Author: Yajaira

I did it again Friday morning (the 17th of July); I turned the darn alarm off and thank goodness I woke up when I did or else Mario would have been LATE. He woke up with just enough time to get dressed.

I lazied around and then got ready to go to McAllen. Mary was still off that day so we were going to meet Mario for lunch. It was already passed 12:30 so I texted him and he told me he wasn’t going to be able to have lunch with us since he was working on a Jeep and was going to end up having a late lunch. Oh well :(. We took off, went to the bank and all that jazz and then met at Taco Bell.

The kiddos ate well, including Alaethia even though she didn’t finish her whole taco. I’ll take what I can get with my picky girl, though. I was taken by surprise when one of the cashiers said he knew Mario and that he was family of Mario’s boss. I thought he looked familiar.

We didn’t get a chance to see Gramma that day since Noelia was coming over to get her nails done by Maggie and just as we were leaving Taco Bell she called that she was at the house. Uh-oh. I took Mario some food and then we came straight home. I tidied up while Noelia held Emily and the rest of the kiddos lounged around I the living room. By the time I knew it, it was 4pm and I had to get the boys ready for TaeKwonDo and Maggie still wasn’t here. It was when we were at the Dojo that she let me know she was getting her light set up at her house so she wouldn’t make it. They’re finally moving back to their house! I’m just sad that they won’t be as close and we won’t be able to chill out all the time like we used to :(.

I was really hoping to get back and have Margaritas with the girls, but oh well. Since Noelia wasn’t getting her nails done she went to the Dojo to see the boys in action. They’re doing extremely well now that they’ve been separated. Luis, their instructor, is incredibly patient. He does a great job with the kiddos, even with the little hyper boy that’s always jumping around LOL. Eenan’s class is joined by the Yellow Belts on Fridays but each group still got their individual attention. Eenan has the first half of his White Belt Form down pat! He was so proud of himself that for the first time since they started going to class he seemed excited about Karate. He even said, “I’m going to get my Yellow Belt by the end of this month!” I hope so :).

We got home and Mary tells me to pack because we’re going to the beach, along with Andy and Noelia, the next day. I’m sort of not really feeling it, because Mario’s got a sale going on at work and I knew he wouldn’t be able to go. I hate going places when he doesn’t go. Not only do I feel guilty, but I feel…unsafe. But I start packing anyway; the kids’ swimming suits, including one for Emily, aw. I am in no shape (literally) to wear a bathing suit, so I just got some shorts and a tank together and another set for afterwards. At least I could work on tanning my arms and legs.

Mario was tired from work (my poor love) and I had to be in bed early so I surfed the web and he watched TV and then we all got ready for bed. I went to bed around 12:30-1am, which was still really late. I woke up around 3:30 with this excruciating pain in my ear, jaw and gums. My stupid Wisdom tooth. I couldn’t go back to sleep from the pain and conceding that I was going to have to get the darn tooth (or perhaps teeth) removed much sooner than I’d planned. I had two options:

The first: get my passport and get the tooth/teeth removed in Mexico and spend about $400 doing everything. The downside to that was probably getting an infection and my whole mouth becoming gangrened and loosing all my teeth or something awful like that.

The second: suck it up and give Elda a call and find out if her office does monthly payments. I’d get it done here and I’d most likely have a safe/clean extraction. The downside: spending a few thousand bucks, I’m sure.

So I thought about my teeth and then I tried to stop thinking about my teeth because when I dream of teeth people die (those who’ve been visiting me long enough know I’m SO telling the truth).

I started thinking about how Mario wasn’t going to go and started getting bad feelings about the whole trip and was already planning to tell Mary we weren’t going. I don’t know how to swim, so as much as I love the ocean, I’m terrified of deep water. I’m even more terrified that one of the kids’ll go too deep and get swept by the current and I can’t reach them. All these creepy thoughts went through my mind.

Then finally, around 5:30 I fell asleep, only to be woken up by Emily at 7 for a feeding. I went back to sleep for about half an hour and then got up to call Mom and take a shower. I got the last of the things packed up, made Mario breakfast and then got the girls dressed and ready. Mario left to work and I felt a pang of guilt/fear. But I willed myself to push the bad feelings away and to just have a good time. It was Emily’s very first trip to the beach, after all.

