Feeling My Age…Or Older Perhaps

So. I haven’t posted an entry in pretty much: forever. Again, I blame the social networking sites. And the fact that every time I seem to open up WordPress a child needs something, the cat’s climbing my legs (more on that later), the husband’s calling or I feel guilty being in front of the computer and not with the babies, heh.

I’ve been sick just about this whole darn week, first with a stomach bug or something related to my blood sugar–I don’t know which one–and now I’ve caught the cold that’s been skipping from kid to kid. GREAT.

Thank God Mom’s here to help me with the girls. Alaethia’s pretty much independent, only needing to be put in the high chair for meals or assistance in the bathroom, but Emily still completely needs someone so it’s tough being sick. Thankfully this is one of the only times I’ve been sick since she was born, but my gosh, I hope this is it for the rest of the YEAR.

I guess I shall emphasize:

I started going to Taekwondo about…3 weeks ago. Norma, Aaron’s mom (Jaylen’s best friend’s mom), had been trying to convince me to go since two weeks before that. I finally decided to give it a try. The first week I went Wednesday night and Friday night. And my God. I hadn’t been that sore since…ever! I’d hurt in places I didn’t even know I could hurt!

Norma didn’t go that first Friday night, and I asked Maggie if she’d go with me but at the last minute she had a client stay late. I was already at the building by the time I found out so I braved being the only girl and went on my own. Luckily there was another girl there that night; unluckily she was an 18-yr-old champion Black Belt LOL. I felt mediocre compared to her, but I was there to exercise so I didn’t let it get to me. It was weird that, until I told her, she thought I was younger than her. That made me feel a little better, heh.

We had a bar-b-q for Noelia’s birthday that Saturday. We chilled out till late evening. The lights went out and you could hear kids screaming randomly throughout both houses LOL. We collected all of them, brought them to my living room and Mario and I began lighting candles everywhere. See? I told him all those scented candles would come in handy!!

We went outside and chilled out under the party porch. Emily was feeling sickly & NEEDS to be in the air conditioning or else she throws a fit. She wasn’t a happy camper. She began a screaming fit that caused us all to go bananas. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was a mixture of developing a diaper rash, being hot and being sleepy. When the lights and air came back on we dipped her in the bath and she fell right to sleep!

We went to town the next day. I saved $12.50 at Target by using a whole heckload of coupons they sent me! Right after that we went to Walmart for grocery shopping and…piercing Emily’s ears! I’d been meaning to do it since she was 4 months old (she’s 6 months now for those who don’t know), but something kept coming up. Mom wanted to get them done for her like she did Alaethia’s, so did. We met Yadira, Tommy and the kiddos at Walmart and Angela got her ears re-pierced too. She went first. Emily went next and my heart almost thumped out of my chest when I held her on my lap. Yazmin snapped away with my camera for me. The girl sanitized and put the little earring gun to her ear and she was fine…until I whispered, “She didn’t cry!” And all hell broke loose LOL. Poor baby couldn’t stop. By the time she’d calmed down enough to get the other ear done a crowd had formed to witness what was happening to the poor baby LOL.

She calmed down and seemed like nothing ever even happened once we started walking around the store and shopping. Thank goodness. I felt like an awful mother LOL. But at least we got it over with, and before her Baptism, too.

We spent the whole first week of September’s evenings at Taekwondo practice because the belt test would be that Saturday. The boys were doing magnificently; they were totally ready except for a few tiny things they had to work on. I, on the other hand, was NOT getting the darn form! I couldn’t understand why we had to turn the way we were, or why we were doing this block or that punch. I felt like an idiot and I just wanted to quit.

Didn’t help that Monday night, while getting out of my extremely high (well, for me) van, I hurt my darn left foot! So I couldn’t kick as well as I had been just the week before. Mario went to see me that night and I felt shy and embarrassed LOL. He said I was doing really well, though!

By the time Wednesday came around my left foot was still hurting and since I couldn’t balance very well on it, I wasn’t kicking (pi-chagis) correctly with my right foot and was hurting my toes! But the workouts were really intense. I’m not very big on running, because I have boobs of course, but I like the type of workouts we do. You work everything out. I wasn’t going to weigh myself till Saturday, because I’d weighed myself the Saturday before (weighed 130.5), but I couldn’t wait. I weighed 126.5! I hadn’t weighed anything in the 120s since before I had Emily and right after I did (but gained a lot back, unfortunately)!!

So that was my new motivation to keep going. Ever since I’d started Taekwondo I began really watching what I ate, because I kept telling myself I worked out too hard (REALLY HARD) to fuck it all up by stuffing my face with everything I saw.

I remembered taking video of the boys with Ernesto, the older teacher, when he taught them the white belt form step-by-step, number-by-number. And I found it! I studied it and within 30 minutes I learned it!!! I wasn’t a failure; just needed to understand the rhyme and rhythm behind it!

I was so ready to show off my form that night and when it came down to it, I messed up a step LOL. I just get nervous. Which is why I decided I wasn’t ready to take the test that Saturday. Norma’d been going 4 weeks already and she was ready. The only crappy thing was I didn’t want to be the only adult white belt left!

Oh, I forgot to mention: that Tuesday Mario and I finally went to the credit union to get a personal loan out to consolidate (on our own) our credit card bills. We were paying up the ass a month for them, especially now that every single one had upped the interest rate a month before Obama’s new law goes into effect. It was becoming ridiculous. It took some doing, but in the end we’re paying about half a month for 4 years now, fixed rate and everything. I feel so…liberated!! No more credit cards for us. It was the stupidest thing we’ve done as a married couple to rack up those darn things. From now on, if we don’t have the money for it, we’re not buying it!! Except for Home Depot…we always need that one! And it’s easy to pay off!

