep tonight. I have to drop Mario off tomorrow so I need to sleep!

Life as a family of five (OMG) has been pretty darn sweet. I’m not even sure where to begin, since I’ve gone so many days without updating and I can only remember so much, but I’ll try and recall things as best as I can.

Let’s see…going back to Thursday, the 25th, we were released from the hospital around 2:30, which was great because Jaylen would already be home and Eenan would be arriving from school around the time we would. They kept threatening to keep Alaethia at the hospital, which was the exact same thing that happened with Jaylen, because she refused to take more than an ounce of formula during her feedings. All she wanted to do was breastfeed, which we were thrilled with, but the nurses weren’t for some weird reason (I really didn’t like that hospital–well, the postpartum part of it anyway). We ended up getting our way though, thank God.

Mario drove under the speed limit all the way home, and even flipped a guy off who was tailgating us and then cut us off when Mario refused to go 80 MPH. He was trying to be as careful as possible with our precious cargo.

We had a quick stop to make at Dollar General, since it hadn’t occured to me that I’d need a pack of extra large pads (ah, yes, the FUN part *sarcasm*). Mario offered to get them for me, willingly, all by himself. NEVER, in our almost 10 years together, has he offered to go buy me pads. They didn’t have the brand I use, but he found another brand and guess what? They were even better than the ones I used to use, I kid you not. Extra points for Mario.

We got home and Jaylen ran to the car, with ‘Welcome home, Alaethia!’ written on his Magna Doodle (with help from Mom, of course). He was so anxious to see what she looked like; he was almost in disbelief that this new little person was “his” and was real. I can’t even count how many times he said, “Aww, Mama, Alaethia Wohse (Rose) is so cute!”

Mario and I were exhausted, so we headed straight to our bedroom while Mom and Mary organized our bags and put them out of the way. Eenan got home and jumped on the bed to see his new sister. I’d been breastfeeding her and if I remember correctly I think he said something like, “So that’s what they’re for!” LOL

Brandon and Noelia came over to see Alaethia, and after everyone was gone, Mario took a nap and Alaethia and I tried taking one, too, but it didn’t last too long. I’d been getting horrible cramps since the night I had her and they weren’t getting any better. The more I breastfed, the more it hurt. I don’t remember ever having that kind of pain with the boys. I don’t remember them hurting even more than actual labor pains, either. I kept getting up to warm up my Rice Sock to get a little relief from all the pain I was feeling.

Yadira and the girls and Matthew came over later that evening to meet Alaethia. It was nice sitting and talking to everyone and relaying our experience. We got the boys ready for bed and everything went without a hitch, thank goodness.

That night, Mario took the first shift with Alaethia and let me rest. I’m telling you, this man is an angel. He said he was more than happy to take care of her since he got to sleep in the afternoon and I didn’t. When it was my turn to feed her that night she did so well and let me sleep about 6 1/2 hours (woke up twice during the night). Mario got up and got the boys ready and took them to school. I was already up making Alaethia a bottle at that time, so I helped him out a little but he did so good on his own. Model father, he is :).

Mario was home from work that Friday, the last day :(. He helped me as much as he could; picked Jaylen up from school and Eenan and Brandon, too. Mary made dinner for us that night, which was such a huge weight off my shoulders. She’d also done laundry for us while we were gone. She wanted to help out more with Alaethia, but couldn’t since she had pneumonia (and Noelia had bronchitis, Mom had a cold and so did Elda and my boys!)

We watched TV that night after we’d gotten into bed. At around 11pm, I started getting sleepy and Mario told me to go ahead and sleep, he’d watch Alaethia if she woke up. I could hear her crying around 1am so I got up to get her. Mario quietly told me not to worry about, he’d take care of her. I felt so bad since I knew he was going back to work the next day and needed his rest but he told me he was fine. He fed her and I drifted off into sleep again. A few moments later I could hear her crying so I opened my eyes and saw the most wonderful thing ever: Mario was changing her diaper–something he said he’d never do! I thought it was so sweet and wished I had my camera with me to capture the moment. I fell in love with him all over again :).

