I’ve been trying to type up this exact sentence for the past 8 days and it just never happened. I thought blogging was hard to find time for before, when I didn’t work, and it’s proving to be even more so now that I am working. Duh, right?
So the first three days were absolute murder on my body. I lost two pounds last week, let’s just say that LOL. The first day was spent taking books out of boxes and re-shelving by the Dewey Decimal System, which I hear isn’t mandatory at all schools. I stayed an extra hour that day to make up for the hours I thought I wasn’t getting that morning since I went in at 11:48.
The next day I got a tour of the school, since I spent most of the day transporting books to teachers just to get them out of the library since it looked like a warehouse. Not sure if I mentioned it, but we’re stationed at an old (OLD!) school while the new one is being built. It’ll supposedly be done by the end of September, but lots of people have been saying “yeah right”. Most of the books are boxed up, waiting to be shipped to the new school. The whole place looked like a disaster. Anyway, we were trying to get everything out of there, and me being the assistant was the lucky one who got to, at first, carry the books to the teachers until we found an abandoned cart in a hallway. Then I had the privilege of wheeling 20-30 monstrous dictionaries and encyclopedias all over the school, which is a whole bunch of separate buildings that have been added to the original school. I was eternally grateful for the elevator staff’s allowed to use. I was beginning to feel like Andrea from The Devil Wears Prada, except Mrs. V. isn’t that impossible. It was such a relief when I got back to shelving books, though. I think that was also the afternoon that our parent volunteer began to help us, bless her. She’s become a good friend of mine :).
I was SO stressed out and sore and just overwhelmed that afternoon. That was the last afternoon I stayed an hour after work to make up my hours since they said I didn’t have to do that. Darnit.
It was so nice to get home and hold Alaethia while we sat outside with Mom as we waited for the boys to get home from school. They were too excited to go on the bus. Eenan’s only been wanting to go on the bus since he was in Pre-K and would always ask, “Mom, why don’t we get to go on the bus?” He was thrilled when he’d go on the bus to his UIL meets, even though it wasn’t even a 10 minute ride. They got home and ran straight to their bedroom. Jaylen’d been falling asleep while they were waiting, my poor baby. They weren’t getting home till 4:30, and that’s because they get out at 3:15! I was already thinking of picking them all up myself, but if/when we do move to the new school I won’t make it to their school on time and they’ll just have to get used to taking the bus again. So, I decided it was best to have them come home on the bus.
Even though the boys love the bus, I felt awful that they were wasting so much time waiting at school and then on the bus. I was exhausted from going to bed at 11pm and waking up at 5:30am. I was in pain from the soreness of pushing carts around. I was overwhelmed because I never imagined getting used to being a working mom while still having time for the kids, a husband, cooking, and cleaning my house. Not to mention grocery shopping and paying the bills. I don’t know if it was nerves or a bug I caught but I felt awful that night. I kept having to run to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to hack but nothing happened. I had chills and was trembling; it was terrible. I even had to call Mario when he was on his way home from work to bring me a Sprite to settle my stomach. Mom’s like, “You know she’s sick when she’s asking for Sprite” LOL.
Mario and I had a little pep-talk that night and I felt a teensy bit better. I was so used to everyone depending on me I felt that if I wasn’t around, the world couldn’t go on. Thanks to Mom, it has. She’s been such a tremendous help; I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay her for giving me the opportunity to work and for keeping me sane. She’s here at 6am and stays till around 8pm after I’ve finally had a shower. The amount we’re going to pay her for babysitting is nothing compared to all the work she does.
What also made me feel a little better was the “presents” I received that morning. A huge coffee cup filled with pens, dry-erase markers, pencils and an awesome gel pen and another lunch bag filled with a stapler, staples, a tape dispenser and tape, a sharpener and a few other things I can’t remember at the moment. I love school supplies.
It’s so weird not helping the boys get ready in the morning, but at least I’m here when they get home and I get to spend some time with them. Holding Alaethia feels like such a relief at the end of the day. I try and carry her around as much as I can when I’m here.
Wednesday was spent shelving and dropping off a few more dictionaries. I let Mrs. V. know just how horrible I felt the night before and I don’t know if that had anything to do with it but I didn’t have to push around such heavy things anymore. She had me take some TVs and VCR/DVD players to classrooms, but that time I asked for the help of Mrs. G., our parent volunteer. I felt much better that day, but I had this nagging feeling about something I’d heard the day before from John and Mario. One of the buses in our school district had left a small boy 4 miles away from his house! I kept imagining something awful like that happening to the boys, but pushed it out of my head.