Since we didn’t have practice Friday I took the afternoon to pay off all the bills that could be done at the stores. I even ended up finding two size 8 red polos for the boys. I returned two of the medium ones they didn’t like because they were too long.

We had Annie’s sister’s (Marci’s) baby shower to go to on Saturday. We got to chit-chat with Annie, eat and then had to run and pick up the boys on time to get them to the belt test. I was so nervous for them! Poor Eenan was really nervous. He kept putting his hands in his face and even asked for a bathroom break. They did really well, though, I was so proud! They even had to break a board at the end of the test, which took all of us by surprise! Jaylen did a Chito-chagi kick (a straight up and down kick) and broke it. Eenan did an open-palm punch and broke it. It was amamzing! I wish I had the pics up to show you guys! I’ll post them here when I get the chance.

I started feeling like I could do the test, too, but there was no way I’d get to talk to anyone about it. I began to feel silly because I was actually becoming a little emotional about not testing LOL. Jaylen had gone over to Norma’s to play with Aaron so I went to pick him up and her hubby told me I should inquire about testing. I couldn’t do it, though. I quickly made dinner (enchiladas) and went to see Norma test. I totally could have done it!! The yellow belts testing for yellow advanced had to spar and I got a little scared when one of my former students was sparring and kicked another kid in the teeth! It chipped his tooth; sounded like someone had snapped a twig or something. I’m not so sure I want to be doing that part…

Andy and Noelia came over Sunday morning. Andy was going hunting with Mario’s uncles and Noelia, Mary, Mario, the kiddos and I actually went to church on Sunday. Well, the girls stayed with Mom. We’re going to try and start going every Sunday. Mario came to me one day and told me he’d like to try, and I’ve always wanted to so we’re going through with it. Mario had some work to do, but I went to the movies with Emily, the boys, Mary and Noelia to watch Aliens in the Attic. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! Alaethia had a fun day of shopping with Mom, Elda and her mom LOL.

Monday was another normal day. Mary went with us to the boys’ Taekwondo where I asked Luis about possibly testing during the week for my yellow belt. He said sure, we’d practice that night and if I was ready maybe I could take the test the next day. Awesome!

He taught the boys the yellow belt form that night. Jaylen, who’s much more eager about learning Taekwondo that Eenan, wanted to watch the video I’d recorded of them doing the form so I found it and everyone watched him practice. He learned it! I realized it was 7:30 and got in to take a shower really quick. No time for dinner, but I felt good enough to wait till after practice. Big mistake. We were doing Moola kicks, which require you to spin and I was dizzy halfway through class! I was grateful when we got our water break and stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth. I didn’t feel any better by the end of class. Couldn’t even finish doing the lunges or jumping jacks–so embarrassing. I took a seat and tried to collect myself. The room was spinning and turning colors and I was shaking like a leaf. A chihuahua’s actually what I imagined myself like that night, LOL.

I got into the car and sat there, shaking, for 10 minutes, until I saw that just about everyone was leaving the dojo. I don’t know how I drove home, but I did. I just wanted to get home and rest, but Eenan couldn’t find his backpack anywhere so we searched and searched. It was nowhere to be found. We got ready for bed and I just didn’t feel good. Sure enough, an hour after I laid down I started vomiting. Like there was no tomorrow. And other unpleasant things. I did so 3 times during the night, which is crazy because it takes A LOT for me to throw up.

I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water or Gatorade. I still don’t know what the heck happened. Food poisoning? My sugar being too low? A stomach bug? I don’t know. But it was awful.

I felt horrible the entire next day. Thank God Mario was off work. He had a lot to do that day though, so he wasn’t around very much. Mom was thankfully here to help me with the girls. Luis had also called to set up a test time for me, which would be the next morning but I told him I just couldn’t. Maybe next week?

I’m not even sure I want to go back. I got scared. If this did have something to do with my sugar, I don’t want to have another episode like that AGAIN. And this is the 3rd time I go to Taekwondo without eating before. But we’ll see. I’ll finish off the month, maybe test. I definitely don’t want to get into sparring, especially with the guys! Call me a chicken or what have you but I have enough problems with my teeth without having them be knocked out. And my 4 children need their mother in one piece. I just wanted to lose some weight!!

The next day was Mary’s birthday and we went to Andy and Noelia’s to celebrate. I’d kept down some crackers and a Ramen noodles so I figured it was ok to eat. Well, I ATE. Shrimp, corn on the cob, steak and chocolate cake I’d made. Needless to say I felt gross the entire next day, but I didn’t get sick at all, thank goodness. I just couldn’t eat till the evening because I was nauseous.

It’s been raining like crazy lately and with rain comes power outages, all the time. We had a thunderstorm that day that brought along with it a power outage and power surge that shorted the modem’s power supply, the HDMI cable, Alaethia’s TV, our phone and our DVD player! Thank GOD my laptop was okay!

I felt well enough to go to the store with Mom and walk down the block with Emily to take a picture of a rainbow we’d seen. I ate chili and that went well so glad that’s over!

And then I woke up this morning with a damn cold!! Emily’d gotten sick a few nights ago and the three other kiddos already had colds so it was bound to happen with my immune system being so weak right now. I’ve got tissues stuffed up my nose as I type this. Not really how I imagined spending my Friday night, but beggars can’t be choosers *shrug*. At least I’m not puking!!