Category: Shopping

It’s taken me yesterday and today to upload the baby shower pics to Flickr. I’ve been uploading in little spurts here and there between laundry, organizing, packing and going a little nuts.

Friday
Since I’d been feeling really sore and tired (and we were all trying to keep Alaethia in there till the day of the baby shower, at least) Mario was kind enough to drop the kids off for me in the morning, pick Jaylen up and even made me lunch! Ricky’d come over for lunch and came over to chit-chat. Mario said something like, “Look, she’s even got me making her lunch,” and Ricky replied, “Good! She should be pampered!” Alright Ricky!

Saturday
This was the day that I was almost certain I’d be going into labor by nighttime. I could barely walk, I felt an immense pressure in my pelvis and I was sure she was going to fall out. Everyone was worried and had me resting. Although I was in my Nesting stage and had these crazy bursts of energy, I still washed dishes, but Mom did my laundry and I didn’t have to cook. I felt spoiled, but in a way I also felt a little frustrated because I’m so used to doing everything on my own!

I stayed up with Yadira, Elda, and Mary and the kiddos while they got everything ready for the baby shower. They didn’t let me help with that, either!

Sunday
I spent the morning getting ready and then we went over to Mary’s around noon to help with sandwiches. Actually, Mario went in to help, I wasn’t allowed. I’d woken up that night with my wedding rings cutting the circulation from my fingers and I was swollen the rest of the day, so I was taking it easy. Mario dubbed himself the Sandwich Samurai, since, according to him, nobody else could prepare and cut a sandwich as fast as he. I totally wanted to post a picture of him in all his Sandwich Glory but he threatened to empty my whole memory card when he got his hands on it so I changed my mind :P.

We arrived an hour early at the hotel my baby shower was being held at so we could set everything up. Little did we know that we really had to set everything up ourselves–they didn’t even set up the tables or anything for us! Poor Mom and Mary moved everything on their own, and these were tables with granite (I think?) table tops!

People started arriving and we had a good time just chatting and then playing games. Like I mentioned in my last post, we didn’t get to play a few games because we forgot the pads of paper and pencils (and most of the games required things being written down!). It also got a bit crowded, as the hotel failed to mention that they only had 32 seats, and not the 50 they promised Mary. What idiots!

The little sandwiches and veggies were great, although I hardly got a chance to eat well since I was too busy mingling and posing for pictures. Finally, I finally have pictures of a lot of my relatives and friends. Some didn’t make it, but I’ll hopefully catch them later during another get together. I got to see Sally and Mayra, which is always great. I wish there were more visits :(. Pete was also kind enough to send his gift with Sally. How sweet is he?!

The boys were great. They behaved pretty well up until about half an hour before we left. They were becoming antsy since the adults were all sitting around talking so they started running around like they’d lost their minds.

All in all, it was a big success and we received so many nice things for Alaethia :). We have every single thing we need for her arrival and I just feel so overwhelmed with gratefulness for our family and friends :).

John and I went to Target on Monday evening after I’d picked the boys up from school. Mom stayed with them and John and I braved the slippery roads to find, most importantly, the Graco Mikayla stroller and carset Mario and I’d wanted since I first found out I was pregnant. The Target we went to didn’t “carry it” anymore, and two of the other Targets I called didn’t either. I couldn’t believe my luck. I shopped around and got a yellow crib sheet that was on clearance, some cute, girly headbands for Alaethia, a Boppy slipcover (also on clearance), a bottle/ baby food jar warmer and Newborn diapers. I finally decided to call the other Target and I couldn’t get through. When I finally did get through I spoke to a nice guy named Eddie, who told me they didn’t carry the Mikayla anymore, but they did have one extremely similar to it called the Alano. I wanted to take Eddie out to dinner. He put it on hold for me and we hurried over there.

Tuesday
It was super cold on Tuesday (but it didn’t sleet like they said it would) and the buttholes Mario works with all took the spaces up inside the installation bays (garages) so my poor husband was left outside in the cold, literally. He called around noon and asked me to take him a pair of his insulated pants so I obliged. Then Mom, Jaylen and I made a quick run to Target.

That night, Mario and I put the cribset together and after a quiet moment of tying the crib bumper all around the slats he tells me, “It’s going to be hard.”

Thinking he’s talking about being parents to three I tell him, “We’ll be fine. I know we will.”

He says, “No, it’s going to be hard being in love with two beautiful women.”