I stayed quiet and watched him fumble with the diaper and wipees and I hear him whisper something to her like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Baby…” and he caught me looking at him. I asked, “Do you want help?” and he said, “Yes! I don’t know how to clean her!” I finished changing her and then went to sleep. She did pretty good that night, too.

I woke up Saturday morning to engorged breasts. I thought my milk was never going to come in and boy did it, with a vengance even. I was in absolute pain by night time. Mario’d told me to buy a breast pump and I didn’t listen. I was counting on WIC giving me one because Alaethia’s eligible for it but the woman who supposedly called and said she’d even make house calls never answered or returned my calls when I tried getting ahold of her. I was so desperate I called Mary and asked if she’d take me to Target that night to get one and a few other things I needed.

I got ready and to my horror realized I still needed to lose a few inches before I could fit into my jeans. I put on a pair of before/after maternity cargo pants I had and looked pretty decent. Mary even commented as we entered Target, “You look so skinny already!”

I got the pump, a First Years one, and some bassinet covers and I can’t remember what else. As soon as we got home I washed the pump and pumped away. I immediately felt better, but the darn pump didn’t work too well. After using it a few more times it definitely wasn’t working right. $25 down the drain. And since I’d begain pumping, the cramps I’d been having got worse once again.

Aunt Nora came over to visit on Sunday morning. My hair was a frazzled mess and I was still in my PJs and pumping my boob when she arrived, but she didn’t mind. We (Mom, Aunt Nora and I) stood around the bassinet where Alaethia was sleeping and oohed and ahhed at her cuteness and talked about our experiences with each of our labors. Aunt Nora even brought us Christmas presents. Mine was a gorgeous red/pink set of gloves, hat and scarf and an even more gorgeous silver jewelry set. Aunt Nora was here a good hour and a half or so and after she left, Grandma Ofelia stopped by.

She kept saying how pretty and alert Alaethia was. She said she looked really good for being 4 days old; not wrinkly and asleep like most newborns LOL. She gave me some advice about taking care of myself and we talked more about the baby and then she left to the church where she’d be meeting some friends for bingo :).

Sally was going to stop by and visit next, so after putting Alaethia in her bassinet once she started to get sleepy I took the opportunity to put some clothes on, brush my teeth, wash my face and for the love of God, brushed my hair.

Sally arrived and she told me how cute Alaethia was. We talked about Thursday, the day after she and Pete had visited us, and then had fun looking people up on Myspace and freaking out over how much some people have changed. We had great conversation, as always, and after an hour or so Annie, Cat and their kiddos came over. Annie kept saying how much she looks like Jaylen, and even resembled John, which is what a lot of people say about Jaylen, too.

Everyone asked about her sleeping patterns and if she was a good baby and I had nothing but good things to say. I must have jinxed myself because that night we had lots of broken sleep and I was up with her from 1am to 5:30am. I’m not sure if it was that night or not, but one night she had terrible constipation and the next she had HORRIBLE diarreah, probably due to the high-fiber diet I have to be on according to my doctor. It didn’t get any better, so I stopped breastfeeding :(. I gave it a two-day break, just pumped and threw the milk out, and she got better. When I resumed breastfeeding she got diarreah all over again so I stopped again. I haven’t breastfed her and she’s fine. I feel kind of disappointed and just really bummed that my milk could do that to her :(. I was so thrilled that I finally had a baby that latched on right and everything and this goes and happens.

I was freaking out the next day over how I was going to make it to my appointments but thankfully John got out of work early and picked Jaylen up for me, picked Eenan and Brandon up and took me to both appointments. At the doctor’s office I ran into a girl, Fabiola, that I’d met there and become friends with during my pregnancy. Her little girl is 3 months old now and is adorable (she was 9 months pregnant with her when we’d met). We talked about our babies for a good while until they called me in.

