Sun., Nov. 2nd – We chilled out at home most of the day and went to Jorge and Maggie’s for a bit in the afternoon (Mario, Aly and I—the boys stayed with Mom). Jorge was installing their new huge TV and Mario helped with lifting and so on. We went to Walmart to pick up the stuff Mario needed to do the oil changes on our trucks and stopped at the Murphy’s to put gas. My truck still had a little gas, like half of a quart, and the rest filled up with $24!

We went back to Jorge’s for a little while and came home to get everything ready for work the next day. I got everything ready early and was so relieved to be in bed by 9:45. I crashed instantly. But the night didn’t go as I thought it would. Alaethia must have been teething because she got a low-grade fever and woke up ever hour.

Mon., Nov. 3rd – I was, of course, dragging in the morning from lack of sleep. I almost considered calling in, but I thought I just have to make it through today since we had Tuesday off. I told Mom where the thermometer was and gave her directions on how much Tylenol to give Alaethia (and prayed that she followed them) and left to work.

Mrs. V. wasn’t there but she left a to-do list. Most of it had to do with our upcoming field trip to Fantasyland. I had to make copies of permission slips when I actually got a chance to escape to the copy room. I wrote the kids’ names, team #, teacher name on the forms and separated them by teacher. After I did everything else I usually do (checking-in, shelving) I went to lunch and saw Mrs. Ruiz at the front office. She said she’d go over when I got back. When I had clocked back in Mrs. Ruiz went with me to the library and stayed there looking for images for t-shirts. I rushed around delivering the permission slips and was surprised to find out there were lots of teachers absent. I got everything done by 2:15, so that was good. I basically had the last 45 minutes of my work day to chill out.

I was so exhausted that I just wanted to get home but the kids all had their 6-month dentist appointments. I’d tried calling Mom since 2:45 and she never answered. I get here, and sure enough, just as I thought, she’d been outside the whole time. It wasn’t boiling outside but poor Alaethia’s cheeks were red and I was afraid she’d feel worse if she still had a slight fever. I rushed getting her ready and took all the kiddos to their appointment. They all did amazingly well. Alaethia did better during her very first appointment, but other than yelling while the dentist cleaned her teeth, she did really well.

Jaylen did great, too. He was still for his new sealants this time. Eenan got sealants done, too, and got that bottom tooth removed; the one that never fell out. I was afraid he’d scream his head off and even asked the nurse to please call me in if he asked for me but he didn’t!

I chilled out the rest of the day with the kiddos and tried taking a nap but that didn’t work out. I ended up finding energy from somewhere and stayed up till 11pm updating and publishing my pending entries.

Tues., Nov. 4th – We had the day off that day. It was Election Day and I still had no idea whom I was voting for. I did my last-minute research and just felt in my heart that I didn’t want to vote for either Obama or McCain. I was seriously at a loss and felt like I’d be doing myself an injustice if I voted for one of them, so when we went to the voting site I tried writing in my vote for either Ralph Nader or Hilary Clinton…but lo and behold, it wouldn’t let me. So after my 3rd try I just voted for the Liberal. And I didn’t feel like I cheated myself when I left.

Mario wanted me to meet him for lunch but of course the boys didn’t want to go anywhere unless they could drag all their game consoles with them (and although they could, I wasn’t about to set up all their equipment), so they stayed with Mom with Alaethia and I met Mario at work. He was busy, so we chilled out with Maggie at her desk at the front office. When Mario was ready we met Adan and Aide outside and all went to Burger King.

Aly and I came back home and I started cleaning. So really, it didn’t feel much like a restful day off—just like an extra day to do weekend stuff I didn’t get around to doing.

After the kids were bathed, fed and in bed that night Mario and I stayed up watching the elections. We were certain Obama would win. After watching his acceptance speech I’d have to say he is quite convincing. He’s certainly very eloquent. We’ll see how this all goes. Let’s hope it’s for the best.

Wed., Nov. 5th – Although I welcomed the extra day Wednesday felt like Monday all over again. This is around the time the internet started becoming slow not only during advisory, but the whole day. Very, very annoying.

Thurs., Nov. 6th – The day started out pretty low-key…until around 9:30am. The boss had a purchase order for books that needed to be submitted and guess who’s in charge of doing those? That could quite possibly be the thing I like least about my job. Anyway, I started entering everything after we had a few questions to call the purchasing department about, so I really started around 10am. It took me that whole time until 12:12 to enter all the info. The boss went to lunch at that time and to my horror I realize she got one of the books wrong in the Twilight series I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to delete the wrong book and add the new one. I had to stay within a $1,000 budget and thankfully that book was within it—if I deleted the other one. When I’m ready to submit it I notice she has the wrong account number jotted down and it won’t let me submit it. I look at the clock. She should be coming back pretty soon, so I leave the program open. I was worried it would time out. Mrs. Ruiz gets there and we check in books and chat while I wait. At 1:12 I’m wondering if I should go get her; we only get half an hour for lunch. Not only was I worried about the P.O., but I was starving since I didn’t have my snack at 9:30 like I usually do so I won’t pass out.

