Category: Shopping

So I guess it’s safe to say that it’s going to take me forever to “catch up” on my backed-up entries. I update almost daily, believe it or not, but I update to a super-long Word document since I’m trying to keep the entry numbers in order. Screw that, I say. I’m just going to update again starting from today and worry about adding the backed-up ones when I have a chance (which isn’t too often because of Emily and Alaethia LOL).

I guess I feel like I *have* to remember everything 1) because Emily’s my last baby and 2) because I was so caught up with work and life in general when Alaethia was a baby and I feel like I missed out on a lot, entry-wise and milestone-wise. I don’t even think I ever got to add the entry about her first birthday party! 🙁

So far, things are going really well. The boys are wonderful with Emily, especially Jaylen, who’s a really confident big brother. If she starts crying while she’s in her bassinet or swing and Jaylen notices that I’m busy, he’ll gladly unfasten her from the swing and carry her or pick her up out of the bassinet. It’s amazing watching him with her. Eenan’s good with her too, but he gets a little more nervous when she cries.

Alaethia’s also very good with her. She has her moments when she gets over-excited and starts patting her a little too enthusiastically on her head (ack, the soft spot!) but for the most part she’s great. I think she’s finally realized that Emily’s a real baby and not a dolly.

Emily’s pretty awesome at night. She has these little bouts of complete awakeness sometimes for about 2-3 hours straight, but she’s getting better. She’s my first baby to actually have a pattern. I know exactly when she’s going to be awake and asleep at night and during the day. She’s really happy and easy to care for for the most part.

The only problem we’ve been having is that, yes, a week after I stopped breastfeeding she started having trouble pooping. She’s 5 weeks old this week, as of yesterday, and she’s finally doing much better in that department.

Speaking of, she turned a month old on the 24th!

Isn’t she a beauty?? So far, everyone says she looks like me, but I don’t really see it except for maybe our noses LOL. And maybe the skin color, but she’s still lighter than me. She’s light like Mom and Gramma.

My dad-in-law was going to surprise us with a new addition to the house, a bigger living room! He decided to tell us about it because he thought we’d get a bit suspicious when new walls started going up LOL.

I’m so excited! Big Mario designed the room (it’s part of the old party porch, heh) and Mario’s designing the whole entertainment part of the room. That corner where Mario and his dad are standing in the photo is where the built-in entertainment shelf will be and there’ll be another on the opposite side (the south wall) for books and picture frames and whatnot. I really can’t wait to see it done, though there’s a lot to do, like leveling the floors, removing that darn tree stump:

and sanding the hardwood floors and varnishing them before the insulation and drywall goes up.

Mario and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary on the 27th. We didn’t get to do much because he was working tons of overtime (they were having this pain-in-the-ass show at the convention center that his boss waited till the last minute to tell them about) and of course we didn’t have much money. But we did go to one of our favorite restaurants, Kumori, for sushi.

As for yesterday, I took Alaethia and Eenan for check-ups at the doctor. Alaethia had her 2-year physical. She was such a good girl! She was excited about her appointment. She was very quiet and well-behaved when the doctor was checking her chest for her heart-murmur (she still has it so she’ll have another appointment with the specialist) and she didn’t even cry during her shot!

Eenan’s been having trouble with squinting at school so I took him in just in case and sure enough, he’ll be needing glasses again. He doesn’t want to wear them, I think mostly because there’s a class bully and he’s having enough trouble with him already. He hasn’t singled Eenan out; everyone has trouble with him. But still.

I got home and literally carried Emily around for about 2 hours. That’s the only thing about Emily: she’s a wonderful baby, but it’s hard to get things done because she wants to be held. And not just by anyone–it has to be me. It makes me feel great, that she knows when I’m holding her and that she wants to be with me all the time, but I do have to cook and clean the house once in a while!

I gave her to Mom to hold and started dinner. Jorge, Maggie and the kids were coming over so I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and deviled eggs. It was the first time in a long time that I actually got to make a nice meal.

We chilled out eating inside and then we went out to talk with Mom and Elda. We sat in the new living room–well, whatever’s built so far of the living room LOL. Then we joined the guys (Mario, Jorge and Adan) outside and talked and joked till around 12:30am.

I was supposed to go to the doctor this morning so Dr. C. can assess the cyst I need removed from my wrist, and I did, but I went late since I didn’t have anyone to watch the girls while I showered. Mom came over around 9:45 and I left around 10:30. The office was packed and they weren’t seeing patients anymore so I’d have to wait till after 2 and go to Mission. I figured I’d pack up the router we’d just gotten last week (that really, really sucks) and return it at Target while I was already in Mission.