I weighed 122.5 lbs., which is 2 lbs. more than my scale at home (but the one at the doctor’s is correct since that’s the one I went by the whole pregnancy.) My iron was great; it was at 15 and I think 11’s usually the average. Alaethia still weighed the same as she did at birth, 6 lbs. 10 oz., but Dr. C. said that’s fine since they usually lose weight after birth (so not the case with her brothers, the eldest of which DOUBLED in weight at 2 weeks!). He said she looks great and I pointed out the little white “dots” she had on the roof of her mouth and he said those were calcium deposits, which are normal in some babies. I also pointed out the funny way her bootie “starts”, but he said we’d wait it out for a few months before getting X-rays or anything done. He says he thinks she’s just fine though. Thank goodness :).

The next couple of days are sort of a blur now, but I remember the boys got dropped off by Mario each morning, Jaylen was picked up by either Vito or John and Brandon and Eenan were picked up by John, too. I also got into the swing of my evening routine, which is helping Eenan with his homework, cleaning up a bit, tending to Alaethia, bathing the boys around 6pm and starting dinner around 6:30. I feed the boys, hopefully feed myself if Alaethia permits, get the boys ready for bed, serve Mario food when he gets home from work, bathe while Mario watches Alaethia and then get ready for bed myself. It’s been pretty easy; not as stressful as I thought it would be.

John got out of work early again on Thursday and our income tax refund check had come in so he took me to pick up and cash that and to get Alaethia some formula. Later after we picked the kids up from school and dropped them off with Mom, we dropped money off to Mario, who wanted to get some headrest TVs for the Equinox. John was supposedly going to get an Xbox 360 but changed his mind at the last minute as always, so we went to buy groceries instead.

Mario stayed at work a little late that night installing the TVs with his co-worker, Mario Z’s, help. He got home and asked me to go out to see the TVs and they looked fabulous! He even installed wireless headphones so the kids can watch TV while we listen to the radio or the iPod!

Friday was the first day I woke up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school. Mario needed to be up to drive them at 7:45 and then had to drop Noelia off at work since she’s car-less at the moment and I knew he wouldn’t get much time to catch up on sleep since he had to pick Jaylen up at noon. So, I got up. I don’t remember how much sleep Alaethia let me get that night, but I did get sleep and I didn’t feel tired so I got up while I could and got them ready and then woke Mario up to drop them off. I came back to bed with Alaethia, who needed to be fed and then we slept.

After Mario picked Jaylen up from school, we went to pick up his paycheck and he drove around all over the place looking for a good, inexpensive magazine for his new gun (still so creeped out about having a gun in the house, but he’s got locks and stuff all over it and has it in a safe place. But still…guns…ew). We stopped by Mary’s office to show off Alaethia and spent a good amount of time there. Everyone was gushing about how cute she is and I got complimented on how nice I looked for having her a little over a week ago. That makes me feel so good about myself :).

We picked Eenan up from school that day and John went with us so he could buy some stuff from Target (which he didn’t end up doing, again!). We wanted to take Mom with us, but we had no room in the truck now that we have Alaethia’s huge carseat. We bought some movies at Target (The Guardian, Open Season, Talladega Nights) and then met Mary at Applebee’s for dinner. I was so disappointed to find out that the Friday’s in McAllen was CLOSED. I loved that place :(.

I ordered the Shrimp and Steak something-or-other from the 3-course Menu and Mario had the Chicken Fiesta one. He HATED it. Threw a fit about it and everything and I felt really bad, especially since we spent a huge amount of money. I enjoyed my plate at least–it was delicous. I even had the brownie dessert, yum. Alaethia was a total doll and behaved wonderfully. The boys were so well-behaved, too. Well, until they both suddenly needed to go poop and made Mary take them each to the bathroom for about 10 minutes, but other than that, they were great.

When we were walking out, an elderly lady reaches out and gently grabs my arm and says, “You’re a great mother.” I felt so good that someone, a stranger, noticed that I’m a decent parent and was on cloud 9 the rest of the night, even if Mario was in a crappy mood. He appologized before bed that night though, so all was forgiven.