At 1:17 I finally decide to get up and look for her. I was a little…upset to see her standing in the hallway talking to two teachers. Grr. She notices me and walks back with me. I ask her about the book and the account number and then we get into this whole thing because the number’s not the right one and so on, so needless to say I didn’t go to lunch till 1:30. I was fuming the whole time I ate. I decided I was going to change my lunch hour to 11:30, because keeping it at 12:30 means I wouldn’t be eating till 1:15-1:30 every day.

Fri., Nov. 7th – I got everything done as it came so that I could go to lunch and then the pep rally without the guilt. We agreed that I’d be going to lunch from now on at 11:15-11:30. Mrs. Ruiz and I left to lunch while Mrs. V. was helping decorate the gym. Mrs. Ruiz and I ate and then went straight to the pep rally afterwards since Mrs. V. was already over there. I saw her disappear for a while so I assumed she went to lunch but I found out later that she didn’t. There were performances by the dance team, cheerleaders and again one of the boys who beat-boxed the week before performed, but on the drums this time. This kid has an amazing talent. I don’t even think he’s in band or guitar at school—it’s just natural talent. He took us all by surprise.

They had the homecoming nominees show up and then they were called out during the dance. Mrs. Ruiz and I stayed to chaperone the dance. Once the kids started to go out there I took a seat in the bleachers next to Baudi, a science teacher and friend that Mario grew up with. We were just sitting there when another teacher smiles at us and gestures a pregnant belly with both hands and points to both of us. I put two and two together and squealed. That’s so awesome! I know her hubby told us last year he was ready for kids but they were still waiting, so this is great news.

Mario and I went to Jorge and Maggie’s that night with Adan. They had this deal going on where Mario and Adan would buy beer and Jorge and Robert would get dinner. I hadn’t eaten since lunch time so I was hoping Robert would get there soon. Well, he never did, and I was starving so we ended up getting a pizza. And then we left early so all the beer stayed behind so basically we got jipped. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Sat., Nov. 8th – We dropped Mom off with Gramma so they could spend some time together and Mario, the kids and I went to have ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s. It was nice taking them there; they had a blast picking their ice cream. The first time we’d visited it was only Mario and I and although it was nice I kept thinking about how nice it would be to take the kids.

We picked our ice creams (mine was caramel ice cream on a brownie, yum) and walked over to the fountain to eat and let the kids run off some of their energy. Alaethia had a blast just walking hand in hand with the boys around the fountain about 5 times. Once they finished their ice creams we went over to Game Stop to browse around. Of course, we can never just browse around without one of the boys throwing a fit about forgetting their money at home, or wanting us to fork over some. This time it was Eenan throwing the fit. He whined one the way to pick Mom up. I got down to get her and visited with Gramma for a while and then we went to Walmart. We came home, chilled out with kiddo and then Mario went to Adan’s. He called a while later to ask if I wanted to watch a movie but there were no good movies to rent, so he borrowed The Fall from Adan. I watched most of the beginning, but I was so tired I kept passing out and waking up. I don’t know what happened—the movie wasn’t remotely scary; I mean, it did have some weird characters, but I had such ugly, weird, vivid dreams that night. The most vivid and horrible of them all was one where I was lying in bed with my hand on my belly feeling the baby kick in the same spot like she usually does. Suddenly I get this horrible pain and she kicks so hard she rips through my stomach and I grab her so she won’t fall. I’m shaking as I examine her; the umbilical cord is still attached and she’s tiny, maybe 2 or 3 pounds. I give a blood-curdling scream as I notice she’s got her little intestines on the outside. And like in the movies I wake up, sit straight up in bed and try to catch my breath and slow my heart rate. I couldn’t sleep after that and prayed to God to help me sleep so I could make it to work the next day.

I fell asleep and promptly started dreaming about witches and these faceless monsters chasing Mario and I. They pulled Uzi’s out of nowhere and Mario turned the car so fast around the corner of an alley that I flew out and ended up at some kind of brothel asking for help—No, seriously. When no one would help me and hookers started pulling guns out at me a gun materialized in my hands out of nowhere and I started threatening people, then Mario showed up and we both started shooting and everyone.

I’ve heard of vivid dreams during pregnancy, but this is ridiculous. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night so I was basically up from 3:00am that morning.

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!