*whew* This feels good. To post an entry on the actual day OF the entry. I hope to keep up from now on!

Fri., Feb. 27th – I woke up with breasts the size of soccer balls and hard as boulders. Putting Emily on the breast was torture, as I’d fallen asleep with her breastfeeding the night before and she’d fallen asleep too, lost the latch and scraped up my nip. Owie. So no relief there.

As reluctant as he was to do so, John took me to get a breast pump. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even pump correctly. My right breast couldn’t get any relief, no matter how much I pumped. And to top it off, I felt like a failure because these huge things would only make half an ounce to an ounce of milk together after an hour to an hour and a half of pumping. That wasn’t even enough to feed her because she drinks anywhere from 2-3 ounces of milk!

The whole next week and a half is a blur of pumping. I spent most of my days feeding Emily breast milk from bottles and supplementing with formula when I didn’t make enough. I’d just lock myself in the bathroom with New Moon open on my lap and pumped away. I will always associate New Moon with Emily. I read the first half at my doctor’s appointments, a fourth of it while I was in labor at the hospital and the last fourth while pumping :).

Our income tax refund came in that day and I couldn’t even go anywhere to celebrate, heh. I really wanted to go to Chili’s and Mario said let’s go for it, but I still couldn’t walk around very well. We decided to just stay home. I was quickly feeling cabin fever set in.

I was so exhausted and ready for sleep (while the girls weren’t) and in such immense pain in my back, chest and incision that I just broke down and cried while I was changing Emily’s diaper on the sofa. Mario had no idea what was going on. I just told him the truth: I was tired and in pain. I was so glad it was the weekend and that he was home. He helped me so much that night. He stayed up entertaining a restless Alaethia while I slept with Emily. My incision felt like it would rip apart every time I tried to get out of bed and he saw that, so he volunteered to prepare Emily’s bottles when she’d wake up. He’s such a good husband and daddy.

I woke up with chills again that night. It was so weird. I’d felt hot when I’d first fallen asleep and woke up with my teeth chattering and feeling really uncomfortable, just like the night before. I was worried that my incision had gotten infected or maybe the pain in my right breast was Mastitis.

Sat., Feb. 28th – I woke up to Emily gagging and gasping for air. It was the 3rd time it had happened; the first two were at the hospital and when I asked the nurse about it he said it was something newborns did—along with constant sneezing, which she was doing–because their neurological system was still developing. I don’t remember the other three kiddos doing anything like that, which made me even more paranoid while she slept.

My boobs were still really sore and my incision was really starting to bother me. I noticed that it looked pink around the area and the incision looked weird—nothing like it did just the day before. I even made sure to take a picture, just in case it started to get worse. I’ll spare you the gore.

Mario’s Tia Amelia came by around noon to meet Emily. She held her while she shared some wisdom about taking care of myself and what to do for my aching boobs and so on.

I had a coupon for 10cent prints from Walgreens and had every intention of using it. I’d let all the other good coupons pass me by. So whatever chance I had, I uploaded pictures.

AVOID THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH!
Emily woke up around 9:30 or so for a feeding so I prepared one and sat with her on the loveseat in the living room. I couldn’t sit anywhere without feeling this horrible tugging pain in my abdomen, but the weirdest thing happened when I sat there talking to Mario: I felt relief. I told him, “Woah, I suddenly feel really good, Babe. My stomach doesn’t feel that painful pull anymore.” And that’s when I felt my shorts completely wet from the front and something dripping down my thigh. The darn incision had popped open and was oozing all over me. That was the relief and wetness I felt. I was surprised by just how much liquid came out of that tiny bubble. I tried not to panic and called my doctor’s answering service. I get a call much quicker than I thought I would and speak to a doctor who’s on-call since Dr. C. is out of town. He asks me to describe the wound and then tells me to wash it with soap and water, put Neosporin if I want and cover it up with some gauze and tape. If the pain was unbearable, the pus turned green, or I got a fever I should go to the hospital. Great.

I always made fun of Mario’s emergency kit (or as I affectionately call it, his End-of-the-World-Kit) but I was so grateful he had it that night. He had every single thing we needed. He sat me on the sofa and told me not to move and prepared everything, keeping everything as sterile as possible. He washed me up and covered the wound as the doctor suggested. I tell you, I love this man.

