I woke up and went on a cleaning frenzy. It was really the first day since I started my Christmas vacation that I could actually concentrate on tidying up. I was so behind on everything that just maintaining cleanliness wasn’t going to be enough; I’d have to clean hardcore in order to start maintaining! That’s what working does to me; I get lazy. I don’t know how other women do it to be a full-time mom and wife, hold a job, work and still have a clean house.

I took a break and checked my Myspace for a while, then cleaned again. I was just folding towels and telling to John I should call Sally when my phone starts singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. She read my mind! She asked if I wanted to meet for lunch at Olive Garden and I said of course. Mom was thankfully already over and offered to stay with the kiddos.

It was so nice seeing her. We hadn’t seen each other since Quentin’s birthday on the 6th. We talked about friends, my pregnancy, her work, my work and our marriages—those conversations are always interesting, heh. She said it was so different actually saying Emily’s name now that we knew what she’d be called, because she’s so used to just Eenan, Jaylen and Alaethia.

We talked about our houses (she wants to re-do her kitchen and I want to get my bedroom more organized) and she asked if I needed help. I said yes, sure! She said she’d be over the next day, at 7am. I promised I’d have breakfast ready.

She insisted on treating me at Olive Garden. She spoils me. I wish we could have hung out much longer but she had to get back to work. We said our ‘see you laters’ and I stopped to put gas in the truck. Can you believe I filled up with $15 (gas was $1.39 at this time)!

I stopped by Target to buy the 500gig external that was in the ads, but of course they were out. I got my inspection on the way home, finally. I’d needed to get it since October—how I dodged that bullet with the cops over here, I have no idea, but I’m grateful. How sad that I never went to get it because it takes too long and sure enough, they took about an hour or more. I got home and started cleaning again. I went into the bedroom and for once didn’t feel overwhelmed. I figured out how to rearrange the furniture; even drew a diagram. I feel really accomplished but I still have a lot to go.

Mario called on his way home from work and asked if I wanted to go to Adan’s for a bar-b-q they were having for his birthday. I said sure. Mom stayed with Alaethia, the boys stayed with Mary. The guys are so funny. So many pics nad incriminating videos were taken LOL. Jorge, Jason, Adan, Mario, two of Adan’s friends, 3 of his cousins, me and later Mirella were over. We probably would have stayed much longer, but since I had to be up early we came home at midnight. Alaethia was sleepy by the time we got home (yup, Mom still hadn’t put her to bed, can you believe it?) so that kind of worked out for us.

Gosh, I like being home. I woke up at 5:30am to snuggle with Mario and realized that’s the time I’m usually getting up for work. Bleh.

I woke Mario up to go to work. I meant to get up and make him breakfast but I was so exhausted from cleaning and staying up late that I went back to sleep until 11am with Aly. The boys actually let me sleep; Eenan told me he’d prepare their cereal (without spilling a thing!). What a big boy he is *tear*.

Aly and I woke up and I fed myself and Alaethia breakfast and started washing the pile of dishes. Mom was just waiting for us to wake up so she could come over, and then just sat and watched me clean. She says she supposedly comes over early to help out with the kids, but the boys were practically strangling each other and all she did was sit there. Argh. Anyway.

I asked the boys what they wanted for lunch and they said fish sticks. They always want fish sticks, which is why I hardly buy them. They ate 15 fish sticks each! Alaethia actually ate 2, which is really magnificent for her since she’s so picky.

I got all the kids ready so we could go to the post office, our bank and then INB bank to add cash to Mario’s gift card from his mom. He wanted to buy a scope or something like that from Cabela’s, but I didn’t want to use my Cabela’s card and he only had $60 on the gift card. I was going to add more, but it turns out I couldn’t. I ended up using the card for diapers at Target and used the rest for groceries at H-E-B and told Mario to use our debit card for his purchase. I thankfully didn’t take as long as I thought I would at H-E-B. I got everything we needed, including extras like Lunchables, drinks, and chips. Stuff like that never ends up in the cart when the boys aren’t with me LOL.

I went to Dollar General to get a few things I can only find there (like my dryer sheets) but I didn’t find a paint pan or rollers. Oh well. Mary invited us for dinner when we got home. Aly was in pain and moody so I put some drops in her ear and gave her Tylenol and before long she fell asleep. She was still a little feverish on and off. We spent time at Mary’s letting the boys entertain us. Eenan was reading the ingredients on his bar-b-q Lay’s chips and said mes-kweet instead of mesquite LOL. That set off a memory of the boys. They’d been pissed at each other a few days before and instead of yelling and getting into trouble started writing each other notes on Post-Its. Eenan wrote “You’re ugly” and Jaylen replied, “Eenan your stoopid”. It was hilarious. But they got scolded for being mean to each other.

I think it was this day (how sad that I can’t remember) that Mario and I decided that the baby’s name would be…

Drumroll please…

EMILY!!

Yes, a very common name, which is unusual for us LOL. We just like it. Out of the 100,000+ names we read in that baby book, that’s really the only one that stuck out to me. It’s just cute and so girlie and Alaethia says it really well! It could also be because one of her favorite shows on Noggin’ is Little Bear and one of the characters is Emily LOL. We’re still not sure about the middle name, but I’ve got quite a list to whittle down.

I got started on laundry, bathed Alaethia, got Mario’s dinner ready and then Tommy and Yadira came over. Once they were gone I washed dishes and did more laundry. Can we say “nesting”? I’ve never had such huge rushes of energy for cleaning in my life. Needless to say, I was tired and my back was killing me. I rested on the sofa with my feet propped on a pillow and Alaethia came over and sat next to me. She had a little bag of hers with a compact in it and began putting makeup on herself, then me and then her sister, which means she was smoothing the pad around my belly LOL. She is so cute. I’m sure she’s going to be an amazing big sister. She gave her kisses and called her “Emma-lee”. When she got bored of Emily and me she asked her Daddy-O if she could put make-up on him “just one time”. Of course he let her ;).