We packed all our stuff and kids in Elda’s truck, which we were borrowing since all of us didn’t fit in m Equinox or Mary’s Sentra. We stopped for breakfast at Burger King where I spotted a beautiful hummingbird!

Of course we were moving and in the truck so I couldn’t get a very good picture.

We met Andy and Noelia at their apartment and then we all drove to Walmart where they were getting some stuff. We were off on our hour 1/2 drive after that and since I didn’t sleep very well I kept nodding off. It felt like we arrived in 20 minutes to me LOL.

It was around 10 or 11am and it was already scalding hot outside. Gotta love South Texas weather, not. We got all our junk off and found a huge umbrella to rent. We slathered sun block all over the kids first, then ourselves. Mary helped me since I was holding Emily and then I passed her to Noelia so I could finish up.

The older kiddos started off with sand castles of course. I just sat and watched them and held Emily. She was hungry so I fed her and then she started nestling herself against me to fall asleep.

It was nerve wracking keeping an eye on all three kids once the boys started getting brave enough to dip themselves in the cold ocean and Alaethia played in the sand. I passed Emily on to Mom and she and Mary took turns with her while I stayed with the other kids. There were so many people!

Noelia and Andy took the boys to the first and second sand bars and Andy taught them to use the boogie board. I took pics from the shore while I watched Alaethia making sand castles. I was, again, nervous as heck watching them out there but I knew Andy and Noelia would keep an eye on the boys.

Alaethia picked shells with Mary while I sat with Emily, who’d fallen asleep and was all sprawled out on a chair LOL. She looked so cute. Somewhere around here we ate sandwiches and then Andy convinced me to go out to the 1st sandbar with them to pick shells and be with the kids. I went for Alaethia after a while and she behaved amazingly. I was afraid she’d try and jump into the water on her own but she was too busy looking for shells. I found my very first live sand dollar! I had no idea the little guys were a reddish-pink color!

I went back several times to dump our shell collections into the bigger sand pail. Andy found several hermit crabs for the kids! I totally intended on bringing them home and looking for info on saltwater hermit crabs. We have the land ones, but I imagine their diet and habitat are much different!

Mary told me to tell the rest that we’d be leaving soon. I said okay, and relayed the message. While I was walking back I saw a family huddled around each other looking at something. I snooped to see what it was and they showed me their handfuls of sand dollars! They told us to sit where they were and look for them. The kiddos all stayed on the sandbar while Andy, Noelia and I dug our hands into the sand and unearthed tons of little sand dollars. It was a breeding ground for them, but most of them were already dead :(. Andy told me how to bleach them to make them into those white sand dollars we see at the shops. I’m totally going to scrapbook them!

We went back to our umbrella and started putting all our stuff away after that. Mom didn’t get in the water or the sand at all so she stayed in the truck waiting while we got the girls washed up. Mary’d accidentally bought a pack of bad water bottles (they tasted like plastic) so we washed the girls with those and left them in the car with Mom while Mary, Noelia, Andy, the boys and me went to shower and change.

It took the guys a good half hour to get in and change, and that’s because they didn’t even have a line to wait in. It took us–I’m not kidding you–an hour and a half to get through the line and finish up. Didn’t help that the 2 girls in front of us ended up letting 3 more relatives cut in! I was so mad I asked them if they were all going to go into a stall together and they say, “Oh no, of course not!” And I proceed to tell them how cutting isn’t cool and how unfair it was to everyone else that they let them in. They gave the excuse that it was their first time “here”. Um, too bad. It’s rude in general to do that. So they ended up letting us go through, buahaha.

It felt good to wash off all that salt and sand. I was SO SUNBURNED! I didn’t reapply sun block half-way through our time out there and neither did Andy, so we looked like lobsters LOL. We went to the gift shop in Los Fresnos.

Since it was such a last-minute trip and I was on a budget, the boys each got a cute message in a bottle with sand and fake gold in them. I got Mario some alligator and ostrich jerky (yum!) and got a sponge, extra shells and a little hut for my hermies back at home.

It felt like forever before we got home and when we finally did it felt so good to be here. The kids had such a blast! We were going to go over to Jorge and Maggie’s that night but I was so sleepy and sunburnt that we just stayed home and chilled out here.

