Category: Pregnancy

Mon., Oct. 20th – I can’t remember much from this Monday. It was probably one of those typical Mondays where I’m dragging and can’t wait till Friday’s here. I do remember that it wasn’t too hectic. We actually had substitutes showing up that whole week, so it was really nice getting some help. We were praised at least two more times about how neat and clean our library is; much neater than the others, they said.

Tues. Oct. 21st – Mrs. V. didn’t go to work, so she left me a list of things to do on her pin drive. I got every last thing done, even though it felt like it was never going to happen. I had to fax applications and documents for Model Classroom, e-mail people, get quotes for purchase orders and still do my regular every-day job. Then, after lunch, we had a …er, situation with a substitute teacher. Let’s just say we were in charge of babysitting this adult while proper authorities were reached. We seriously need to get an actual procedure in line in case another situation arises. We could be put in danger! This is the 3rd time this happens since I’ve worked there.

Wed. Oct. 22nd – Mrs. Ruiz and I approached Mrs. V. about the situation from the day before. We asked her what we should do, if we should be properly trained in case something worse happens one day. I find it kind of weird that when a bad situation like that arises they send the person to us to “babysit” till proper action is taken. What if one of us is alone one day and the person decides to attack us or something?

I’d been doing a good job keeping the house clean (well, at least the kitchen, bathroom and living room) but I’ve begun to feel so horribly tired. No matter how much I sleep, it doesn’t make a difference. I was a zombie that whole day.

It didn’t help that I had my prenatal appointment that afternoon. I’d rescheduled from 2pm to 4pm so I wouldn’t have to miss half a day of work. I’d pick Jaylen up from school after work and go straight to my appointment. I’d asked Mary to please pick up Eenan for me since he has UIL practice on Wednesdays. She said she’d be late but Sonia would pick him up for me.

I was sitting in the lobby during my appointment about 10 minutes before they called me in. That’s probably the fastest appointment I’ve ever had, aside from the time Jaylen had a horrible Strep infection and they were so concerned they let us straight in.

Dr. C. wasn’t in that day; he was delivering or something so I had to see the nurse practitioner, Elizabeth. I weighed 137, which *gulp* is 2 pounds more than what I weighed when I gave birth to Alaethia!! Before this, 135 was the most I weighed in my entire life. I’m freaked out that I’ve still got 4 months to go, which scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to gain too much weight! I got this mad thought in my head standing on that scale: how can I do it to only gain 3 pounds in the next 4 months—but I know that wouldn’t be possible.

Elizabeth asked me about my sugar and congratulated me when she flipped through my chart and saw that I haven’t had a problem with my sugar at all since July.

She did a quick ultrasound and I asked her to make sure Baby is still a girl. It was kind of hard to tell because of the way she was sitting (with her legs crossed) but she’s most likely still a girl, which is great! I’m probably going to be paranoid till the day she’s born, afraid that she’ll change sex on me LOL.

Elizabeth set another appointment for November 12th, which is the glucose screening. I already let Mrs. V. know that I’ll be out that morning. I also need to remember to schedule a new appointment for Alaethia with the cardiologist to check on her heart murmur.

Thurs., Oct. 23rd – It was such a stressful day at work. A cold front came in; maybe that’s why the kids were acting up. A girl who never really visits the library had a horrible attitude that morning and almost threw her books at Mrs. V. when she was asked to hand over her folder so she could escort her back to class for being rude. A boy who usually doesn’t give me trouble was being a smart ass. This other kid I’d never really seen before took an additional 10 minutes choosing a book after I told him to hurry and take a seat (and this is after the half hour he’d initially taken).

When I got home there was no difference. The kids were all wound up and loud. I did everything on my own, even though Mario was home super early. He was just chilling out on the couch playing Mobsters on Myspace and drinking a beer. When he got bored of that he went off to our bedroom to read. I’ve got three words: Must be nice. If I was just at home and this were my main job I wouldn’t mind that he wanted to relax and chill out, as much. But we both work the same amount of hours—it’s not like when he was at D-Tronics and he worked 12-13 hour days. I’d just like help once in a while is all I’m saying.

Fri., Oct. 24th – It was hectic all damn day. All the kids and teachers were on a rampage trying to reach their goals. It’s frustrating because they should be doing it all 9 weeks, not just the three days before, but that’s always the case.

My in-laws invited us to Red Lobster for dinner. Mario met us there. It was so nice to have a meal out with both my in-laws. The kids were wired and loud, but so was every other kid there, so I didn’t feel like I had to be shushing them all the time. It’s great to have Mario going places with us now that he’s at this job. I really do think it’s helped us a lot—seeing each other more often.

