Sun., Oct. 26th – I woke up around 8:30 and I didn’t know why since I was still very sleepy after waking up twice during the night. I lied on my back and felt a huge lump on the right side of my belly. The baby was balled up there. When I pressed my hand to my belly to feel her, she freaked out and hid!

Alaethia woke up at 9:30 (she’d slept 12 straight hours!). She was peeking at me through the slats of her crib and I couldn’t help but get up, take her in my arms and cover her with kisses. We hugged tightly all the way to the living room and lay on the couch. She asked for a cup of milk so I got up and prepared her sippy and we cuddled some more. Mary invited us over for pancakes so we went over. Mario was still asleep. Alaethia didn’t really eat breakfast; she only actually eats breakfast when she feels like it. I still blame it on my mother letting her sleep till 11am all of last year while I was working and giving her “breakfast” at noon. Grrr.

We went to Sonia’s for her birthday that afternoon. The men were bar-b-qing on the huge grill outside. Andy and Noelia got Alaethia some cute Hello Kitty hair clippies and she wanted them on right away. We were outside for a while and then went to eat at Yadira’s next door since it was hot and there were tons of flies everywhere. The food was awesome. We chilled out for a while and then came home. I got everything ready for work the next day, including making lunch for both Mario and I at 10pm. Alaethia and I went to bed around 10:30, but didn’t actually fall asleep till 11-something since Alaethia was rolling around in bed. (Baby’s kicking right now…feel her hit one side, then the other :D). She slept all night again!

Mon., Oct. 27th – Back to work. Ah, Mondays. Luckily, once again it was a good Monday. Mario texted me during the day and asked if I wanted to go to Walmart, since we didn’t get to go during the weekend. I said sure. I did everything I needed to do, including dinner for the kids and Mom while we were gone and taking a shower so I wouldn’t have to rush later. We cashed his paycheck at the bank and were surprised to find that none of the phones were working–not the cell phones or land lines. It was really strange.

Tues., Oct. 28th – A nice cold front finally came in. It was the perfect day to wear slippers, since that day was Slipper Day for Red Ribbon Week. I was so comfortable all day. I almost felt like leaving them at work so I could wear when my feet hurt, but I’d feel funny, heh.

Wed., Oct. 29th – We were having a teacher-against-student basketball game that doubled as a canned food drive (that was your entry fee) so I tried being on top of everything all day so that I could just go to lunch and then go straight to the game without leaving anything unfinished.

I knew my plan wasn’t going to work out when my boss didn’t go to lunch till 12:15 and took 45 minutes instead of the half-hour we’re all supposed to take. So I didn’t end up going to lunch till 1:15 and by the time I got back at 1:45 it was kind of late. The game started at 1:30 and the boss kept talking to me about the upcoming field trip so I kind of had no choice anyway. Then she asks, “Weren’t you going to the game?” Um…I wanted to. But I just said, “Nah, I changed my mind.” When Jamie was passing by I just gave him the two cans and got back to work. What a bummer.

Thurs., Oct. 30th – The baby’s moving like crazy. I can feel her across my belly; from the bottom of the left side of my belly to the top of my right side, right under my ribs. Mario walked in when I was sitting in the chair in the living room with Alaethia asleep on my left side and he said, “Woah, your pansa’s really grown in the last three days!”

I’d noticed it, too. It was as though I inflated from one day to the next. It’s so relieving to feel her move more often now. Before I could really feel her move I felt apprehensive all the time, wondering if she’s okay. But now that I can actually do my kick counts (which I believe are what helped me realize I was going into premature labor with Jaylen) I can sleep in peace (well, when Alaethia and my bladder allow, heh).

Fri., Oct. 31st – Halloween! My kiddos were so excited, especially Jaylen and Eenan, who were wearing their costumes to school.

We had a Red Ribbon Week pep rally that also doubled as an assembly for Adrian, a little boy we’d been fundraising for with leukemia. A group of our most musical teachers got together and set up a band. They were so awesome. The kids were all into it. They were playing oldies, like “Johnny B. Goode” and one of our big, tough 8th grade boys got out on the floor and started doing The Twist! He was later joined by one of the teachers and another boy, Robert.

A while later three boys were beat-boxing, two of them being “troublemakers” who are always in ISS. They astounded everyone…they were really good! They even had some break-dancing going on, which took me right back to high school. Ah, memories.

When I picked up the kids and then everyone else started getting home, we all chilled out on the back porch. Elda was finishing up decorating for Brandon’s (Halloween) birthday party the next day, so we kept her company out there. Mario got home and we got kids dressed in their costumes—well, we tried to anyway– Jaylen threw a fit because he was sleepy and I “was taking too long”.

(boys pic will come soon…it’s on Mario’s camera)

After the boys were ready I went in to get Alaethia dressed up. Getting her dress and shoes on were easy…it was her hair that took forever! She kept squealing and crying and is not a fan of being sprayed with detangler, hair spray and smothered in gel. But once I got both braids almost even on each she made SUCH an adorable Dorothy! Add to that her picnic basket and plush Toto and OMG…I could have swallowed her whole!

