Category: MLV

First things first: I wanted to ask you guys, my readers, if adding an e-mail notification script for comments and e-mail subscription for when I actually update my blog would come in handy for you? I don’t want to go through the trouble if nobody’s going to use it, or worse yet, if you do and it annoys you LOL. Let me know, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Man, Channel 4 wasn’t lying when they said there’d be thunderstorms all night. Mario and I fell asleep around 11:30 pm, only after joking around, being annoying to eachother and joking about how our apartment was going to end up like the Winchester House since we have windows all over the house, but they’re all covered up because of construction and remodeling. He was also half-joking that I didn’t care about his well-being since he has a sore throat and I refused to sleep without the fan. I wasn’t going to suffer like the night before–I ended up having to sleep in the living room with the fan on full blast since I was sweating up a storm (and yes, the central air was on). It’s just my pregnancy making me get hot flashes.

Anyway, I fell asleep feeling cool and relaxed (I’m not a bitch I swear, I pointed the fan to my feet so Mario wouldn’t feel it on his face) and woke up in a startled jolt around 2:15 to crashing thunder. Since I’m a very light sleeper, every single thunder would wake me up and it didn’t help that my eyelids must be paper thin since I could see the lightning with my eyes closed O_o. I kept an ear out for the kids since I knew at least one of them would wake up scared half to death from the thunder. Sure enough around 3am Eenan tip-toed into the room and whispered, “Mama, I can’t sleep because of the thunder,” and proceeds to climb over me to sleep between Mario and me. We hardly had any space to move around, but I felt so bad for him I let him stay. He’s always been terrified of thunder. Jaylen on the other hand is such a heavy sleeper he slept through the whole thing! Thank goodness, too. I didn’t know where he’d fit on the bed!

As for the weekend, Mario and I spent all of Friday running errands like crazy. Elda watches Matthew on Fridays so I only had Brianna, but Mom watched her while we did everything we needed to do.

We had to rush to Home Depot, again, before we picked up Jaylen and Brianna to get some trim for the doors, 1/6 planks for the frames of the hallway entrance and the kids’ closets, paint, nail-gun nails, another door-knob, and I forget what other miscellaneous things we needed. Total cost: $260. Ho-lee-shit. Needless to say, we won’t be using that credit card anymore, no matter how much we “have left” on it.

Mario was a total turd to me that day. He was annoyed from the minute he woke up and kept taking it out on me, especially at Home Depot. He kept rushing me about adding measurements faster for the wood and kept stomping and huffing and being a big baby.

We got home on time to pick up the kids and left Brianna with my mom while Jaylen, Mario and I went to Target to get the games we’d promised the kids for good behavior. Jaylen picked out his, we got the one Eenan wanted and I whined about how I wasn’t going to be able to buy the amazing $104 4-in-1 crib I wanted from Target. I was going to use the credit card, but I restrained myself and we just left (we’re trying to get our credit cards paid off). Mario promised we’d get all the stuff we needed, no matter how much it cost. It just pained me that I could have saved $30 on it!

We picked up Eenan and Brandon, where Mario finally got on my nerves and I cried and told him off. I felt so embarrassed crying at school (hopefully nobody noticed) but I was so fed up and frustrated. He finally got the point and shut up.

Mom stayed with Eenan and the other kids while we deposited money at the bank, picked up a Miter Saw my dad-in-law was borrowing from his friend Ricky, bought some pork ribs for Mario and his dad to bar-b-q, then stopped by at Stars where I picked up a burger since I hadn’t eaten since 10am and was starving. When we get home Mario made himself some Jalapeño Tuna and said he didn’t get a burger since he didn’t want to waste money. I rolled my eyes, since he constantly buys cigarettes and buys beer every-so-often. He did every little thing he could that day to upset me and it didn’t stop later on while we were outside with our parents during the bar-b-q. I could have rung his neck.

He was finally in a good mood later that night while we were watching Take the Lead. He noticed I had my hand on my belly feeling the baby kick so he put his hand in place of where mine was. He finally felt the baby kick! I’ve been feeling her for awhile now, about a week and a half, but he hadn’t. His eyes widened when he felt her. He probably realized, as I did when I first felt her, that this is for real!

My dad-in-law worked on the trim and doors for our rooms and hallway all of Saturday morning. Everything looks SO NICE. I especially love the hallway entrance. All we need to do is buy more joint compound to fill in the nail holes and finish painting. Woo!

Mary got home from work (she actually had to go in on Saturday morning!) she called me over to her car so I could check out some baby things Norma C. had sent over in case I wanted them. I found that kind of strange, but went out anyway. I was so shocked to see my dream crib in her car! She’d told Mario not to let me buy it, to try anything he could because she wanted to get it for me :). How freaking sweet! I can’t wait till Mario puts it together!

Mom and I went grocery shopping at around noon, where I only spent $70 on a whole bunch of groceries and Mom bought me a whole bunch of things I’d been craving. She’s really into the superstition that a pregnant woman should always get a taste of something she craves, and hell, I’m not complaining LOL.