That afternoon Mom and I wait at Mary’s house where we can see the road and the bus approaching. We’d been chilling out on the porch the days before but Alaethia’s eczema acts up like crazy because of the heat. 3:45 comes around and we see the boys’ bus coming. We see all the little neighbors filing out of the bus and my heart sinks when I see the bus driver closing the doors and Eenan, Jaylen nor Brandon had gotten down. Haley, one of the neighbors, tells me Brandon went on another bus and the boys followed. Great. I ask the bus driver what happened and he said they were on another bus; the assistant principal had made them get on it. I asked him to be sure and he called another driver on the radio, who confirmed that the boys were on his bus and he’d be dropping them off soon. I call the school to tell someone off, because 15 minutes had already passed and why on earth would you put my kids on another bus?! Of course all the women were blaming each other. One even said she SAW them get on the right bus, so they should be at my house. I told her, “Well, they’re obviously not, so WHERE ARE MY KIDS!” Eventually they figured out that they were on the bus the bus driver told me about and she kind of laughed it off telling me they called the wrong Brandon. The Brandon they were looking for lived on the other side of the street on the East, so it was a misunderstanding. Naturally we’ve told all the kids to stick together, so my boys followed Brandon. I’m just glad they were all together. They weren’t phased by it at all, thank God. They actually had a nice ride since that other bus was air conditioned.
Thursday was a much better day for me. Mrs. V. taught me how to get into the systems at school and I learned how to make labels for the books. We (Mrs. G. and I) spent a lot of time doing that. Nice break from having to move stuff or shelve books!
I decided to start eating lunch soley at work, since the 30 minutes they give us is too little to be driving to and from my house. I did that on Monday and Wednesday, just so I could rush home and see Aly and give Mom a little break, but it only allowed me about 10 minutes to actually eat. The rest of the time was spent driving to and from work. I’m learning to Hoover my food; I’ve always been a slow eater.
John went with me to pick up some black Mudd maryjanes I’d ordered at JC Penny, then we went to set an appointment for a new cell phone for him since he drowned his other one, and then we picked up a pizza for dinner. I’m a working woman now, so not having a home cooked meal on the table is completely excusable now, and I LOVE IT!
Friday was even more awesome than Thursday. Not only did we spend most of the day on the computer searching for books to make labels for (and then came the fun part of placing the labels on the books — I LOVE stickers), but it was FRIDAY and the start of a 3-day weekend! That day went by so fast. I had stayed 10 minutes later on Thursday, so I was let out 10 minutes early on Friday! At the end of the day Mrs. V. gave both Mrs. G. and I a strawberry sundae and she gave me a huge hug. I felt so appreciated :).
I went with John to Sprint, then Academy for Mario and then Walmart. We were in line behind my principal, which was pretty funny LOL. Well, not really. He had school supplies to buy (2 cart-fulls to be exact) so we were in line for half an hour =\.
I spent Saturday cleaning the house. I did something else, but can’t remember. It was pretty low-key, which I’m so glad for. Sunday, I woke up late-ish and helped Mary and Big Mario clean outside. We were supposed to have a practice for Yazmin’s quinceañera but the damn choreographer was an hour late before Mary got pissed and called her to forget it. I had tons of crap to do so I was pretty pissed I waited all day for nothing. It was 3pm before we left. We visited Gramma, put a big chunk of cash towards my laptop payment at Circuit City, (finally) bought Norton Antivirus/Confidential(?) for $20 at Best Buy, then went grocery shopping. I hate how long that takes. We went to Yadira’s afterwards for a bar-b-q. I was so glad I had the next day off.
We didn’t do much Monday, except for going to Dollar General to get some house stuff, like a welcome mat and a mat for the kitchen.
Yesterday was great at work. I spent a lot of the day making copies, putting folders together for the meeting we were having today, and sticking labels on to books.
Today was the Refresher meeting for all the teachers. I made copies all morning, helped with stickers, showed our kid volunteers how to shelve books, then I enrolled kids into classes for about an hour at the end of the day. Mrs. G. and I had lunch in the teacher’s lounge and talked about the possible fight that happened in the bathroom in our building. I was actually on the toilet when I heard 6 or 7 extremely loud thuds on the wall behind me. Supposedly all the boys coming out of there said they were using it because the 8th grade bathrooms weren’t working, and then, coincidentally, a boy comes out with a nosebleed. MMhmm.
The meeting went pretty good. I met lots of teachers I hadn’t met yet and Mrs. V. introduced me and said nice things. We squealed with excitment right before we left to the staff meeting because I’d already inputed all the 8th grade students into the system. She said, “You’re fast!”
I got home, spent time with Aly, got the boys into the house, helped Jaylen with his homework (and scolded Eenan for forgetting his. Oh, but he doesn’t forget about video games!), then went with John to the salon to cut my hair. I chopped it all off. It was almost to my waist and now it’s above my shoulders. I felt the difference right away. My neck was feeling really tense and it felt 10 times better after all the hair was gone. I did everything I had to do tonight pretty early since Mario called to tell me he was staying a bit late so not to worry about dinner. The boys and I had sandwiches. Mario ended up getting out earlier than he thought, so he’s picking himself up some Taco Bell. I would like Taco Bell…but it’s too late :(.
It’s been pretty awesome, I have to admit. One of the perks of the job is getting dibs on the books! I already assigned myself a number and checked out I Love Saturdays, y Domingos! for the boys. I love it!
I’m getting used to the routine — and as long as I establish a routine, it’s all good.
Now, if I could only put Alaethia to sleep at about 9:30, that would be AWESOME.