After we mingled with everyone outside for a while more we got the kids in the truck and decided where to go. We stopped by Chris’ first, where we saw his whole family (I hadn’t seen Nancy in forever!) and Yadira, Jorge and the kids were there. Matthew made such a cute Buzz Lightyear!

We went to Chris’ neighbor’s house next. She gave the kids age-appropriate treats which I thought was really sweet. She talked to us for a while and the kids admired her eyeballs-in-a-jar and this creepy dude with red eyes.

I guess it was either the fact that it was football night or the economy, but there were hardly any houses giving out candy! The neighborhood we usually go to was empty. We only went to two houses there, one on the way home and the rest were around our neighborhood. Which I guess was fine anyway since we still ended up with 3 large Ziplocs full!

The kids really enjoyed themselves. Alaethia loved her actual first year of trick-or-treating. She clutched on to her heavy little basket and willingly went up to everyone asking for candy. When we were done we came home and chilled out with everyone outside. Cat, Annie and the kids were outside and so was Jose, Elda and their kids, Mary, Mom and the rest of us. It was a good night.

Sat., Nov. 1st – We didn’t do much most of the day. I kept reminding Mario to go pick up his paycheck but he didn’t want to, then put Adan in charge of picking his up when he picked up his own. Mario didn’t want to leave till he had his check cashed, just in case, so needless to say we spent most of the day at home. I was going to contribute a Kitty Litter Cake for Brandon’s party but I needed to get the supplies. By the time Adan brought the check and we left there was an hour till the party—there was NO WAY I was going to get shopping done and come home and bake the cake.

I was worried about the party starting and not being home to get Alaethia ready (the boys can ready themselves, really), but Mary and Noelia had gotten Aly ready, thank goodness. I think they even did a better job with her hair LOL.

Elda’s people started arriving but the rest of the immediate family stayed in Mary’s room. Noelia and Andy came over with their stuff and got ready here. Yazmin got here in her Dorothy costume and she hated it. They convinced me to dress up in it but I just looked like a really ROUND Dorothy so I said no thanks LOL. Noelia had brought an extra costume, a Flashdance one, so Yazmin wore that one. Annie was La Chilindrina, a character from El Chavo Del 8 and brought an extra costume of another character from that same show. Yadira was wearing a witch costume of Annie’s, but she didn’t like it so I wore that one and Yadira wore the extra one Annie had. It was hilarious LOL.

Adan, Aide and Belle came over, too. Belle looked adorable as Boo from Monster’s Inc. Adan and Aide were dressed up as Mobsters—too cute, and such a great idea since everyone seems to be obsessed with Mobster’s at the moment, especially my own husband!

Chris and Nancy were here, too—Chris was El Chavo and Nancy was a genie. She’s so tiny she wore one of Angela’s old costumes!

It was a fun night of chasing Aly around and mingling with everyone. We were all exhausted by the end of the night. Alaethia wouldn’t stop torturing poor Belle. Every time we heard a thud, we knew Alaethia had bullied her cousin again. She has this obsession with stealing her pacifier! She never even used one as a baby.

It’s great spending time with family. It’s such a pain that I don’t get to take as many photos as I used to or blog about my days like before, but at least I’ve got the memories :).

[This is the latest I’ve stayed up (willingly) on a work night in a while…I’m updating this on 11-10…you love how I’m updating a week late LOL. One day I’ll be back to normal again, I swear.]

Mon., Oct. 20th – I can’t remember much from this Monday. It was probably one of those typical Mondays where I’m dragging and can’t wait till Friday’s here. I do remember that it wasn’t too hectic. We actually had substitutes showing up that whole week, so it was really nice getting some help. We were praised at least two more times about how neat and clean our library is; much neater than the others, they said.

Tues. Oct. 21st – Mrs. V. didn’t go to work, so she left me a list of things to do on her pin drive. I got every last thing done, even though it felt like it was never going to happen. I had to fax applications and documents for Model Classroom, e-mail people, get quotes for purchase orders and still do my regular every-day job. Then, after lunch, we had a …er, situation with a substitute teacher. Let’s just say we were in charge of babysitting this adult while proper authorities were reached. We seriously need to get an actual procedure in line in case another situation arises. We could be put in danger! This is the 3rd time this happens since I’ve worked there.

Wed. Oct. 22nd – Mrs. Ruiz and I approached Mrs. V. about the situation from the day before. We asked her what we should do, if we should be properly trained in case something worse happens one day. I find it kind of weird that when a bad situation like that arises they send the person to us to “babysit” till proper action is taken. What if one of us is alone one day and the person decides to attack us or something?

I’d been doing a good job keeping the house clean (well, at least the kitchen, bathroom and living room) but I’ve begun to feel so horribly tired. No matter how much I sleep, it doesn’t make a difference. I was a zombie that whole day.

It didn’t help that I had my prenatal appointment that afternoon. I’d rescheduled from 2pm to 4pm so I wouldn’t have to miss half a day of work. I’d pick Jaylen up from school after work and go straight to my appointment. I’d asked Mary to please pick up Eenan for me since he has UIL practice on Wednesdays. She said she’d be late but Sonia would pick him up for me.