I wanted to punch myself when the alarm went off at 7:45 in the morning on Wednesday for staying up so late the night before. Still, I needed to shower before we left to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Mom was already waiting and came in to watch Emily and Alaethia, just in case they woke up, while I showered. I got showered, ready, made breakfast for Mario, made some coffee for myself and got Emily and her diaper bag ready before 8:30! First time in a long time I was actually ready before everyone else!

Mom was staying with Alaethia since I didn’t think she could be still for 3 hours. I left next door to Mary’s; the boys were barely getting dressed and Mary was in the shower. I felt almost anxious–what if we took too long and didn’t find good seats!

We left the house at 9 and picked up Matthew. We got to the movies and got our seats. We were sitting a row above Amy and found pretty good seats even though the theatre was really full. Sonia, Angela and Yazmin got there a little later. I had to change Emily’s diaper since she’d just gotten over the diaper rash and I didn’t want it to come back. So I took her and her diaper bag and changed her on the sink, because of course they don’t want you to take babies with you therefore they don’t have any changing tables. Rude. Anyway. I REALLY had to go pee, and no one was with me so I hung the bag up on the door hanger and–with Emily in one arm–I did my business. I’ve still got it baby! I remember doing the exact same thing at the movies back when I only had chunky Eenan in a diaper LOL.

When we went back I got everything ready for Emily (bottle, blanket, chupy) and fed her and she fell asleep right when the movie was starting. She reminds me of Jaylen; he’d do the exact same thing! Perfect babies to take to a movie.

***SPOILER ALERT! SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY DETAILS ABOUT HARRY POTTER 6!***

All-in-all, I liked the movie. It didn’t steer too much from the book, but there were some extreme changes, like leaving out Voldemort’s dad and sister completely. I thought that was pretty important. They left out that old lady that Voldemort would visit, Hepzebah, was it? So they left out the goblet Horcrux that he took from her. I can’t remember too well, but I’m sure Ginny isn’t the one who went with Harry into the Room of Requirement to get rid of the Potions book and the kiss wasn’t all “wow” like they were making it seem. The whole scene where Dumbledore’s killed is completely different. Harry wasn’t under the invisibility cloak or Stupified (or whatever charm it is); Dumbledore just told him to go to a lower level and to keep quiet. I really wanted to see the White Tomb (it was in that book right?) but they left that out, too. BUT I thought it was hilarious and the parts they did change were executed well. I’m just glad they didn’t totally change it like the 5th one. Now I’m wondering what they’re going to do to the last one. They better make it good. Sonia said if they chopped this one up so much, what if they do the same to the last one and it’s only one movie and not 2?

***END OF HP6 SPOILER ALERT!***

So yes. There you have it. We picked up some Burger King after the movie because we were starving. All I’d had was popcorn and a small soda at the movies, which I shouldn’t have had in the first place. I know I should have gotten a salad, but no–I got a Whopper Jr. meal. With a soda. Doh. I need to quit drinking so much soda!!

We ate in the car in the parking lot of Old Navy since Eenan wasn’t wearing pants LOL. He’d gotten gum on his pants at the movies so he took them off. They had to go on again when we went into Old Navy to get him and Jaylen their school pants. We actually found 4 pants each in their sizes so that was great. We went to Walmart after that and then came home.

I cleaned the living room from top to bottom because it was in great need of a thorough cleaning. I had to kick the kids out of the living room and into my bedroom because they were driving me and Emily nuts. I had such a headache from yelling at the boys. Then I had to make dinner, which was carne guisada, rice and beans. I fed all the kiddos (including rice cereal for Emmy). Alaethia was happily singing, “Hey sister, go sister, go sister, go sister…”, which I can only imagine was her version of “Lady Marmalade” LOL.

When Mario got home he and I ate dinner. We watched The Punisher: Warzone, which I didn’t fully watch since I was nodding off. Mario made us some Piña Coladas and OMG, they were so good. They hurt my darn messed up Wisdom tooth, though. I really need to get that thing taken out, but I still haven’t gotten my Passport and I’m scared to get it taken out!

