Jaylen’s party was on Sunday at Mr. Gatti’s and we all had a great time. Lucy didn’t get to go because of work, a few uncles were fixing Jose’s truck, and Maggie didn’t go at all (which I thought was pretty rude since I went to hers just the day before and she told me she was going!), but we still had a good turnout. We ate till we could eat no more and the kids all had fun playing games. It even came out to much less expensive than we expected.
The only bad thing that happened was when I lost Eenan for about 5 minutes. It was the scariest moment of my life. I dreaded the day that I’d feel that lost, helpless feeling because I was missing one of my children and couldn’t believe it was happening.
Yazmin wanted to play air hockey and since Mario was busy chasing Jaylen around, I asked Mom to watch Eenan for me while I played. When I bumped into Mom after Yazmin and I finished playing, she asks me if I’d seen John. I tell her no and notice that she doesn’t have Eenan with her but I figure he was at a game nearby and she was just checking up on John. I ask her where Eenan is and she says he’s probably with John. When she said, “probably”, I panicked and started looking for John. I see him and my heart sinks when I notice that Eenan’s not with him. I practically yell, “WHERE”S EENAN???”, at both of them. I was so pissed that Mom would just let him run off like that. I stomp off with my heart bursting out of my chest and searched everywhere I thought he’d be. I had visions of someone kidnapping him and a knot was forming in my throat. I walked up to the photo booth, one where it “illustrates” you like one of the famous painters, and just silently pray that he’s in there–by himself. You just never know these days. I look up at the little screen that draws the photo of you so that people outside can see the progress and I notice it drawing his little face. I pulled the curtain open and cup his face in my hands and ask him, “Why did you run away from Grandma?! You’re not supposed to do that, you know better!” His excuse was that “Grandma didn’t want to go to the photo booth” and he wanted to take a picture of himself, so he did. Please believe that I lectured that boy (and my MOTHER!) all the way home.
We rented a whole bunch of movies on the way home that day so that’s what Mario and I’ve been spending our time doing when he gets home from work. It’s really nice to just cuddle on the futon and watch TV together. It’s something I look foward to each day :).
Mayra, John and I drove to school together the next morning. It was fun, and Mayra and I got to chat about personal things and about just how weird it was going to be to get used to being home again instead of getting up and going to school in the mornings. We caught up on a math assignment we’d missed out on when we’d left to pick the pizzas up on Friday and then we reviewed for our Final the next day. Mayra and Lucy left together after school and were going to stop by Target since Lucy needed to make a payment. They call me to tell me about Lucy’s awesome gift idea for Mrs. C-R–a scrapbook! They picked some stuff up from the $1 Spot (gotta love the scrapbooking stuff they have there every-so-often) and I told them I had plenty of paper and accessories to complete one. We’d made plans to go watch The Pink Panther on Tuesday, but we decided to watch it here at my house and scrapbook all afternoon.
So we did just that. Since I thought we weren’t going to be allowed to use the computer’s calculator for the Final, John and I stopped by Wal-Mart the next morning to pick up a cheapy calculator. All I found was $10 ones so I scratched the idea since I didn’t want to spend 10 bucks for a calculator I was going to use once. (I could have used my cell phone but the darn battery was low.) Instead I stopped by the scrapbooking isle end cap and found some adorable scrapbooking stickers for $0.94.
We study the first period and I feel good and ready. Then I find out we’re allowed to use the calculators on the computers–great! We take the final the next period, and although I kept second-guessing myself I kept telling myself I would do okay.
John and I go to the Financial Aid office because they ask to see him. Turns out they’re trying to screw him out of an additional $100 enrollment fee (or something like that), and that’s beside the $20 registration fee he paid when he was enrolling. Supposedly his Financial Aid didn’t cover it, which is bull because nobody else in the whole class had to pay it seperately. I was so pissed we just left when we were supposed to talk to some ol’ broad.