We went to Jorge and Maggie’s with Jaylen after we finished eating, but they weren’t home. Eenan and Alaethia had gone with Mary. We came home and surfed the web on our laptops with Aly. Adan came over around 10. Even though it was a Friday I was exhausted. Mario called me an old lady. Hmph.

Sat., Oct. 25th – We had our Dedication Ceremony at my school. I thought we’d gotten there late but we were actually around 10 minutes early. The whole thing was lovely: the kids from the Fine Arts department that were performing did an amazing job. My hormones were on the fritz and I was so proud I felt like bawling. Dr. S.–the man whom the school was named after—showed a video from the 80’s that came out on CBS with Dan Rather about his family. His parents had 6 boys and sent them all to college. They were very poor, but they did everything they could to become successful. It was such an inspirational story.

When the Dedication was over, we were starving, so we went to eat at Denny’s. I was ravenous for pancakes but after seeing Mario’s delicious looking plate I felt like having eggs and bacon but I was too full.

On the way out we ran into Aide and Adan. Adan had just picked up his paycheck so we went to pick up Mario’s. Our luck, the boss wasn’t there. Oh well. We went home. Mario left to Sonia’s to help his Nino chop fire wood for the bar-b-q the next day for Sonia’s birthday. I waited for Mary to get home to go to Venessa’s twins’ birthday party. It was cute. They had fun games for the kids and the parents too sometimes. The boys played and won a few games. They even ended up playing musical chairs against each other. Eenan won, but Jaylen was a good sport since the hostess said they’d be able to share Eenan’s prize anyway.

Jaylen and I won the toilet paper mummy game. I’m not sure if it was the adrenaline from trying to win the game or the fact that it was really hot, but I felt dizzy and started getting heart palpitations afterwards. I didn’t feel good. I grabbed a water bottle and took some deep breaths. I felt better after a while. We went home after that and watched TV. Aly fell asleep by 9:30. I was sleepy and went to bed but stayed up watching Family Matters till around 11pm. I crashed after that and woke up about twice during the night, once to pee, and to check on Alaethia since she didn’t wake up all night. She slept 12 hours straight!! First time she’d ever done that. If only I could go back and take notes!

Tues., Oct. 14th – Back to the daily grind. Only it wasn’t so bad because the library was closed due to a guest speaker visiting the 7th grade classes to give them a quick training on the writing portion of the TAKS test. I got to work on updating several things on Reading Renaissance and then our check-out system. It was a restful day, and I got to jot down some points to give Eenan because he’s taking the writing TAKS this year.

Since the library was closed, Mrs. V., Mrs. Ruiz and I went to eat lunch together. Mrs. Ruiz was awesome enough to pick up food from Starlight Burger for us both. I was going to treat her for once, but of course she gives me my $20 back! I finally got my delicious fried Shrimp plate with fries dipped in nacho cheese. *drool*

Wed., Oct. 15th – It was another normal day at work. It was Jorge’s birthday that day (Mario’s Nino) and we were celebrating at Yadira’s. After homework and everything else I didn’t have time to bathe the kids or get anything ready for the next day before it was time to leave. We had a good time over there and sat and talked like we usually do. Poor Alaethia got beaten up once by Matthew, but that was it. She’s learning to defend herself, but he did manage to catch her off guard that one time, heh.

We got home and we were in a frenzy getting everyone bathed and ready for bed. I was so tired I was literally falling asleep wherever I sat. I didn’t have lunch for myself or Mario the next day but he can always buy something from a restaurant. I only have 30 minutes for lunch so I can’t exactly leave campus so I figured I’d just buy the school lunch.

Thurs., Oct. 16th – I can’t remember much from this day. It was probably one of those usual ones, where 1st and 2nd period are hectic and crazy and the rest of the day is spent trying to make the system work with us. Mrs. Ruiz didn’t go that day so I had a late, quiet lunch and read a little.

Fri., Oct. 17th – We’d ordered brisket plates for a Migrant fundraiser and were worried that we weren’t going to get to eat that day since they never came in. But the lady did come in, by 11:30. Poor staff members that eat from 10:30-11:30…they didn’t get to eat that day if they’d ordered a plate!

When Mrs. Ruiz and I got back from lunch it was nice and quiet and we actually had time to just sit and chit chat.

