Category: Sadness

Mary’d kept Alaethia overnight, so we had a pretty easy night only concentrating on Emily. Mario, bless him, woke up at least twice during the night to help me with Emily. I got up when the alarm went off for Mario to get ready for work and made him some breakfast; eggs over easy and toast…with Emily in my arms the whole time. I still couldn’t walk too well; the darn incision hurt like hell and of course I couldn’t bend so it took, like, 5 whole minutes to slowly reach down and grab the pan handle from the oven drawer while holding Emily in my other arm. Mario ate, then left to work.

I was up since 8am and I didn’t end up eating breakfast till 10:40. All my kids have always cried or gotten hungry when I’m about to eat, and Emily was no different. That’s how they kept Mama skinny LOL. I had to pop her on my boob so she could breastfeed in order for me to eat breakfast. Mary had stayed home and had Alaethia with her (the boys were at school).

John took me to my appointment around 1pm. It was the first time he’s ever driven my Equinox. He was being kind of evil, relishing in the fact that I was in pain and couldn’t really hurt him from the back seat since it hurt to move. He kept threatening to go really fast over the bumps and dips and I threatened him right back, letting him know he’d be really sorry when I could run after him. As always, my dear brother can’t do anything for me out of the kindness of his heart, so I had to bribe him with tacos from El Pato. I got myself some lunch from there, too. I felt guilty and texted Mario–because we have perfectly good food I could cook at home—but he said no one would let me cook anyway and I deserved to treat myself. Aww :).

It was only the first full day at home and I was already starting to feel desperate; I couldn’t even wash dishes or anything without someone scolding me and shooing me back to the living room. I had to admit that I love my family. I don’t know what I would have done without Mom, Mary and Sonia (who picks the boys up from school for me every day till I can drive again).

I was really worried that I wasn’t making enough milk. Emily would feed for 1-2 hours straight and her tummy was still grumbling. I tried manually expressing to no avail. Thank goodness I still had some of those bottles they send you off with at the hospital. She was fine after she drank one. Mary, Yazmin and I went to H-E-B that night to get some formula and a few groceries we needed. They made me use one of those little electric carts LOL. I felt funny, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through the store.

Jorge, Maggie, their boys, Adan, Aide and Belle came to visit that night. I couldn’t really move all that much and had to keep asking Mom to please heat up my Rice Sock for the pain in my abdomen and back and my chest was beginning to feel really full, but I enjoyed the company. Alaethia and Belle entertained each other with the toys in Alaethia’s room and Emily was just a gem, snuggled up on my chest for a while and then slept peacefully in her bassinet.

When it was finally night time and Alaethia, who still refuses to sleep in her room in her daybed, was with us, it was a challenge. She was up and about, ready to play at 12am. Then, when Emily woke up around 4am, Alaethia was awake and quite loud too. At least Emily was sleeping in her bassinet. She was asleep most of the day and slept till around 1am. I breastfed her from 11:40-1am, and she was still desperate for more food. I felt awful, and kind of useless really. You’d think these big ol’ things would make the total of an 8oz. bottle.

Then she woke up around 3am and was up till 5 or so. I had figured I was going to have to start learning the shows that are on at that time, like I did when Eenan was a newborn, but I turned the TV off after a while. I didn’t want her thinking it was ok to be up. Even though she had that weird gap of awakeness, she still let me sleep for 2-3 hours between feedings. Not that I could sleep very much anyway. I couldn’t sleep; I felt paranoid that she’d stop breathing or something scary like that. And then the pain! The pain made it so damn hard to get on the bed, and even harder to get comfortable to sleep.

We had such a tiring, crazy night after weaning Alaethia from her milk sippy that I slipped into sleep after the alarm went off and I woke Mario up late for work. And then she woke up early.

Mario left to work, rushing, poor thing and I made banana pancakes. Alaethia actually ate her pancake. And then she ate lunch, too. I washed dishes after breakfast and lunch (it’s so nice being able to keep up with the dishes now that I’m home). I cleaned up the kitchen table (that thing’s a magnet for crap) and then I got started on sewing the curtains. Man, they’re just valances and it took forever to do. That, or I’m just out of practice.

I took a break and went to my bedroom and started organizing my document drawers. I have TONS of documents to shred, it’s not even funny. I went to pick up the boys from school and went to the ATM to activate my new debit card, since I was supposed to do that since mid-January.

I went to Dollar General to get a few things, which ended up being a lot of things because that’s what happens when the boys go with me. We came home and they had snacks before starting homework.

I finished up the curtain and we visited with Mary a while. I started dinner, took it over to Mary’s, ate and came back. Mario was already sleeping. Oh well. He’s been such an old man lately, yet he’d get mad almost every night that I had to go to bed early because I had to wake up early to go to work the next day. I got online and began sending out invites to my baby shower. When I was just about to go to bed Mario woke up. He ate some of the dinner (meatloaf, broccoli and cheese) I’d made earlier. I was just sitting at the table with my laptop to start uploading pictures to Myspace and Flickr when he asked if I wanted to watch a movie. Alaethia was still awake, but sure, why not.

We watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We got the ottoman ready with pickles, pepsi and popcorn just like at the movies. Alaethia fell asleep and we continued watching the movie.

SPOILER ALERT!!! SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE!!!
I sort of figured how it would end, but when it actually got there and everything started panning out I couldn’t stop bawling. I just didn’t like the fact that he was an innocent baby when he eventually died. It was awful. I was literally watching between my fingers and Mario was laughing, but being kind about it, the whole ending. He reached over and squeezed my arm and said, “Babe, c’mon! You knew how it was going to end!” And I blabbered, “Yes, but it’s not fair that he’s a baby! A baby! I hate this movie!” Could have just been the hormones talking, but it was so sad. See, I’m getting teary-eyed just remembering.
SPOILER OVER!!!

Between having to pause the movie while Alaethia was awake and asking for stuff, my potty breaks and the movie being long itself, we went to bed at 2:45am. Oy. It was going to be hard waking up the again the next day.

I was all on my own that day and it went surprisingly well. Well, except for the internet already being excruciatingly slow on the actual first day back. I had to use my psuedo manual check out worksheet on Excel, which meant that later, before I could do anything else, I had to add them into the system manually. I shelved all the books that I’d checked in and started checking in the huge stacks of dictionaries and thesauruses they’d brought to me the day before. Mr. Murphy helped a bit, even though he left half the books I gave him to shelve because he likes to talk about world events (the depressing ones), but he did push the cart of dictionaries for me to the shelf so I could put up. He had to leave so I couldn’t get him to help with that.

We had a meeting in the library that lasted about an hour, so I had to enter some stuff manually again. One of the top things on my to-do list was getting another bulletin board up and ready. We I have a total of 4 that we’re I’m in charge of. During the meeting Robert, Juan and Rudy showed up. I put them to work after they got permission from their teacher. They helped me staple most of the star border, which I’m grateful for because everyone kept scolding me the day before when I’d been reaching up to staple the letters on the other board. I asked why, what would happen? And the response I got was that the baby would wrap her umbilical cord around her neck if I stretched. What? First time I’d ever heard of that one!

I couldn’t get my darn letter of resignation printed out because the version of Word I’d used to type it up was different from the one at work. All I had to do was install the compatibility patch but of course we don’t have authorization to install anything. I e-mailed and asked Mary if she could print it for me and she did one better: sent it as a .PDF file so I printed a few copies out right away.

I went to lunch and a sub was sent in right when I was coming back. She was a lot of help. I found it the perfect opportunity to turn in my resignation. I was so nervous. I had to control my shaking limbs before I got up to go to Vero’s office to borrow an envelope and turn it in. I spoke to Vero, who was sad that I’m actually going to leave and then I went in to talk to the principal.

He was walking out as I was walking in. I felt my face flushing as I handed him the letter. He looks down at me with a curious expression and asks, “What’s this?” I’m following him into his office as he’s unfolding the sheet and watch as his face turns from a smile into a look of shock. He said it was coming completely left field, which I found weird because I could have sworn I was present when Mrs. V. had mentioned it and I know she’d mentioned it other times. He shakes the letter and with a smile on his face says, “You don’t have to do this!”

He asked if she’d tried to convince me to stay and I said yes, she did since the beginning but eventually she conceded. I said something like, “I don’t want to, but I have to,” and he held the letter in both hands and said, “I can still tear this up!” I almost ran forward and said, “No, no! I’ve made my decision. And I thank you for allowing me to work with you and all the wonderful people here. It’s been a great experience.” That seemed to calm him down and we started walking out of the office. I shook his hand and he says, “You still have 10 days to change your mind.”

I was so proud of myself. I did it without crying!

I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And because I turned it in that day it was exactly a two-week notice. I picked the boys up and had them start working on their homework. I cuddled with Alaethia and as we were watching Noggin’ Sally called asking if Mario and I would like to join them for dinner to celebrate their anniversary since I was there for their very first date. How sweet of them to remember me :). I’m still so thrilled I got to be a part of the birth of their relationship. I quickly got ready, left the kiddos with Mom and the in-laws, who were already outside getting ready to bar-b-q, and picked Mario up (late-ish) from work. We were meeting Pete and Sally about an hour later so we went to Barnes and Noble to kill time. I wanted so many books, but I only walked away with the Lolcats one. Now I can look at it and feel happy instantly :P.

We had a great dinner. I ordered my usual spinach and artichoke dip and had the Shrimp Alfredo. Yum. As we were getting comfortable and had ordered our food, I told them, “You know what guys? It’s funny: I was pregnant exactly two years ago with Alaethia when you guys first got together and now on your 2nd anniversary I’m pregnant again!” Hilarious.

We had some laughs and I love our marriage talks LOL. We told them about Alaethia’s poop story and they couldn’t stop laughing. Sally says, “So that’s what we have to look forward to!”

I don’t remember what we were talking about—probably about how Mario’s out all night while I’m asleep—but Mario said he was thrilled when I called and asked if he wanted to go to Chili’s with Pete and Sally. He says that’s one thing he’s looking forward to when I stop working: spending more time together.

I can’t wait to get together with them again. I love our conversations!