You can imagine how big I’m smiling and tell him, “Aww, that’s so sweet, Babe!”

And Mario, being Mario, ruins it all and says, “Oh, and Alaethia, too.”

Dork.

I think that was also the night that he dedicated “She’s Everything” by Brad Paisley to me. A combination of that, the songs he dedicated to our kids and my hormones made me bawl my eyes out. I love this man *sigh*.

My stomach was bothering me a lot that night and was cursing myself for not doing her laundry that day or packing my bag for that matter!

Wednesday
I woke up and quickly did a load of Alaethia’s laundry. After dropping the kids off at school, I came home, made Mario breakfast, we picked up his car (John takes it to work and then we pick it up and Mario goes to work) and then I went to my 38 week appointment. Well, Dr. C. has me down as 37 weeks in his notes, but I’m 38 weeks, darnit. Anyway, my appointment was kind of late, so it took forever for them to call me in. I was worried I wouldn’t pick up Jaylen on time. When they did call me in, they freaked out that my blood pressure was high the first time they took it. They took it again and I was fine. I weighed 134.8 this time, which means I lost about a pound. Weird. My sugar was also all over the place; there were 500 somethings (I don’t even know what the name is!) of glucose in my urine, but when they checked my finger it was fine, at 91. Also weird.

Dr. C. did a sonogram and I took video. She’s got such a big head in the sonogram–I wonder if it’ll be the same when she *gulp* comes out?!

She’s very low and upon doing the pelvic exam (ew) he said I was still at 2 centimeters. He said I could go into labor anytime now since I’m 38 weeks, but if I don’t go into labor by next Wednesday, he might consider inducing labor. I’m so anxious to find out if I’ll go into labor on my own or if I’m going to be induced like the other two times. At least we have everything we need now!

I spent the whole day after that packing my bag, doing Alaethia’s laundry, cleaning up, organizing her cart, and made dinner while boiling her bottles and pacifiers. Later, when Mario got home, he put her carseat and stroller together.

I’m so ready! C’MON, ALAETHIA!

I’ve also been messing around with WordPress (and so far, I think everything’s working correctly *knocks on wood*) and downloaded a few plugins like Post Views, Recent Posts, Subscribe to Comments and E-mail Subscription, so you can get notified when I post a new entry if you’d like (the last 3 mentioned are in the side bar). I wanted to get a new theme going, so the stuff in the sidebar can be more organized, but that’s probably going to have to wait. That, and I still, after all these months, have layout block. Sad, isn’t it?

Well, I should get going. I’m about an hour late on starting dinner so I should get to that. Damn me for not buying microwaveable foods, like Hot Pockets. That would SO come in handy right now!

My baby shower was yesterday and it was even better than I could have asked for. There were a few discrepancies, like the hotel saying they seated 50 when they only had 32 chairs available and about 3-4 games that weren’t played since we forgot the pads of paper and pencils, but other than that, it was great :). I’ll post a more detailed entry about it tomorrow, hopefully with pictures (if I came out okay, that is).

We got tons of pink little outfits, and other friends and relatives were so generous with gift cards and money that we got just about everything we need for Alaethia’s arrival. I can happily say that I’m SO READY for her to be born!

John and I spent 2 hours shopping around at Target tonight getting important things we needed, like the carseat and stroller combo and diapers and all that sort of stuff. I also got a whole bunch of other little things on clearance, like a Boppy Slipcover (still have to go back for the actual Boppy, though!) and some outfits. We figured I should go tonight since this “Winter Freeze” is blanketing the Valley and I probably shouldn’t be driving around tomorrow when there’s sleet and ice on the roads.

I totally thought I was going into labor on Saturday. I felt sore and could barely walk–seriously felt like she was about to fall out. It was the strongest, sharpest round ligament pain I’d ever experienced. Jose came over to get something and got a little startled by my demeanor. He tattle-taled on me to Mary, Mom and Elda after they got home from shopping that day LOL. He thought I was faking being okay just so I could attend the baby shower :P.

I was feeling great the day of the baby shower, Sunday, which was totally weird. I’m feeling fine right now, and that’s because I spent the night driving and walking around. I am getting little jabs of pain every-so-often, and it feels like she’s using my bladder as a trampoline (I’m not kidding!) so maybe sometime soon. There’s 14 days left. Mayra told me yesterday that she’s predicting–just has a feeling–that I’ll go into labor by Thursday or Friday.