We all meet up and drive to my house. I had the best time, ever. We watched The Pink Panther while eating popcorn and pickles. I was going to make enchiladas but the girls didn’t let me so we had corn dogs instead. After laughing our butts off at the movie (and waking John up with our hyena laugh :p), I left to pick Eenan up. When I got back, we started on the scrapbook. We each worked on our own special page to Mrs. C-R. It was awesome seeing the pages come together–we each added our own style to our “own” page, complete with a letter to Mrs. C-R. Here are “our” pages, with last names blurred out for privacy, of course.
We split the rest of the pages and put the finishing touches on them the next day. I went to Dollar General with Mom to pick up a few scrapbooking things (they have some pretty cute stuff, too!). Even the kids got into scrapbooking. They used smiley faces and shapey hole punchers to personalize their pages, which I will add to my own scrapbook :).
I couldn’t sleep that night just thinking about the next day: our last day together. Mrs. C-R. was passing out our Finals and grades: I got a 96 on the Final and a 97 as my overall math grade. My anal-retentiveness caused me to almost have a fit, as I’ve never gotten anything under a 98 as an overall grade. Mrs. C-R. goes over all the problems and I find out I have one of the ones marked wrong, right (I’d gotten 3 wrong). That brought my Final up to a 98 and my overall grade to a 98. I was thrilled :).
After that, we all just talked about how we were going to break down, and oh my gosh, what were we going to do?! I felt a little emotional, but thought I could keep it together. We ate donuts that Andria so kindly brought for everyone and Joe went up to the front of the class to say a few words about Mrs. C-R and the students. We worked on the scrapbook during our break, turning around every time we heard a noise thinking it was Mrs. C-R. When we went back, it was time for our Pinning–a little goodbye ceremony where they present us with a little computer pin and say nice things. Mrs. C-R said something nice about all of us. When she got to me, she said she wished she could have been the type of student I am when she was at school. I immediately developed a knot in my throat and felt even more emotional when I looked over at Mayra and Lucy and noticed Mayra’s eyes were all watery. She asked if anyone wanted to say anything and I did, so I went up there. As soon as I opened my mouth I started to bawl my eyes out. I felt so embarrassed, but I couldn’t help it. I took pictures of everyone as they got Pinned and Mayra took a picture of me with my tear-streaked face. Mrs. Keyes said a few things and then we took a group picture and we were off. We fixed up the scrapbook and put it in an adorable gift bag Mayra brought and all left for IHop. Joe didn’t go, which really sucked, but what could we do.
Traffic was insane since it was Administrative Professionals Day. Luckily, we found a parking space nearby and after waiting a few minutes we were seated. Mayra and I had a steak omelet, Lucy had this awesome looking quesadilla and John had a Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity AND a monster burger. And the boy finished everything. I felt nauseous just looking at him look sick. He didn’t stop till he put that last piece of hamburger in his mouth–ew. But anyway, we chatted and had fun and got sad and laughed. We gave Mrs. C-R. the scrapbook and she said she’d never received a gift like that and that she loved it. That made it all worth it :). It was so hard leaving everyone. We took pictures for as long as we could.
I miss seeing them already–Lucy, Mayra and Mrs. C-R. I was so used to getting up early and seeing them every day. I truly believe I enrolled in school when I did to meet them. They were supposed to be a part of my life and I hope we can continue to have this friendship till we’re little old ladies :).
I fell asleep when I got home that day. I was exhausted. I woke up at 3 and went to pick Eenan up, then we came home and John showed me a documentary about 9/11 called Loose Change 2nd Edition, which you can view on my Myspace. It’s a total must-see.
I woke up today feeling totally weirded out about just…being home. I got Eenan ready for school, ironed, dropped him and Sammy and Brandon off, came home and made breakfast and ate with Mario. John left to school (alone!) in the Sentra and Mario took off in the Equinox.
I had nothing to do so I thought, “Eh, I’ll just get online”. I was preparing to spend the morning pimpin’ my Myspace when I get a call from the nurse at Eenan’s school. She says, “Is this Eenan’s Mom?”