We watched Fired Up afterwards and then I went to bed with the girls. I was so darn tired. Mario went to bed about half an hour later and right when I was falling asleep…he woke me up LOL.

Emily woke up for a bottle around 7am, which left me with 25 minutes to sleep. I don’t like when she gets up at that time because then I fall back to sleep because I’m exhausted and then when the alarm goes off I can’t get up.

When the alarm went off today I actually turned it off and went back to sleep! I woke up at 8:00 exactly, thank goodness, and Mario said to wake him up at 8:15. So that totally screwed me up and I didn’t get up to make him breakfast. He picked up tacos instead LOL.

I got up around 10:30, when Emily was pulling on my nose and smacking my eyes to let me know she was hungry. I fed both girls, then Mom came over and watched the girls while I prepared my coffee and had some cereal. Then Mary came over and asked me to go to Walmart with her so Emily and I did. We got back and she made tonight’s dinner, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, while I put her groceries away. I came back home with 3 Walmart bags of snacks and fruits for the kiddos; totally didn’t expect that LOL.

She was craving brownies so I made some for dessert. I bathed Alaethia and then we went over to eat dinner. The boys got ready for Taekwondo and we left. It seems to drag on now that each boy goes for an hour each. They’re learning a lot more now that they’ve been separated though. They had such an intense workout today! I felt tired just watching them. Jaylen learned the first 8 steps of their form and so did Eenan. Since it’s just Eenan and another boy in his class, they started sparring today! I felt so nervous. They were missing sometimes and actually hitting each other but they were fine. I wish I could get into it but the adult classes are from 8-9pm. I don’t think I could spend another hour there LOL.

We got home and the boys practiced some more. We need to work on their flexibility and length of their kicks. Eenan says he’ll get his yellow belt by the end of this month. I hope so :).

I washed dishes after the boys practiced and while Alaethia went for a walk with Elda. She’s doing much better from her gallbladder surgery. She keeps doing stuff she’s not supposed to, though, like driving only 6 days after her surgery and carrying Emily today!

There are many reasons why I hate washing dishes, but one of the main things is that you get to think a lot. Like today, I realized that I’m OLD. I’d constantly laugh at Mario and Jorge when they said that. They were being dramatic, I’d say. But no. Tonight I realized that my kids’ Taekwondo instructor is 6 years younger than me–that’s what set me off LOL. Then I realized that I’ve gotten to “the age” where it’s hard to lose weight. No more jogging to melt the pounds off like in the good ol’ teen days. No more eating an entire pizza and still being 98 lbs. Ever since I started working out I’ve GAINED 3 lbs.!!! WTF is that???

Anyway, *composes self* Mario got home and he went straight to bed! I was so incredibly bored. The boys were of course, with Mary, so as much as I was grateful for the silence, the girls and I were bored LOL. Mario’s up now, but watching TV in our bedroom while I’m here, blogging. Emily’s on her pink playmat and Alaethia’s watching Noggin. I’m finally ready for bed. Hopefully I won’t start watching whatever Mario’s watching and I stay up later. G’nite!

Let’s see if I can keep a blogging streak going, shall we?

The whole family came over for the bar-b-q on Saturday night. It was insane. All the girls were on the side patio and the men were under the Party Porch. It seemed like all the cousins that were arriving (like Jason) brought a friend and a case or two of beer. Let’s just say all the guys were in heaven LOL.

While all us girls were chatting we got into a conversation about how damn hot it was. Somehow that steered into a conversation about weight and when I started whining about how huge I felt Annie concurred and said, “Yes, you did stay chunky this time.” This time after having a kid. Yajaira finally, actually got fat LOL. I know I look chunky, but for someone to come straight out and tell me was a slap in the face (though I do appreciate her honesty). I’m SO going to try and lose weight even more now. I’m starting with a workout routine but I’ve got to start eating healthier. I munch on junk food when I know I should leave it alone!

Annie, Mom, Mary and I stayed outside the longest and then when Mom and Mary went home Annie and I stayed up sharing the craziest gossip I’ve ever heard! It was insane stuff. From our little perch on the patio bench (with Emily in my arms the whole time) we could clearly hear the guys’ jokes and stories. They’re hilarious. At one point Mario and Isaac were “ball checking” each other, which merely means that they were punching the other in the privates when he wasn’t looking. They’re quite entertaining.