We rushed home and put everything away since I needed to meet Mary and the boys on time to go to the movies to watch Everyone’s Hero. It was a really cute movie. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it, but I honestly did. Next, the kids want to watch How to Eat Fried Worms. 😛

I don’t remember much from yesterday, except that we were lazy till 11am and actually got to sleep in (Mary had the boys). We went to Leo’s to get some tacos and muffins and just enjoyed our ridiculously fatty breakfast. At around 1pm everyone got here for Jose’s (belated) birthday celebration. Elda made Posole and it was good. Annie didn’t come over because she was hurt about something that happened last weekend. Always some kind of drama.

We stayed over there talking till around 4pm, and then Mario and I went to rent more movies and make a payment. We didn’t end up watching anything, but at least that gives us something to do when he gets home from work and we’re kid-free. I didn’t have to watch Matthew this morning so instead of sleeping, I swept and mopped. I need to eat lunch right now and then I’m organizing my bedroom. I’ve been so caught up with the kids’ room I’ve totally neglected ours.

It feels so fresh in the house (as opposed to how hot it feels even with the air on) and it feels great outside. I love rainy days :).

First, sorry this entry’s so long. It’s taken me all day, on and off, to complete it. I guess I’ve taken to updating every week or so. I always mean to update but when I’ve actually got some spare time I’m too busy doing other things.

Anyway, the stupid teacher’s aid tried putting Jaylen on the bus on Friday. I go into the school and my heart sank when I only saw Brianna there. I ask her where Jaylen is and she frantically starts calling out for him. The teacher’s aid came back from wherever she was (yeah, she wasn’t even watching the kids she was in charge of) and I asked her where my son was. She gets this look on her face, worried almost, and says, “Hold on.”

I had to wait 5 agonizing minutes before they finally brought him to me. He was sniffling and breathing hard. He was scared shitless, poor thing. She tells me, with the audacity to half-laugh that he was in line with the bus students. WHAT?? I could have set the aid on fire with my Death Stare. As calmly as I could, I told her, “Why didn’t anyone know he was missing? Aren’t you supposed to be watching him?!”

Her excuse? “It’s because there’s a lot of kids, Miss.”

Dumb woman. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened that day or if it’s just pure coincidence but I haven’t seen her in the morning’s anymore.

My poor boy. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What if they’d put him on that bus? Where would they have taken him?’ But Jaylen’s smart. He told me he screamed that he didn’t go on the bus, no matter how much they tried putting him in it. He said even his teacher tried, which is ridiculous since she knows I pick he and Brianna up. Thankfully he’ll now be in another teacher’s class with Brianna.

After we’d picked the kids up we went to pick up Mario’s paycheck from work. As he suspected he did get a small paycheck. It wasn’t small, but to him it was and it promptly put him in a bad mood. Still, we went around paying most of the bills. We left our storage unit payment till next paycheck though and we’d already sent a payment for our credit card so that worked out. We were in a hurry since we had to pick up Eenan and Brandon, but we still had to stop by Home Depot to get supplies we needed for the closets.

Big Mario worked on our closet shelves, but that was it for that day. We hadn’t gotten the closet rods yet (which are super expensive if you want good sturdy ones) so we had to wait. I at least put some stuff up on the shelves to make some more space around our bedroom.

We watched Silent Hill and Health Inspector that night. I actually enjoyed Health Inspector, as gross as it was. We watched Silent Hill next and OMG that movie’s disturbing. It’s out there and unrealistic of course, but ew, some characters were disgusting. I had trouble concentrating on the movie during some parts since I was too busy feeling Alaethia kick. She kicked so hard once that she moved my hand off my belly! I’m so glad I can finally really feel her movements. Puts me at ease.

I had plans to do nothing on Saturday but had to go pay my rings payment at JC Penny and then went to see Gramma. She’s doing great, thank goodness. We got there just in time for Mom to feed her (she doesn’t need to be fed, but Mom likes to). John and I are total clowns all the time so Gramma had trouble eating since she was laughing so hard. Mom kept telling us to be quiet so she could eat. She also said I was going to live forever since I was always laughing LOL.

The boys behaved alright while we were there, but when we got in the truck, OMG they drove me nuts. Let’s just say they screamed non-stop through two cities. Yeah, I had a headache and was gritting my teeth by the time we got home. Of course they got grounded from everything and just quietly played in their room the rest of the afternoon.

Jason, Mireya and Brianna came by later on so Brianna could jump on the trampoline with the boys. They left and Mario got here shortly. We had dinner and complained about how much it sucked that he had to work that Sunday–which was when The Scorcher was happening. John ended up going with Jonathan, Danny and Danny’s brother. I’m sort of glad I didn’t go, because when he came back the next day he looked like a lobster and was in pain. Buahaha.

