I woke up that morning after the phone rang several times. I finally got annoyed and got up to answer it. It was some guy from Bert Ogden Nissan calling, once again, to convince us to go in to the dealership. I told the guy I was speaking to how we had very specific wants and needs, which included trading in the Equinox and having our new car payment cut in half—and I knew this was impossible. He asked how much we owed and I told him, and he said, “Oh yes ma’am, we’ll definitely be able to do that.” So I went to the bedroom to tell Mario, who’d been listening and was already awake. We got ready and went to dealership after I called Mom to watch the kiddos.

I can always tell beforehand how something’s going to go for me, and as soon as we drove onto that parking lot I knew it wasn’t going to work out.

We spoke to someone and told him we didn’t want to string him along and told him exactly what we wanted: trade-in, payment cut in half, and we never give a down payment. We’ve only given a down payment for 3 of the 4 cars we’ve owned and bought at dealerships. He promised he’d be able to help us, so that gave me a little spark of hope, but I guess that’s what they’re trained for, right?

He showed us a Sentra, which was really nice and drove incredibly, but I kept thinking about a van. We’re going to have 4 kids…we need something bigger, not smaller. But Mario said we can always trade it in later when we actually need all the space, so I agreed. Long story short: they were totally trying to jip us. Even after giving them our requirements they still came and told us we’d need at least a $4,000 down payment to have a $400 a month payment and they were only giving us $4,000 for our truck. That was bull, because we’d gotten it appraised for much higher. I was about to just get up and leave and the guy said he’d run the numbers again. Sure, just keep lowering my damn points! But, whatever. I read Twilight and Mario read his book and we waited.

A manager comes to us a while later and sits down, makes small talk about reading. I close my book and stare at him and he begins to talk. This one tells us we’d need a $4,800 payment to get a payment of $545 a month and showed us two other tiers of down payments which would somewhat lower the monthly payment. Um, no. Every single one was still more than we already paid and this was for a car. I told him, “Look. We came here because the first guy I spoke to said he’d help us. I gave him the facts. I wouldn’t be here right now if he hadn’t said that. This is a waste of our time, yours and ours.” He didn’t even try to convince us. He just stood up and shook our hands and we left. Grr. Waste of a Saturday morning!

Since we didn’t have anything to eat in the morning we went to eat at Taco Bell. I hadn’t been there in a while and was surprised Mario brought up going, since he’s not a big fan. When we were eating I remembered that the darn dealership guy didn’t give me my driver’s license back. Grr. We went back to get it then went to Freddy’s (Mario’s cousin) dealership to check how much the car was worth. He gave us the facts quickly and straight up. And he told us the truck was worth at least $8,000, not $4,000.

We went to the mall after that to the Mimi Maternity store. I was on a hunt for an inexpensive, but nice dress for my baby shower the next day. I didn’t want to spent more than $25 since it was a dress I’d probably only be wearing once. JC Penny didn’t have anything and the Mimi Maternity store had one dress I really, really liked, but it was $40. I was moping around, complaining when Mario reminded me about “the store downtown we went to last time”. I put the dress back on the rack and strangled him with a hug. He does pay attention sometimes! He said, “You see, I’m not completely useless.”

All the way over there, we had some interesting conversations about some people we know. Dirty people LOL.

We had an easy time finding a parking space, amazingly, but had no luck finding the store. Mario was remembering Melrose, which is where I got my dress for Mrs. V.’s daughter’s quinceñera, but they didn’t have anything but pants. We reached the end of the strip and crossed the street and went back the other way. The store I was thinking about was one I could have sworn was on a corner, but we went to every corner store and nothing. I was about to give up when I remembered the entryway to the store I was talking about and lo and behold, we found it! They didn’t have any dresses whatsoever, but I did find a nice blouse. I figured I’d pair it with jeans and my brown sandals. I was glad just to have found something.

I helped Mary and Elda with the distinctivos (or, favors) for the baby shower. After a few hot glue burns and making a mess of some, I finished with my part and came back home to start working on the grapefruit pies I was making for the baby shower the next day.

I don’t remember where Mario went, but he said he’d help me and then wasn’t around so I spent 2 hours peeling the darn grapefruits on my own. It felt like an eternity, but it was so nice to be done with it. Now I just had to wait till the next day to eat it!

I planned on doing absolutely nothing but chilling out and updating my entries and photos but of course I always get busy with something else. After doing my daily housework I started prepping the trim between the kitchen and living room for painting. It was tiring, but I got most of it done (except for the really high parts of the kitchen/living room trim…my step-ladder wasn’t high enough.) I’d ask Mario to help me with the rest later.