Eenan needed to be at the school by 6:45am Saturday morning for their last UIL meet. He was one of 3 chosen to go. I’m not sure if it was 3 for Storytelling or 3 out of the whole school, but he was thrilled to be going. We found out later last night that he placed 2nd DISTRICT-WIDE!! I’m so proud of my little dude. He’s going to get the trophy he’d been desiring all year!

Elda and Jose got married for the 3rd time yesterday, only this time it was through the church. After Eenan got home from the UIL meet, I made him change his clothes and the rest of us got ready. Since Alaethia’s little umbilical cord stump fell off but it’s still not fully healed I can’t bathe her yet, but I did give her a washcloth bath. I was in such a hurry, but I managed to get all three kiddos ready, plus myself. I managed to fit into my pre-pregnancy nice black slacks and nice shirt. Shoot, I think I look better in them now that I did when I was working (when I bought them). I even wore the beautiful, expensive BCBG Max Azria sweater Mario bought me off of Eddie :). According to my scale, I now weigh 116, which is really 118. Yay!

Although the ceremony was sort of all over the place (they didn’t even let them rehearse or anything) and we all forgot our cameras it was nice. We got home and had Pozole that Elda had made and later had wedding cake that Annie had bought for them. We spent a good long time together just talking and laughing. Love days like that.

We woke up sort of early today and Mario picked up Burger King for us for breakfast. Mom watched Jaylen and Eenan went to CFF and church with Mary while Alaethia, Mario and I went to town to pay bills and buy things. We paid off most of our Home Depot credit card, since our interest goes up in March and it’s super high. We also went to Best Buy to get a $499 Toshiba laptop but of course, the whole 5 they had in stock had been sold in like 5 minutes, to the people who come from Mexico. Thankfully, Circuit City had the exact same one on sale, but with a mail-in rebate so we went and got it. Mario got down by himself at the store, since I was feeding Alaethia, and once he took half an hour I knew we’d gotten one. I’m updating from my bed at this very moment. The only reason I’m updating at all LOL.

We got the wireless router from Target, some curtains, a nice curtain rod and some toys for Alaethia. Not that she can actually play with them or anything; when I showed her one of the little toys that hangs from her carseat handle her eyes immediately crossed :P.

We went to Kmart next, where Mario wanted to show me some nice bunk beds he’d seen. We wanted new beds for the boys, but the ones we liked were huge and probably wouldn’t have fit in their bedroom. I loved the bunk beds so we got them. Now we only have to buy Jaylen a twin mattress.

We got home and started messing around with the laptop then went to Yadira’s where Elda and Jose were having a little get together in memory of Anthony’s 20th birthday. I still can’t believe he’s been gone for so long :(. I can’t believe he’d be 20 already.

We spent a few hours there and then went to Jorge and Maggie’s, where they were having a Superbowl bar-b-q. Maggie presented us with a huge colorful basket full of gifts for Alaethia. She bought the whole Fisher Price line with pink butterflies on it! I told her she didn’t have to–she seriously went all out but she insisted that she wanted to get her something nice. She really wants a little girl. I hope Jorge gives in ;).

We talked and I had a great time. Manny, their neighbor and Jorge’s good friend, kept saying that it didn’t even look like I had a baby. I’m hoping I can stay looking that way. The last time I got compliments like that, with Jaylen, I let it get to my head and I stopped watching what I ate. If I can help it, which I can, I’m not going to let that happen this time.

Okay, so now that it’s 12:25 and Alaethia’s been asleep for about half an hour I should get going before I’m up till 2am like yesterday. I’ve got so much to do tomorrow now that I’m going to start driving around again (well, I didn’t get the O-K till Wednesday, but what’s 2 days going to do? Now watch my uterus fall out *knocks on wood*). I’ve got bills to pay, appointments to make, things to return and a Gramma to show a new granddaughter to. I still can’t believe it. I gave my Gramma a granddaughter!