She (and her daughter, Sharlyze) have this foresight about things. Her daughter predicted, even before I was pregnant with Alaethia, that I was going to have a daughter. She even predicted that Mario wanted to start trying for a baby before he even mentioned anything about it! I’m totally psyched about Thursday and Friday LOL. It would be ideal if it happened on Friday, while Mario’s at home. But we do have bills to pay that day, so maybe she should wait till Saturday, if anything :P.

Well, I’m exhausted and need to take a quick shower so I shall leave you now. I’ll totally post if there’s any change!

I’d been doing a little better at updating and there I went and let tons of days pass by again. Grr.

So Mario ended up working on Friday, since he had Christmas Day off and was going to have Monday off, too. It was a pretty darn boring day; I spent most of it freaking out over how fast January’s going to go by.

Saturday – Woke up with a sore throat because I brilliantly had the fan on when it was in the 40’s during the night. (My hot flashes could care less how cold it really is outside.) We spent the day chilling out and I felt great until around 2pm. Out of nowhere I started getting horrible pains in my lower abdomen that were coming every 3-5 minutes apart. John was freaking out; he could tell just how uncomfortable I was. He told me to call Mario but I told him no, I didn’t want to bother him when it was probably just Braxton Hicks contractions and I need to drink more water since I was probably dehydrated. John said the baby was probably thinking, “This place is getting really small…the water’s getting really low…I’m starting to see a light…” and that maybe I REALLY SHOULD call Mario.

Mary invited us to the movies. I almost didn’t want to go, but I took a shower hoping I’d feel better. I still felt uncomfortable, but went to movies anyway.

We watched Night at the Museum. It was really cute; totally going to buy it on DVD when it comes out. Eenan said it was “Hilarious!” and both boys laughed the whole time. Halfway through the movie, my belly didn’t hurt anymore, even after eating pickle, dipping popcorn into nacho cheese and drinking a small Coke.

Almost immediately after I got up from my seat when the movie was over, I got a horrible, stabbing pain in my back. It felt like a pinched nerve and felt terrible with every step I took. I could barely walk to the car.

Mary decided to pick up pizzas for dinner from Pizza hut. Since Jose and Elda were picking up pizzas from the same place and were already done when we got there, Mary suggested I come home with them, Jorge, Sammy, Brandon and Angela to rest for a little bit. Jaylen and Eenan stayed with Mary, Noelia and Yazmin. (Mary later told me Jaylen said, “Take care of yourself and Alaethia, Mom!” Aww!)

After laying on the couch for a while (and feeling insanely bored and alone), I went to Mary’s to eat some pizza. I didn’t have much of an appetite. Mario got here a little later and we all sat around and talked since everyone was here for dinner.

Eenan had four loose teeth. The bottom adult teeth already came in behind his baby ones and the top ones started doing the same thing. Their dentist told me the bottom ones were fine; they’d eventually be pushed out, but if the top ones did that they’d have to remove them. Of course I was praying his teeth would fall out soon.

I got my wish that night. The kids were all playing in the living room and Eenan somehow got a tooth knocked out by accident. After cleaning him up and lecturing him about how they all shouldn’t be so rough, he went back to play and got the other one loosened, too! I got his little “Tooth Fairy Pillow”, which you can hang from a doorknob or bed post and has a pocket just for the tooth out of my closet. Noelia bought him that little pillow when he was around 1 or 2 :). He was sleeping over at Mary’s so he was a little nervous that the Tooth Fairy wouldn’t find him, but we reassured him that all teeth have little invisible tracking devices and the Tooth Fairy would certainly find him ;). I also told him that I was going to leave a note for the Tooth Fairy asking to leave me a “copy” of his tooth, since I wanted to keep a memory of it :).

He was really happy that the Tooth Fairy gave him $5. I think it would have been $10, except the Tooth Fairy didn’t have any change, heh.

Mario and I stayed up watching The Devil Wears Prada. It was 1am by the time we went to sleep.

Sunday – The boys stayed with mom the next afternoon while Noelia, Mary and I went to get ribbon, candles and stuff for my babyshower and some stuff for Noelia’s wedding. We came home, worked on invitations, then went back to Wal-Mart a few hours later for ribbon and shrimp cocktail stuff, since that’s what we were having for dinner. We made a stop at H-E-B for Clamato, one of the ingredients, since Wal-Mart was completely out. We picked up Bonnie and got home around 6. Mario was already here when we arrived since he was let out 15 minutes early. His tummy was upset so he chilled out at our house for a while.