Sat., Dec. 27th – I woke up, ate breakfast, and got to cleaning. I played with Aly and checked the movie times for Tale of Despereaux. We hadn’t been to the movies in a while and though we never finished reading the book, I really wanted to see the movie during the holidays. Plus, the kids wanted to go, too LOL.

We watched Wall-E while we waited for the time to pass. Mary brought in bag-fulls of stuff Yvonne sent for Aly, like Princess bags, Sesame Street toys, a helmet and pads. She had a blast looking through everything, like it was Christmas all over again.

We braved taking Alaethia with us, since she is getting a little older and can actually watch a movie now that she actually has somewhat of an attention span. I was sure to pack her diaper bag with her Gerber Stars, yogurt bites and other snacks.

When we got into the theatre, it was dark and they were already showing the previews. She kept saying—loudly—”Why’s it so dark? I can’t see!” It was funny, but everyone kept turning to stare.

Even though I tried fishing everything out of her bag to keep her busy before she started screaming, she was really talkative and wouldn’t sit still. Mario wanted to get up and leave, but I told him to watch the movie and be quiet; she was tired and just needed to be rocked to sleep. She talks a lot when she’s sleepy, like her Mama, heh. But sure enough, after some rocking she was fast asleep. I got to enjoy the rest of the movie. The kids and I didn’t get very far in the book, but from what I read and saw in the movie, they’re completely different from each other!

We went to Target then Walmart to cash Mario’s pay check after the movie. We bought some meat from T-Rey’s (gosh I hate how meat markets smell, especially when I’m pregnant) for yet another bar-b-q. We got home and I started cleaning. I still have a lot to go. I mainly organized things, in my room and Alaethia’s. When I got tired I went outside with everyone. Aly was moody so I went inside to Mary’s with most of the women. We ate and talked and then I came back to my house since Aly still felt warm. Since the last time she’d gotten a fever she’d only get them at night, and only for a while. This time she’d gotten it earlier though and she was hysterical. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with her. She’d kind of rub her ear, cheek and the side of her neck, but when I’d ask her if her ears, throat or teeth were bothering her she’d scream no. The little canker sore she’d had was totally gone, too, so it wasn’t that.

I was up all night with her. She’d fall asleep but then would wake up crying and screaming her head off. I felt like I was going insane. It didn’t help that she’d gotten ahold of a Lysol wipe earlier during the evening (Mario took them out and I forgot to put them back in the drawer =/) and I was afraid she’d gotten an upset tummy in case she’d put it in her mouth. Heck, I was afraid the chemicals were ripping up her insides! I asked her if she’d been sucking on it but she just smiled and said “no”. I called everywhere, including the number on the Lysol package and the Poison Control Center and nothing was open. I couldn’t believe it. I gave her a little bread and milk (the usual foods they tell you to give them when they ingest something they shouldn’t) and started doing research online. Every site I went to said there wasn’t any harm if ingested…but do call an ambulance if you get the liquid in your eyes!? How strange.

After another hour and half of Alaethia screaming her head off I called Mario and asked him to come in at 1:30. Why should I be the only parent worried sick? Hey, I want to be outside relaxing with everyone, too. So, reluctantly, he came in, complaining the whole time of course. She was so hysterical by the time Mario came in that she cried threw up from crying so much. We stayed up till around 2:15am and I woke up with her every hour after that. Tomorrow would definitely consist of a trip to her night/weekend doctor.

Sun., Dec. 28th – It was Grandpa D’s birthday. We woke up super late, around noon for being up with Aly all night. The tamales I was going to help Mary, Elda and Mom with were already done. We had some of the tamales, cake and sang happy birthday and excused ourselves to take Alaethia to the weekend pediatric clinic. I couldn’t remember what time they opened, but thankfully they’d been open an hour when we arrived. There weren’t a lot of people in the lobby, so that was good. The nurse told me I’d have to call her regular doctor and ask for an authorization. I found that a little strange since it’s usually the office that has to call. So I called and sure enough, the CSR that answered told me to ask the office to call and ask for the authorization themselves. So I did, even though the guy looked a little annoyed about it.

It took about 10 minutes, but he let me know that Dr. C. gave them the okay to see her. We entertained her with her Spongebob Magna Doodle and Gerber Stars while we waited.

Once we were in the room they let us know that she had an ear infection in both ears, the left one being severe. They prescribed cough/congestion medicine, Motrin for her fevers, some ear drops and an antibiotic. We had to go all the way back to McAllen to Lee’s Pharmacy because it was the only pharmacy that was open after 6pm. As soon as we got home, we gave her the meds. She wanted to go to her room to watch a movie (Terabithium or Wizard of Oz, one of them) so we made her all comfy and she relaxed. I was really behind on dishes and was about to start washing them when Mario told me to sit down; we had a movie date. We watched Journey to the Center of the Earth and then Baby Mama. I removed my acrylic nails while we watched Baby Mama. It took forever, but it felt so good to have them off. I can only have fake nails on for so long.

We paused the movies several times because Alaethia needed this or that so they felt like they were really long LOL. I started cleaning after the movies finished. I stayed up till 2:30 with Aly who refused to fall asleep and then passed out. She was still feverish, but she slept much better than the night before. You have no idea how glad I was to be on vacation; there’s no way I’d be able to stay up with her that late when it was a work night!