The kiddos were all up playing in Alaethia’s room. My boys went to bed about 11pm and then the rest of the kiddos played in Alaethia’s room till 2:45am, when Annie and her kiddos went home. I was exhausted. I got into bed with the girls at 3am but of course, couldn’t sleep because the Party Porch is right outside my room and I could hear EVERYTHING the guys were arguing about LOL. I wanted to claw at my face, that’s how sleepy and annoyed I was. I finally ended up passing out sometime around 4am.

Mario was off on Sunday and since he’d been up so late (he sneaked in at 3:30 and fell asleep on the sofa while he left the rest of the guys outside till 5am). Mary and I (and Emily) went to the movies to watch “My Sister’s Keeper”. Mom stayed with Alaethia and the boys. It was so sad, but I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would. I didn’t like the ending because they completely changed it from the book. Don’t you hate that?

We got home and Mario was still in bed. He woke up around 2pm in the crappiest mood, ever, and annoyed the heck out of me for the rest of the day. I don’t know what happened; we haven’t had a day like that in months. We kind of just chilled out for a bit and then I left to McAllen with Emily to meet Carmen and the rest of the girls at The Zone. She’s going to be stationed in Germany and we wanted to meet up before she left. I still can’t believe that tiny Carmen is in the Army!!

Karina ended up having to go to Mexico because her dad was sick and Sally was getting sick herself so she wasn’t going either. It was only me, Carmen, her hubby and her kiddos and later her brother and sister. But we had a nice time. We took some pics and I’m so glad we got a chance to chat a while. And I behaved myself: I only had once slice of pizza, one tiny breadstick and a small glass of soda, heh. Trust me, it could have been much worse.

I left and got home around 7pm. I don’t understand how I can be away for 2 hours, have 3 people watching the kids (Mom, Mario and later Mary joined them) and somehow Alaethia still managed to rummage through my Re-Ment box (grr), tear up my foam scrapbooking stamps and bar on the sofa. Aye, aye, aye.

Anyway, we had an impromptu movie night with the kiddos, Mary and Mom and watched “Changeling”. I felt so angry watching that movie. I wonder if the poor woman ever found her son, or if she at least remarried and had other children?

When the movie was done the boys went over to Mary’s and Alaethia stayed with Mom watching Noggin while we left with Emily to Jorge and Maggie’s. The girls stayed inside with the kiddos and we had some pizza (yes, I caved in and had just one slice) and a Smirnoff. We gossiped a bit and then we went outside with the guys. It’s always a laugh going over there. Javi and his insane jokes and his “pervy faces” LOL. I’m still laughing about stuff we were joking about that night!

I woke up to get Mario’s lunch together around 8am and then I went back to sleep till 11:30 with the girls. OMG I have to stop doing that. I feel lazy and disgusting when I sleep that late. I at least did laundry, tidied the dining room up a bit and started jotting down ideas for Eenan’s 10th birthday party. I can’t believe I’ve been a mom for almost 10 years! I can’t believe he’s going to be TEN. I want to do something nice for him since we only had a small get-together here last year. Since I was working and pregnant I didn’t have time to plan anything. We won’t be able to do anything extravagant, but I want him to at least invite a few friends.

I had the boys take their showers and get ready for Taekwondo while I got on the treadmill for about 20 minutes because I cut my time too close to the boys’ Taekwondo classes. I did 100 crunches, 25 squats (OMG, pain) and got in the shower.

Not only was the young guy teaching them that day, but another man I’d never seen before, too. He was the main instructor and told us how they would now see 5-7 year-olds from 5-6pm and 8-10 year-olds from 6-7pm. Now we’d be spending 2 hours straight there. I’m going to have to make dinner before we leave for those days that Mario gets home early. Eenan was not happy about that at all LOL.

We had another movie night and watched “Land of the Lost”. I made some Margaritas for Mary and I but she only had one. I had 4 and a Michelada Mario made for me and finally, finally felt a bit of a buzz LOL. The only other time I’d felt anything close was when I had some Jack Daniel’s Watermelon drinks with Elda. I’d only had 2 of those!