We got home and I get a call from Mario asking me if I’d like to go to Jorge’s at night. I said it would be fine. Mary asked if we’d like to go to town with her. Mario didn’t want to go—in fact, he made it a point to fall asleep on the couch just to stress how sure he was. Mom, Alaethia and I went along with Mary and the boys stayed with Mario.

JC Penny was having this huge sale…let’s just say between Mary and I, we got the boys a whole new wardrobe! The t-shirts were $2-3 each, no joke. It was awesome! I finally got myself some new er, undergarments. No luck finding anything in the maternity section; everything was huge!

We got a few things at Target, where I lost my mother. Darn woman made me walk the whole of the store 3 times and I couldn’t find her. I went to the car with Alaethia, who needed a diaper change and Mary found Mom later, still in the Halloween section. That’s supposedly where she was the whole time. Not when I checked!

We stopped to pick up dinner at Chick-fil-a and then Mary dropped me off at Jorge’s with Mario and picked up the boys. We stayed pretty late that night, talking about anything from the upcoming election to the end of the world LOL.

Sat., Oct. 18th – Since we went to sleep really late, we woke up really late. We decided we’d go to the movies after Mario finished helping his dad with something. So I took my time getting ready. Around 3pm, half an hour before our movie started, Mario gets a call from Jorge that they need to go to the Dodge Arena to set up. Grr. I was so pissed and kept asking myself I didn’t know this was an on-call job. Fumed the rest of the day while doing my housework.

Sun., Oct. 19th – We were supposed to go to Tio V’s girlfriend’s daughter’s baby shower, but Lisa had her baby that morning. We kind of just chilled out most of the day until we decided to go to Home Depot to look for a new fluorescent light for the back porch and to buy meat for an impromptu bar-b-q. We invited everyone over. After spending time with everyone outside I came in and got everything ready for the next day. I was so not looking forward to going to work the next day. I guess because I know I’m going to eventually stop working I feel lazy waking up each morning, hoping that the day I don’t have to wake up at 5:30am comes quickly. It feels like it can’t come fast enough when Alaethia wakes me up 2+ times a night.

Wed., Oct. 8th – It was an okay day at work–the usual, really. I rushed to pick Jaylen up from school, dropped off our stuff at home and then I took him to get a haircut. Eenan was at UIL practice till 5, so I asked Mary if she could pick him up on her way home and take him for a haircut, too. She said yes, thank goodness. Just like their school to let me know they have pictures with such short notice. At least it was two days notice this time.

I got Jaylen into the shower to wash up when we got home, then went straight to pick up Mario from work and took him to his Lasik consultation. To make a long story short: the whole procedure would cost $4,400–after the $1,300 “discount”!! Because of Mario’s severe astigmatism he’d need two surgeries to fix his vision. Something told me to ask what his vision was without corrective lenses and the lady said 20/75 in one, 20/80-1 in the other. I looked at Mario and couldn’t help smiling: his vision was within the requirement for Border Patrol without corrective lenses! Yes!! The reason they’d sent him that notice was because his vision was 20/20 in one eye with his current glasses, 20/25 in the other eye. We didn’t even think that would be the case. We kindly declined the (very expensive–$250) dilation and came home. We decided we’d set up an appointment with another ophthalmologist on Saturday for new glasses. Even though I feel incredibly nervous all over again just thinking of him being away for three months (and possibly missing the baby’s birth) I know this is something he really wants to do, so I’m supporting him all the way.

Mario and I lay in bed that night watching TV with Alaethia between us. I’d been feeling the baby flutter for a few days already and have a habit of just placing my hand on my belly, just in case the baby would kick. I actually felt her kick hard for the first time! It wasn’t just the little it-might-be-gas fluttering that I usually feel—this was a swift, genuine kick!

Thurs., Oct. 9th – Mrs. V. took Mrs. Ruiz and I a huge bag of corn each from her mom’s garden. All I could think about was some yummy corn with mayo, chile and lime for the rest of the afternoon.

The boys had picture day so I left their clothes and instructions with Mom like I usually do. I prayed that they’d stay clean until they took their picture. I was so tired that afternoon after work that I just chilled out till 5:30, when Report Card Night started. It wasn’t very restful, as Jaylen was sleepy and refused to take a nap. It’s so exhausting when he gets that way. I told him I wasn’t taking him with me since he was acting up and he stayed behind with my dad-in-law and Alaethia. He ended up falling asleep on the hammock Big Mario had just put up again.