I was sitting in the lobby during my appointment about 10 minutes before they called me in. That’s probably the fastest appointment I’ve ever had, aside from the time Jaylen had a horrible Strep infection and they were so concerned they let us straight in.

Dr. C. wasn’t in that day; he was delivering or something so I had to see the nurse practitioner, Elizabeth. I weighed 137, which *gulp* is 2 pounds more than what I weighed when I gave birth to Alaethia!! Before this, 135 was the most I weighed in my entire life. I’m freaked out that I’ve still got 4 months to go, which scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to gain too much weight! I got this mad thought in my head standing on that scale: how can I do it to only gain 3 pounds in the next 4 months—but I know that wouldn’t be possible.

Elizabeth asked me about my sugar and congratulated me when she flipped through my chart and saw that I haven’t had a problem with my sugar at all since July.

She did a quick ultrasound and I asked her to make sure Baby is still a girl. It was kind of hard to tell because of the way she was sitting (with her legs crossed) but she’s most likely still a girl, which is great! I’m probably going to be paranoid till the day she’s born, afraid that she’ll change sex on me LOL.

Elizabeth set another appointment for November 12th, which is the glucose screening. I already let Mrs. V. know that I’ll be out that morning. I also need to remember to schedule a new appointment for Alaethia with the cardiologist to check on her heart murmur.

Thurs., Oct. 23rd – It was such a stressful day at work. A cold front came in; maybe that’s why the kids were acting up. A girl who never really visits the library had a horrible attitude that morning and almost threw her books at Mrs. V. when she was asked to hand over her folder so she could escort her back to class for being rude. A boy who usually doesn’t give me trouble was being a smart ass. This other kid I’d never really seen before took an additional 10 minutes choosing a book after I told him to hurry and take a seat (and this is after the half hour he’d initially taken).

When I got home there was no difference. The kids were all wound up and loud. I did everything on my own, even though Mario was home super early. He was just chilling out on the couch playing Mobsters on Myspace and drinking a beer. When he got bored of that he went off to our bedroom to read. I’ve got three words: Must be nice. If I was just at home and this were my main job I wouldn’t mind that he wanted to relax and chill out, as much. But we both work the same amount of hours—it’s not like when he was at D-Tronics and he worked 12-13 hour days. I’d just like help once in a while is all I’m saying.

Fri., Oct. 24th – It was hectic all damn day. All the kids and teachers were on a rampage trying to reach their goals. It’s frustrating because they should be doing it all 9 weeks, not just the three days before, but that’s always the case.

My in-laws invited us to Red Lobster for dinner. Mario met us there. It was so nice to have a meal out with both my in-laws. The kids were wired and loud, but so was every other kid there, so I didn’t feel like I had to be shushing them all the time. It’s great to have Mario going places with us now that he’s at this job. I really do think it’s helped us a lot—seeing each other more often.

We went to Jorge and Maggie’s with Jaylen after we finished eating, but they weren’t home. Eenan and Alaethia had gone with Mary. We came home and surfed the web on our laptops with Aly. Adan came over around 10. Even though it was a Friday I was exhausted. Mario called me an old lady. Hmph.

Sat., Oct. 25th – We had our Dedication Ceremony at my school. I thought we’d gotten there late but we were actually around 10 minutes early. The whole thing was lovely: the kids from the Fine Arts department that were performing did an amazing job. My hormones were on the fritz and I was so proud I felt like bawling. Dr. S.–the man whom the school was named after—showed a video from the 80’s that came out on CBS with Dan Rather about his family. His parents had 6 boys and sent them all to college. They were very poor, but they did everything they could to become successful. It was such an inspirational story.

When the Dedication was over, we were starving, so we went to eat at Denny’s. I was ravenous for pancakes but after seeing Mario’s delicious looking plate I felt like having eggs and bacon but I was too full.

On the way out we ran into Aide and Adan. Adan had just picked up his paycheck so we went to pick up Mario’s. Our luck, the boss wasn’t there. Oh well. We went home. Mario left to Sonia’s to help his Nino chop fire wood for the bar-b-q the next day for Sonia’s birthday. I waited for Mary to get home to go to Venessa’s twins’ birthday party. It was cute. They had fun games for the kids and the parents too sometimes. The boys played and won a few games. They even ended up playing musical chairs against each other. Eenan won, but Jaylen was a good sport since the hostess said they’d be able to share Eenan’s prize anyway.

Jaylen and I won the toilet paper mummy game. I’m not sure if it was the adrenaline from trying to win the game or the fact that it was really hot, but I felt dizzy and started getting heart palpitations afterwards. I didn’t feel good. I grabbed a water bottle and took some deep breaths. I felt better after a while. We went home after that and watched TV. Aly fell asleep by 9:30. I was sleepy and went to bed but stayed up watching Family Matters till around 11pm. I crashed after that and woke up about twice during the night, once to pee, and to check on Alaethia since she didn’t wake up all night. She slept 12 hours straight!! First time she’d ever done that. If only I could go back and take notes!

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.