I picked the boys up from school and finished up with the trim and did some more cleaning. When Mario got home he put up my kitchen valances (finally) and the mop/broom organizer we’d bought at Walmart a few days before. It looks awesome and it’s amazing how much space having the broom and mop out of the way frees up. Mario said he’d done enough work to make up for the rest of the year and went to sleep. I was bored so I followed all the kids to Mary’s, where I sat around the table with Mary, Mom, Elda, and Jose.

Mario woke up about an hour (or two?) later and sat with us. We came back to the house and Adan came over to just chill out. I asked Mario if he could paint the rest of the trim I couldn’t reach between the kitchen and living room and he did, with minimal complaints. He also took it up a notch and painted the hallway entry trim. It looks so much better! Now all we need is a small can of the Spanish Chestnut color of the living room so we can touch up a few areas.

I’d left my bag on the kitchen table and was cleaning up so I put it on the coat rack. Then I picked up Eenan’s super heavy backpack and put it on the rack, too. And the rack fell right on to the floor. Mario is of course scolding me for hanging so much crap on it and I blame it on all the junk Eenan has in his backpack. I piled everything up and put my purse on the ottoman for the time being. I clean up some more and when I turn around to check on Alaethia she’s got this HUGE read spot all over her eye. I panicked, because I thought somehow hurt herself and scraped her eye, and was relieved to find she’d gotten into my purse and put lipstick on her eye. She even recovered the lipstick, put it back in my makeup bag and zipped it up. I asked what happened and she said, “How do I look?” LOL She’s so girlie.

Thanks to our very late night the night before, we woke up late. Well, I woke up late and woke Mario up late for work again. I didn’t even have the strength to wake up and make Mario breakfast. I slept in with Alaethia till 11:40.

I’d gotten up to pee and John texted that he was at Target and heard a kid yell “Obama!” when he saw him on TV. I think it’s a bit creepy that he has that effect on people. Even Alaethia can spot his voice in a second and yells, “It’s Yobama” LOL.

I asked John if he’d go with me to work. I had to pick up the Constellation Turtle I’d ordered for Alaethia and my W2 form. He said yes, but he was running an errand. Alaethia and I ate leftover meatloaf from the night before. John came over and ate while I showered. Mom came over and offered to watch Alaethia. Even better, because then they’d never let us leave talking to her and I had only an hour to get over there and back and pick the boys up from school.

We went over there and said hello to everyone at the office area and even got to see two of my kiddos, Tony and Manny. We went to Vero’s office and I picked up my stuff and chatted with her for about half an hour. We went to the library before we left but it was empty. As we were leaving I saw Mrs. V. inside the office. We chatted a little bit. She told me the kids missed me *tear*. I said, “Aww, I miss them, too. I miss everyone.” The principal was standing right there when I said that and he said, “See? I told you not to leave!” I laughed it off, but I felt weird LOL.

We rushed out of there because I felt like I was going to pass out from the hot flashes I was having. We went straight to pick up the boys and we got home and got started on homework. Of course I had to take Eenan back to school because he lost a pencil his friend had lent him and he was afraid she wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He’s lucky we only live a few blocks away.

I started cleaning and washed a few things. I tried updating a bit and then went to chill out at Mary’s and gave the boys dinner. Aly and I ate leftovers again (pancakes LOL) but she kept sucking on the pieces and spitting them out. Grr. I was certain she’d eat well since it was something she liked, but nope.

I washed dishes while she played and then she wanted to watch TV, Noggin, of course. I made Mario some dinner and waited for him to get home. I bathed Alaethia, then caught up on my entries some more. Mario got home and he showed me pictures of their latest project. I must say, I was quite impressed. Mario watched TV while I updated some more (gosh, it feels like I’ll never catch up).

The baby’s been moving around like crazy. I feel every little movement. She flings her little limbs all over the place and it hurts sometimes! I can even feel her tiny foot pressed up against the left side of my belly. I press my hand to her foot every chance I get. I think she’s running out of room in there. I get a pain on my lower back and, er, nether regions whenever she starts rolling around.

While I was sitting at the kitchen table typing on my laptop and Mario was on his laptop in the living room, we hear Alaethia in deep conversation with someone. We turn and listen closely. She’s talking to “Pum-bah”, which is Spongebob. She’s talking to him on her princess cell phone. “How are you? You good? I’m good. Thank you for the magic water.” How cute is that? She’s like a sponge herself, this kid! She’s amazing.