Jose, Elda and Mary made shrimp cocktail and I made cheese dip (ground beef, Rotel, Velveeta all melted and delicious together). Everything was yummy. We went out at 9pm to pop fireworks. Mario and Jose popped the big, dangerous ones and Brandon, Sammy, Eenan and Jaylen watched and enjoyed sparklers and poppers. Mary came out for a few moments since she was watching Bonnie but Elda, Mom and I stayed out the whole time and took pictures. I won’t even bother posting them to Flickr since they suck ’cause it was dark.

It was freezing outside. My nose started running and I got worse by the hour. Everyone cleaned up (except me. I can’t bend anymore!) and we came back inside to chill for a while. We went back out at 11:55 to see all the huge fireworks the neighbors like to get and hug eachother and call people (which didn’t work out for most of us since the phone lines were backed up). We had to quickly go back inside since crazy people started shooting their guns. We do live in the boonies, afterall.

Monday – I had a horrible night’s sleep. Peed like, 5 times, and the other times I woke up I was coughing because of my itchy throat. Since Mario wasn’t working, we thought, “Yes, at least we can sleep in!” but that didn’t happen. We woke up at 9am to Big Mario blasting rancheras and Tejano music from his radio in his carport/workshop, which just so happens to be a few feet away from our bedroom. We laid there, wide-eyed and annoyed. Mario kept talking about how he couldn’t wait to start building a house–he was in a terrible mood. He told the boys and me to have breakfast and get ready so we could leave somewhere, anywhere. He got impatient and left on a drive somewhere. We were ready by 11:30, which is when he got back and says, “You know, I don’t feel like going anywhere anymore.” Grr. I hate when he does that.

We chilled out at Mary’s with everyone. Mario pissed me off during lunchtime because he didn’t give me shrimp cocktail. He had a HUGE bowl that I new he wasn’t going to finish (and didn’t) and drowned it in hotsauce after I told him I couldn’t eat it that way. He insisted I could and said he’d get me a bowl, but I told him no thanks. Later on I found out there was more and he knew about it, but he still didn’t give me any. I decided to suck it up and just ate deer soup my dad-in-law had made. It was pretty good anyway. *hiss*

We’d made plans to go to the movies at 4:55, but since nobody else never confirmed plans and my mom-in-law got busy we decided to go for the 7:15 showing instead.

Since nobody was sure they were going to even go, we decided to go to a taqueria called “El Primito” we like to go to. Eenan didn’t want to go, which kind of upset me but, fine, we let him stay. Jaylen went with us. We get there, and they’re closed. Talk about nothing going our way. We quickly start getting annoyed.

We can’t decide where to eat; Mario doesn’t like my suggestions but won’t make any suggestions himself. Everyone decided to go to the movies after all, so as a last resort we decided we’d go, too. Finally, something would go right. We went to check out the movies but Mario had a fit since they didn’t have a poster for The Marine and he didn’t want to watch anything else. He starts driving back home.

On the way, he makes me even more upset about something stupid like not thinking of a restaurant to go to, so I bawl my eyes out since I’m so darn emotional after all the little things that go to me throughout the day. We get home and I sit here, trying to stop feeling like crap. After 20 minutes he asks Jaylen if he wants something from Star’s. Jaylen says yes, corndogs. He asks me if I want anything. I hate Star’s right now since everything they make gives me heartburn, but I decide on a burrito supreme and some munchers. He gets back and we’re quiet, but peaceful. We eventually started making small talk and then he started playing around with me, which is his usually way of appologizing.

I got a text message from Sally and called her right back. My phone’s a PDA and does almost everything but the damn thing doesn’t allow me to text message, piece of crap. We decide to get together the next day for lunch. It would totally do me some good to chat with a friend and I’m super excited to get out of the house since Mario usually has the truck now that the kids are at home and John borrows the Sentra for work.

I was too emotionally and physically tired to clean that night, or even take a shower, so I leave it for the next morning.

Tuesday – I get Mario up and ready for work then haul ass cleaning like never before. Where I got all that energy from is beyond me. I washed the pile of dishes that had shamefully accumulated since Friday since we’re always at Mary’s since family’s over almost every night. It took half an hour to wash a sink-ful of dishes, and that’s a record. I’m a total snail when it comes to washing dishes.