“Yes? This is she.” The first thing that popped into my head was, ‘Oh no, he’s hurt!’
“Eenan had an accident, Miss. He didn’t make it to the bathroom on time.”
I felt relieved and then panicked. “Oh my gosh. I don’t have a car right now. I don’t live that far, I’ll go walking, but it’ll take me a litle while.”
She says, “Oh that’s fine, Miss. I’ll keep him here in my office.”
I pump Jaylen up by telling him we’re going for a walk in his stroller. He loves taking walks in that thing (even though he’s 4 already) so he was psyched. As soon as we get ready, pack the bag with his clothes and get my stuff, we step outside…and it’s drizzling. WHEN. THE. HECK. DOES. IT. RAIN. HERE???
I find John’s keys to his Civic (which isn’t working well, which is why he’s borrowing the Sentra) and I spend 15 minutes trying to get “Vish” (John’s pet name for “her”) to turn on. Nothing. I throw my hands in the air in frustration and tell Mom, “Fuck it. Let’s go walking.”
Mom brings her umbrella over from her apartment. We’re all set and ready to go and what happens? It stops raining. Grr. We take off and power-walk to the school, uphill with me pushing 35 lb. Jaylen in the stroller.
My. legs. are. on. fire.
I tell the nurse about our misfortune and she laughs like it’s the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard. Because my luck’s funny like that. I start unpacking Eenan’s clothes and to my absolute horror realize I’ve forgotten his darn underwear. I look up at the nurse and say, “You’ll never guess what I did?”
Her eyes widen, like she knows exactly what I’m about to say. “What?”
“I forgot his underwear.”
We laugh nervously and I’m quickly trying to figure out what to do. Then I see my second-born sitting angelicly in his stroller and a light bulb goes off above my head. I coo, “Jaylen, Baby, come with me to the bathroom, please?” He looks up at me suspiciously, but follows me. The nurse catches on to what I’m about to do and says, “Miss, I’d do the same thing.”
I ask Jaylen to please sit on the bench in the bathroom and tell Eenan to strip down. I’m removing Jaylen’s shoes and he’s freaking out. I tell him I need him to take off his shorts because Nano needs his undies. He tugs back at his shorts and says, “No! They’re my underpants!” He wouldn’t surrender, so I did the next best thing: bribed him. I whisper in his ear, “If you give me your undies, I’ll give you a candy when we get home.” His eyes light up and he happily steps out of his underwear.
He always puts them on backwards and inside-out, so technically, they were pretty clean when Eenan put them on. God, I’m a terrible mother!
When they’re both dressed and Jaylen’s in his stroller again I get to talking to the nurse about enrolling Jaylen in school. Turns out he most likely won’t be attending school till he’s 5 and in Kinder. As much as it pissed me off before, I think it’s sort of a blessing in disguise since I was worried sick (literally) about who was going to pick him up and drop him off since Pre-K’s only half a day.
A little girl comes in and the nurse starts talking to her about her medication. Jaylen finds this the best opportunity to casually say, “I’m not wearing any undiepants.”
Everyone bursts out laughing. Quite an interesting morning. And here I thought I was going to be bored.
Tonight, Yadira, the girls, and Matthew came over and Mary treated us all to Whataburger. We ate and talked and laughed and Mario got home and reported that he did get his week off. If things go well, we’ll be going on a mini-vacation this weekend. Woo!
. The payments started out at $620-$650, then $520-$600. We were about to give up and he said, “Okay, let me try one more time.” He came back with a payment of $479 and we agreed. We were insistant and we got what we wanted. We waited another hour while they transferred everything to the banks and he said a few wanted to pick up the loan. Bad thing was that it was already 6 p.m. and the banks were closing so we’d have to finish everything the next day. He gave us the keys to the truck and we came home.
I’m updating. The darn internet at home is still all wonky due to signal failure (according to the Level 3 Technician I spoke to yesterday). They’re supposed to stop by the house on Sunday morning to fix it. Grr.
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