Adan came over and we watched “The Unborn”. Now I know why Javi asked why the heck we have a hanging toy with a mirror on Emily’s car seat handle LOL. Stupid, creepy movie. I couldn’t sleep at all! I wasn’t really scared, but my mind was racing and I just couldn’t fall asleep. When I finally did fall asleep I had a horrible dream. Mario, Jorge, Emily and I were in the living room watching TV. We were waiting for Maggie to get back from doing nails in Sullivan. Mario had gotten up to get some beers so it was just Jorge, Emily and me in the room. Emily fell off the sofa, which was really weird because she was being blocked from falling by my legs. Jorge asked if she was okay and she was; smiling and everything. Jorge and I are talking and again, Emily falls off. This time I pick her up and her head falls back and just lolls from side to side. Jorge screams, “She broke her neck!” I’m frantically trying “reconnect” her head to her neck and I’m having no luck. I’m freaking out and ask Jorge, “Where the f*ck is Mario?! Why’s he taking so damn long?!” She’s turning blue from her oxygen being cut off from her neck being bent as it was. Mario finally comes back and we rush to the hospital while Jorge waits here for Maggie. Cut to Mario and I walking in through the door around half an hour later and Emily’s perfect again. Jorge asks, “What happened? Is she okay?” And I’m smiling and say, “Yup, she’s great!” And then I wake up because I’m freaking out.

It takes me forever to fall asleep again and when I do I have another dream where I’m standing in a really old, brown-walled, hardwood floored room. The curtains hanging from wrought iron rods looked like they’d once been white, but were now sheer and yellowed and they billowed somewhat creepily in the wind coming in through the open windows. There’s an old fashioned Phonograph playing a song. The song was “Little Boxes”, the original theme song to Weeds. Thanks, Javi LOL.

Mario was off today and he slept in for much longer than I did. I only slept in till 10:30. I got the girls fed (although Emily only ate a few spoonfuls of her rice cereal and Alaethia refused to consume anything but milk—I don’t know what to do with that girl) and the boys had already eaten cereal. Those boys won’t starve LOL. John came over and he told me about a dream he had and I told him about mine. Then we laughed at some dumb stuff he showed me online and then I went to change Emily’s diaper. She’s been getting awful diaper rashes the past 2 days so I’ve been checking on her frequently. I woke Mario up when I turned the light on and he said we should eat at Kumori. You don’t have to tell me twice! I got lunch ready for the kiddos and Mom and then I got myself and Emily ready to go.

Since Mario had to wait for me he was in a pissy mood. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I remembered that it was “A No Fun Zone” at the house because Mario gets mad when there’s too much noise LOL. He got into a better mood as we neared the restaurant, though, thank goodness. We joked around and had a great time. I love my funny guys :).

We got home and I was about to start working out when I looked at the clock: 4:00. There was no way I’d be able to work out and also shower, so I postponed both. I’d forgotten the boys now go in at 5 for Taekwondo. I felt gross and fat for not being able to at least jog, but oh well. At least I was doing a good job with my diet today, meaning I wasn’t eating excessive junk food.

It was awesome seeing the instructor work with the kids. Now that he’d split the kids into groups, Jaylen’s class only had 5 kids in it and Eenan’s had 2! That’s fantastic. Jaylen enjoyed it a lot more today, especially because they got to hold the kick-bags (I forget what it’s called) and he knocked down a few kids and knocked them out again when he was practicing his own push-kick. Eenan’s still a little unhappy about being in Taekwondo, but he does really well! I wish he’d get into it. The only thing I didn’t like about today was that the instructor made a big deal about Jaylen not speaking Spanish. I know we’re in the Valley and the majority of people are Hispanic, but hello? We are in America and English is the primary language! I wanted to say something but 98% of the parents there mainly spoke Spanish and I didn’t want to offend anyone =\.

We got home and I started making dinner: artichoke lasagna. Yummo. Even Eenan likes it. I washed dishes for what seemed like eternity while all the kiddos watched Coraline. The boys went to bed and then Mario watched the girls while I showered. And now I’m here, finally done with this entry at 1:43am and again the internet went out. WTF, internet?? Oh well. Gonna have to post this tomorrow. I can’t wait to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!!!