I thought Sally would get here at 10am, but she was running late and would get here at 12 instead. I was sort of relieved that she’d get here a little later–it would give me time to finish up and shower!

Eenan vacummed and Jaylen took toys they’d left in the living room to their bedroom. I cleaned the turtle tank while Mom swept for me. I got the tank clean and turtles fed and mom refilled the tank with water while I quickly took a shower. Didn’t have a chance to blowdry or flat-iron my hair, but at least I was clean :). Thank God for the extra help!

Sally gets here and she talks and catches up a bit with my mom and the boys. Mom watches them while we go to Chilli’s. We spoke about every single subject we could think of.

That’s what I’ve always loved about that girl: we can be apart for years but when we meet up again it’s like we’d been talking the whole time. We had some great food (which she refused to let me help pay for!) and even better talk. Our old friend Magda married another childhood friend of ours, Steve, which I find totally adorable and just…wow! I love to hear about stuff like that. Like when I heard about Johanna and Ralph? Totally unexpected! They knew eachother since they were little and ended up married. That’s just so awesome!

Sally vented to me about her current situation and then she listened to me vent about ours; my thoughts of the future and so on. Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. We talked about Vero, too. I wish I could see her and catch up. And with everyone else, too!

I’m hoping, hoping, hoping we can meet up again next week. It was great catching up. I’m definitely going to need my friends after I have Alaethia, especially if it’s going to be like the last two times when I had mild Post Partum Depression. Only it was really crappy after having Jaylen since I really didn’t talk to any of my friends anymore. That’s one of my New Years Resolutions for this year: make more time for my friends!

Later in the evening, Mom, Jaylen and I stopped by Stripes (formerly Circle K) and got Mario an orange juice (his throat’s botherin him now, too) and some donuts and a Yoohoo, Kool-aide drink and donuts for Jaylen and I. We dropped them off to Mario and then went to Target, where Mom wanted to get Alaethia some things off of my Registry.

Not only was traffic total hell, but just about every-single-thing I put on my Registry is on clearance! It totally sucks. I’m probably not even going to get her the Womb Sounds Bear since they totally ran out at that Target. It’s listed at $4.98!! It used to be $19.99. I’d LOVE IT if I could find it for that price at another Target. Too bad Mario has the truck :(.

It took about an hour or so to find everything she wanted to get, plus marking everything on the list so the cashier could “remove” them from the Registry. Since they added that stupid median on McColl and there’s no way to easily get to the other shopping center, I had to go all around the damn block to get to Pet Smart. I had a horrible, throbbing pain in my back when we got in the truck, probably for standing and walking so long. I could barely move!

Jaylen remembered we promised him a Beta but I told him we’d wait till Friday, so we could get everything his fish would need since we were in a hurry. Mom offered to buy him the fish, so he got a blue Beta. They were sold out of Beta tanks completely since Christmas but the girl said we could keep him in the little cup we bought him in for a while since it’s all the space he needs. The girl cleaned out his little “tank” and told us which food and water conditioner to get him and we were set. We got baby crickets, since they were sold out of large ones if you can believe that, and finally came home.

Jaylen was infatuated with his fish and was showing him off to everyone. He was so happy and proud he quickly came to find the perfect spot for him. He decided Blastoise would be his name and he would reside on his desk. Aww :).

We ate lasagna at Mary’s and Mario got home a while after. We chilled out with everyone and then came home to bathe the boys. Eenan wanted to sleep over at Mary’s and was excited that the Tooth Fairy would be visiting him again. Earlier during the day before Sally came over, he somehow turned the loose tooth backwards. I told him to let me gently pull it, but he said he’d rather the doctor do it. After telling him the doctor would charge us $200 just to pull the tooth away from the tiny bit of gum that was stuck to it, he let me do it. It came off right away and he started making plans to buy a game, or a toy LOL.

Mario and I stayed up watching The Family Stone, which could easily be one of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen. Both of us got teary-eyed near the end and just sat there with my head on his shoulder and his head on mine. We went to sleep when the movie was done and I told him how lucky I was to have him and he said the same about me. I told him my concerns about the future; what I want and how maybe I shouldn’t be in such a hurry for Alaethia to grow up so I can work since I’ll definitely regret it once she does start growing up, just like I mourn the kids’ babyhood.

This will be a good year, I just know it. It will be if we make it one.

(Alaethia’s got hiccups again :).)