This reminds me: everywhere I went I was being asked if I had a C-section, probably because of the way I was walking. I would tell them nope: 4 kids delivered vaginally and then I got the tubal. The ladies would make a face and then say, You poor thing! I hear that’s worse than a C-section! or I had 2 C-sections and the pain was nothing compared to the tubal! Had I known this lovely piece of advice I wouldn’t have done it! When I was doing my research while I was pregnant everyone told me it felt like a little pinch and only hurt for a few days, or that it didn’t hurt at all. I would have seriously rather been on birth control the rest of my life and risk getting pregnant for missing a pill than getting the darn tubal had I known it was going to cause me so many problems.

Even after that ordeal I finished uploading my pictures at 11:20pm and, with 10 minutes to spare before the deadline of 11:59pm, I entered the order for 316 pictures for $32. Woo! Pictures always make me feel worlds better.

I was uncomfortable most of yesterday, but today, Saturday (well, Sunday now) I’m fine–back to normal and still big and pregnant.

I couldn’t walk the majority of the day because of the pressure I felt down below, my aching back and my aching legs. It was awful. Everyone kept trying to convince me to either go to my doctor or go to the hospital. I started doing research online and about 80% of the sites I visited stated that I was in labor. I had no idea what to do. One, I didn’t want to drive myself all the way to Mission, since that’s where my doctor was on Fridays and two, I didn’t want to go to the hospital and have them send me back. So I waited.

I tried doing chores around the house to distract myself, but I couldn’t stand around long enough to do much. I spent a lot of the day chatting on Yahoo with Maggie and looking at pictures on Flickr.

Rolando came by around 5:30 to play with the kids. I had a houseful of boys (Elda’s were here, too) and I kind of just sat around waiting again. Mary and Big Mario went out for dinner and when they got back, Mary went with me and Eenan to drop off Rolando. Mario got home right after we got back and we kind of just sat around in silence, waiting. I’d already packed most of my bags during the day; now all I needed was our cosmetic bag and for Mario to find clothes for himself, just in case.

Around 8:30 I told Mario I was going to shower. When I got out I started feeling worse and finally listened to Mario’s requests about calling the doctor just to see what he recommended. I kept telling him they wouldn’t be any help but called anyway. A guy answers and asks what I need, so I start describing everything to him. He cuts me off–the bastard–and asks for my name and number so someone can call me back. Grr.

Mary had all the kids. She’d volunteered to have them all stay with her overnight, just in case we needed to rush to the hospital. We were still sitting around, waiting for either labor to really kick in or the doctor to call back. When we’d been waiting around 20 minutes, we decided to pack all our stuff in the Equinox and go to Jorge and Maggie’s to distract ourselves.

We stopped by Stars first to pick up some dinner for ourselves. We got to Jorge and Maggie’s and they were eating also. The guys put on Sex Drive, possibly one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen LOL and they watched it while Maggie, Sandra (Maggie’s neice) and myself were looking through Maggie’s nail stuff. She got some new Fimo clay accessories and wanted to try them out. We decided what we wanted and she went to work on my nails first (proper ventilation and masks were provided). It took a while, but they came out SO CUTE!

I love them. I couldn’t stop staring at them when she was done. I wish I’d stuck around to see how Sandra’s came out, but it was already 2am by the time we left.

Mario and I got home and spent some time together since none of the kids were around LOL. Maybe then I’d go into labor the following day.

But nope. I woke up after only sleeping 6 hours and felt just fine. Emily was moving around wonderfully in the morning and I felt nothing like I did Friday. We got up and ready and got the kids ready to go to Target so Jaylen could get the new game he was saving up for and Walmart for some sports equipment. Mario finally decided he needed to start playing some type of sport with the kids now that we’ve weaned them off their video games during the week.

We got the sports stuff (baseball gloves, baseballs and a soccer ball) from Walmart and then went to Target to try and find Jaylen’s game. They were all out. We went to Home Depot next, where Mario got some stuff to install a proper light switch and outlet outside.

We figured we’d give Game Stop a try for Jaylen’s game, and we did find it, although it was about $6 more. He didn’t care. He just wanted the darn thing already.

We got home and Mario started working on the stuff outside. He’s very handy, but even so I did catch the lights flickering and wondered if he’d electrocuted himself. It was a close call, but he survived LOL.

Alaethia took a nap and I plugged in the baby monitor and just surfed the web outside with Mario. The weather was so nice during the day today I had to take advantage.

Adan and Aide showed up and the guys decided they’d have another beer night. They went to get bread and chips to make sandwiches and we just chilled out all evening under the party porch. It started getting really chilly for the girls (Alaethia and Belle), and admittedly, for us, too, so Alaethia and I have been inside for a while. Thought I’d update while I was still conscious. I’m really tired now.

I’m starting to become a little anxious about when Emily will actually be here. I was hoping it would be this weekend but I guess not. I’m telling you, at this rate I really am going to make it to my due date!