The teachers both had nothing but good things to say about the boys. I was a bit disappointed to find out Jaylen had been moved to a different class, but still reports to his old class as his “advisory” for breakfast. He was moved away from his best friend, Aaron. And I’m not sure I’m too keen on having him in a Bilingual class, even though it’s considered “GT”. He already has a GT class. But still, his old teacher said he’s extremely bright. I didn’t get to talk to the new one because her mother had passed away and she was absent.

We visited Eenan’s class and I was glad to find out his behavior’s been improving. He isn’t talking as much (but he is still talking) and he’s turning in his work. He got off of his “half-grounding” and now gets to play video games (for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on behavior at home) after he finishes his homework and reads for half an hour like Jaylen. His teacher still seems…different. She’s not as happy-go-lucky as she was when I first met her. Maybe she was just tired?

I’m so proud of my dudes—they both made the All ‘A’ Honor Roll! Eenan had a close call—there was an 81 printed on his report for Language Arts, but when I showed the teacher she said it was the system messing up—he’d actually gotten a 94!

We got home and my dad-in-law had already put some of the corn-on-the-cobs on the grill…they were delicious!

I stayed up that night feeling for Little One’s kicks but felt nothing. I know it’s still early, but I was worried since by this time in my other pregnancies I’m sure I was already doing Kick Counts. I didn’t fall asleep till 11. Add to that Alaethia beginning to get sick and teething; she kept tugging at her ear and was having a hard time swallowing. Then she woke me up for some milk at 4:30 and again I stayed up feeling for kicks, but I didn’t feel anything. I fell asleep finally at 5:15—and my alarm went off at 5:30. Needless to say I felt like a slug all day and couldn’t wait to just get home.

Fri., Oct. 10th – One of the teams at work was going on a field trip for the Goodlife Celebration and we’d agreed that we’d watch 2 of their kids that hadn’t passed, had referrals, etc. Well, Mrs. V. agreed—I obliged, which basically means that I was mostly the one dealing with them. At the last second they left us 4 kids, but the only boy refused to stay, so he was left somewhere else. So we were left with three girls, one of them being a girl who’d given me trouble in the past. Later on they sent us two boys and they actually did everything they were told with no problem. The girls on the other hand…well, let’s just say all three ended up writing words from the dictionary till it was time for them to leave. I kept my cool the whole time, but by the end of their stay I had a headache.

Mrs. Ruiz and I left to lunch after that, which was such a relief. When we got back it was time for the Goodlife video-game party another team was throwing in there. They played Xbox—loudly. I wouldn’t have minded, but I had a pounding headache from being with the girls all day.

I was so glad to get home and just chill out. When Mario got home we went outside with the rest of the family. We hung out and then grilled some more corn-on-the-cob again.

Falling asleep that night—and staying asleep—was a challenge since poor Alaethia was in pain again. She was fine all day; her cold and teething were only bothering her at night.

Sat., Oct. 11th – I woke up as soon as I could the next morning and had a quick breakfast, fed her and got her dressed to go to the doctor. Ear infection and sore throat, just as I’d suspected. Jaylen had made plans to go to Aaron’s house that morning, so we went to the pharmacy to get Alaethia’s prescription and then dropped him off at Aaron’s. We went home and I tried giving Alaethia her medicine to no avail; she quickly squirted it through her lips as soon as I gave it to her. It was that nasty ear-wax-tasting antibiotic. So there I go back to the pharmacy to get them to flavor it, even though it didn’t make a big difference. We left Eenan and Alaethia with Mary while Mario and I went to his optometrist appointment. He got his exams done and he JUST BARELY passed the requirements for Border Patrol! We picked up his check afterwards and then went to Walmart to cash it since the bank was closed. We picked up McDonald’s and then picked up Jaylen from Aaron’s. We sat around talking with family at Mary’s. Noelia was over getting help with grading her students’ work. Aaron’s mom was picking up Jaylen so we turbo-cleaned just in case she wanted a tour (she did the same for us when Jaylen first went over)…but she only came to the door. Oh well, at least the house was clean.

Jaylen was invited to a party at Aaron’s aunt’s house so they picked him up and went to party. We’d made plans with Mary to go to the movies so we let Aaron’s mom know to drop Jaylen off with Mom at our house when the party was over. She was babysitting Alaethia and Eenan, too.

Mario and I watched Pineapple Express, which was even funnier than I thought it would be! I couldn’t stop laughing. Mary watched The Mummy 3, I think. We ended the night by picking up pizza for dinner. Lately—even though the food’s fattening—there’s nothing I like more than not having to stand in front of a boiling stove and minimal dishes to wash, heh.