Category: Shopping

Sun, Nov. 9th – We woke up with a cold and soggy bed. Alaethia slept most of the night (in our bed obviously) which meant I slept most of the night and I didn’t change her diaper. Just the push I needed to start laundry early.

We had breakfast at Mary’s, as we usually do on Sunday. I spent the whole day cleaning. The house was in desperate need of it; let’s just say I hadn’t had a chance to mop in about two weeks. Bless Mario—he tried watching the kids but he was also outside and playing on his laptop so, um, I could have used more help, heh.

Mario was going to bar-b-q for lunch, but since it was going to take a while I made hamburger helper and brownies. John came over and made me laugh for a while then Jennifer, Aide, Adan and Belle came over. I was washing the pile of dishes that had accumulated since the day before and although I felt awkward cleaning I had to. My feet were killing me. I timed everything so that I’d be done with most of the cleaning by 8’oclock. You don’t bother me at 8 o’clock on Sundays—Desperate Housewives is on. Mario lay on the couch with me and though I told him I still needed to bathe he walked to the bedroom, got nice and comfy and fell asleep. I was so pissed. I woke him and he reluctantly go up at 9 to watch Alaethia while I showered.

Mon., Nov. 10th – I had the mini vomits all. day. long. I’d started having never-ending heartburn the week before: even cantaloupe gives me heartburn!

I started going to lunch earlier, at 11:30, like I’d planned to. Going to lunch from 1-1:30pm (I have breakfast at 6am) just wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was cool going to lunch so late before, because then it felt like the rest of the day just whizzed by and by the time I knew it, it was 3:00.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even have a chance to have a snack at 9:30, so I’d be shaking and starving by the time Mrs. V. got back from her lunch. That’s what caused me to develop diabetes in May to begin with–totally not what I need right now during this pregnancy.

I had everything done around the house since the day before, so I got to chill out and upload pics to my Flickr. Well, I did have a bit of laundry to do, but that was it.

Mom and the in-laws bar-b-q’d outside, so I didn’t even have to make dinner. We got the final details down for Mario’s birthday on Wednesday, the 12th. I had the perfect idea for his present, and it was such a great deal at Walmart! Even better: Mary said we’d go halfers on it! I was going to call in on Wednesday since I had my glucose screening and it was going to take forever, so I could go shopping right after the appointment.

Tues., Nov. 11th – I had another one of those ugly, vivid dreams Monday night—only this time it was about Alaethia. It was a really long dream but the short version is:

We were at my school, which was some kind of dorm. We had a suite and the boys were already asleep, Mario was out and I already had the baby, who looked exactly like Alaethia only smaller. I was having trouble putting Alaethia to sleep (just like I was in real life that night) and when she finally went to sleep I sneaked off to pee. I washed my face and when I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror I saw something rush behind me in the reflection. I turn around and some brown, slimy lizard creature lunged at me and tried attacking me with these tiny, razor-sharp teeth. I was terrified and tried choking it but when it refused to give up I started banging its spine against the corner of the sink. When I felt it go limp I looked at it…and it was Alaethia, only much smaller and the same brown, speckled color as the lizard creature. I screamed in horror as I see her little head bob to one side and her arms hang limp. I kept telling myself in the dream that no, this creature was trying to trick me and make me believe it was Alaethia, but it wasn’t. As hard as it was for me to do I lay the Alaethia clone on the floor and scream for help. Someone was in the hallway and I asked them to please check if Alaethia was asleep in bed, it was an emergency. I kept watch on the creature, sobbing because I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I’d never forgive myself if this really was Alaethia. The woman helping me ran and checked and when she came back she was panting and said, “She’s not in bed! That’s her! Don’t hurt her!”

I turned and looked at the creature on the ground and my heart banged in my ears. I woke up after that and couldn’t sleep at all. It should be illegal to have dreams like that. I prayed and prayed to God to let me sleep and erase that dream from my memory. But when I finally did fall asleep I had another horrible dream, this time about some hollow, dying dogs that Jorge, Mario’s friend, had given us. That one was terrible, too, but nothing’s more awful than bad dreams about my kids.

I thought about the dream all day and almost started bawling when I told Mrs. V., and later Mrs. Ruiz about it. I texted Mario in the morning and told him about how awful the dreams were and what a crappy day I felt I was going to have. I even forgot to put on deodorant!

The day would have gone even worse had Mrs. V. not returned when she did from running errands around the school…I didn’t leave for lunch till 11:37. I was so glad she got back and once I actually had lunch, the day became a little brighter.

I got home and just wanted to chill out and relax, but I get a text from Mario letting me know he’s got his birthday off! There was no way I’d have a chance to buy his gift the next day and surprise him so I had no choice but to go to Walmart that same evening. I go online to check the prices one more time and realize I’ve made a huge boo-boo: the Playstation 3 bundle I wanted to buy him was only sold online. It wouldn’t get here till November 27th! I called around looking for other specials or bundles but had no luck. I was lucky Target had some available.

It took some convincing, but I finally got the boys in the Equinox. They hate going anywhere, especially to town, during the week after school. Reminds me of their father, heh. They were looking forward to spending the money they’d saved up. Eenan had $13 because he got $10 from the Tooth Fairy and I knew Jaylen had been saving money, but I had no idea how much. I took his word when he told me he also had $13.

We got to Target and I got Mario the console, the cooling bundle with remote, a Blu-Ray movie: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the 3-yr warranty. That’s really why Mario’s always wanted the PS3: for the Blu-Ray player.

The boys wanted to stop by Game Stop since they didn’t find anything at Target. Eenan bought himself a game for his DS and Jaylen got one for his beloved Game Cube. He passes me his little Transformers wallet and I unzip it. With our Game Stop discount his game came out to $9.50. I thought Cool, he’ll even have some left over. I look into the wallet and I don’t know whether to laugh or scream: there’s two dollar bills and the rest are pennies and quarters, mostly pennies. I glare at him and pull a $10 out of my wallet. He smiles.

I’m raising a con artist.

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.

Sun., Oct. 12th – We woke up and got ready to meet Pete and Sally at Le Peep for breakfast. I’d never heard of that restaurant but it quickly became a fave. Think Denny’s but much cuter, modern and much cleaner.

Mario and I had the Hawaiian Hazelnut Coffee and I had an omelet. It had cream cheese in the middle, along with everything else, but it was surprisingly good. Pete and Sally took lil’ Quentin with them He’s so cute! Next time we’ll brave it and take Alaethia along, too. We don’t take her to restaurants often because she likes to leave little piles of food on either side of her high chair on the floor, but we’ll try it again.

Not only was it great food, it was great conversation, too. It’s always great to hang out with another set of parents and talking about parenting and everything else. When it comes to parenting, I think Pete and Sally are most like us, so it’s easy to talk about everything. Plus they’ve been my friends forever so it’s awesome.

They treated us that morning which totally surprised me! I told them they didn’t have to but they insisted. Next time it’s our treat. After we’d gotten Alaethia’s bassinet back from them (Quentin doesn’t use it anymore), we said our see-you-laters. Mario and I went to Target and had a lil’ shopping spree; we got a toy each for the boys for having perfect attendance, good behavior and making the A Honor Roll. Eenan’s really into Lego’s right now and Jaylen’s into Bakuran. We got a book and clippies for Aly. She’s finally into books which is amazing and a relief to me. I thought she’d never like them. The boys loved stories by now but she’s still getting the hang of it.

We got a runner for the living room and some red fleece-like throw pillows. When we got home Noelia was over and later all the family came over for the game. I chilled out for a while and then Mom, Alaethia and I went to visit Gramma. By the time we got to McAllen it was pouring so only Mom got down to see Gramma. Alaethia was still sick and I didn’t want to make it worse. I read in the car (Family History by Dani Shapiro) and when Mom came back we went to H-E-B to pick up a few groceries. I wanted to stop at Walmart in Mission but it was still pouring. I got home and hung/folded laundry and clean up my bedroom a little. That place seriously needs some TLC. My desk top doesn’t have an inch of visible space and there are boxes of crap piled up everywhere. I remember the good ol’ days when we first remodeled back when I was pregnant with Alaethia, when everything was new and we actually had space!

Aide, Adan and Belle came over. I cleaned up while Aide and I talked. I stayed up so late cleaning and was so exhausted but I of course had to stay awake because Aly wasn’t feeling good again. I stayed up most of the night and then again from 3-4:45. I seriously contemplated just getting up and going to work when the alarm went off but I felt like total crap. So I called in. I figured it was a good time to spend time with Alaethia, get some extra Zzz’s and clean up some more. One good thing about being up all night was that I felt another two kicks!

Mon., Oct. 13th – Mario let me sleep in. I fully intended on waking up and making him a nice breakfast but I couldn’t peel myself off the bed. Aly and I woke up at 10:30. I was really, really craving eggs over easy, and although I probably shouldn’t be eating them, I figured one time was okay. I had them a few times (okay, often) while pregnant with Alaethia. I served her a chopped up one and she ate really well. I had some Hazelnut coffee and read my book. It was heaven.

I washed clothes, which I also hung/folded. We watched Noggin’ and played all afternoon. Well, until Mom showed up. We went to the post office to send Mario’s letter to Border Patrol…and I forgot it was closed for Columbus Day. Mom treated us to some El Pato, which took half an hour to be ready. We ate, chilled out and picked up the boys from school. I helped Jaylen with his homework. Eenan forgot his and so lost all privileges for that day. I’m trying to teach him responsibility at school and forgetting his homework just isn’t cool. I watched Oprah while washing dishes. Mario got home from work and we went straight to the optometrist to pick up his new glasses. We came straight home and I gave him and Big Mario haircuts and then I showered. I got everything ready for the next day (clothes, lunches), made dinner and got a few minutes to add to the collection of entries. I felt much more relaxed throughout the day (because I was home, of course) and got so much done. That’s what I need: a 3-day weekend every week!