Again, I didn’t want to do anything on Sunday, but we were so low on groceries I had to go shopping. I took Mom and the boys with me. First stop was Walmart, where the kids behaved okay. Next was H-E-B. As soon as we walked through the door, all hell broke loose because Jaylen wanted to get one of those rental kiddie cars, but I never get them anymore because it never fails that when I do, they climb out of them halfway through my shopping and refuse to get back in. He threw a fit on the floor and whined and screamed–everyone was looking at me. I gave him 3 chances, and when he didn’t stop I gave him a pinch on the arm. Of course that didn’t help his screaming, but he knew I meant business. He finally quieted down and then we ran into Mary and Noelia. They started asking him what was wrong and Noelia made a big deal out of his pinch so he started up again. God, I was so frustrated and annoyed.

We’d left at 2:40pm and got home at 6–Mario was here before we were. When we got here, he was sanding down some rods for the closets that Big Mario brought home. Freebies! I’m so happy and grateful that he got them for us. Big Mario working on the kids’ closet since the morning and had all the shelving up. Mary was helping him paint and then he put the rod in. It looks so great and has so much space I even put the kids’ toys in there. After hanging up all the clothes I eliminated the plastic drawers I had Jaylen’s clothes in and got rid of his tiny white dresser. And there’s so much more space now, which I love. All we need for that room are the doors for the closet, the floor moulding (that’s what it’s called!) and the door to the room.

I spent Monday morning, Labor Day, organizing the boys’ closet and room. Then we went to Peter Piper Pizza with Mary. I don’t know what was up with that place that day–hardly any of the darn games were working. A plus to that was that the kids kept getting extra tokens and tickets when the guys would go fix the machines. We left once the kids got their prizes and went to Target since Mary needed to make a payment. There were some really cute scrapbooking things in the Dollar Spot, but since I was short on cash I only got 4 things.

Tuesday was the kids’ 1st day back at school. Jaylen’s new class is down Eenan’s hall now, so I think that’s why he was so calm. He did really good in the morning, but when I picked him up after school he looked a little sad. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “I wanted you,” and told me he cried during lunch. I promised him I’d always pick him up at 11:30, right after lunch, so he shouldn’t be sad or scared. Mireya picked Brianna up that day. Jaylen, Mom, John and I went to Michael’s and Pet Smart before picking Eenan up.

At Michael’s, Mom and I got supplies for some small surprises for Mary for her birthday. Mom got her a jewelry box and put a picture of her and my dad-in-law in it and I got her two little miniature cabinets for her tiny, mini dishes she loves to collect. I painted them when we got home. She loves strawberries and has them in her kitchen, so I painted some tiny ones on the cabinets. I was debating whether I should post pics or not, but her birthday’s tomorrow so I doubt anyone will catch a peak before.

We needed crickets for poor, hungry Liz, so that’s why Mario sent me all the way to Pet Smart (why he couldn’t just go is beyond me). Before we got the crickets, John and I did our traditional Cat Visit that we make each time we visit Pet Smart together. We went to the adoption center and played with all the cats. They were all so adorable, especially pregnant Mama Kitty (that was really her name :)). Right when I decided it was about time we get the crickets I saw someone who looked familiar. I walked a few feet and realized who it was. “Betsy?” She looked over and said, “Who is it? Wait right there, don’t move!” She walked over to me and I told her, “I’m Yajaira…from OSM?” Her eyes widened and we hugged and caught up. We literally stood there for about 20 minutes, catching up. She and Greg aren’t married anymore but she remarried and had another baby with her new husband, aside from the two kiddos she had with Greg. She looked so nice for having 3 kids! I hope I can bounce back like that. We exchanged numbers and will hopefully get together in a week or so once she’s moved into her own apartment.

The boys did really well in the morning, well, once we were at school already. I had trouble getting them to do their morning routine. Jaylen was thrilled because he got a sticker at school for good behavior. I saved it on his sticker sheet with the date on it when I got home. The new lady in charge of them said he was a ‘beautiful boy’ and ‘very well behaved’ aww. They had homework for the very first time and both Jaylen and Brianna were excited. They did everything, which was tracing A’s and 0’s, right away. They were both great until they started giving me a hard time. Needless to say, I was really stressed by the end of the day. I was in such a bad mood and it didn’t help that the stupid water pressure was sucking at night. Grr.

The good thing is they fall asleep as soon as they lay down anytime from 9:15-9:30. I got some time alone and was extremely bored since Mario was at a meeting then was drinking with the guys and got home super late. I was in bed way before he got home. I was feeling really depressed that night (I don’t know why) and I hate feeling that way. I feel better now though.

I had trouble getting the kids ready in the morning again the next day, but Jaylen was good when I dropped him off. He’s been having me stay for about 5-10 minutes in his class. I’ve obliged since it helps him calm down. Once he’s situated, with his juice and breakfast, and is talking to his friends then he’ll let me go. He always runs up to me when I’m at the door to give me a hug, but he hasn’t cried at all, thank goodness! I’m so proud of him. Everyone says he’s such a good boy :).

Eenan’s doing great at school too, regardless of how strict his teacher is (I knew it from the minute I saw her that she was strict!). I think it’s good for him, though. He had to write his first composition yesterday (‘What I Did This Summer’). He wrote it on a full page and his teacher gave him double-spaced paper to re-write it on and was freaking out because his teacher only wanted it on that page, but after some revisions we got it to fit :).

I was making dinner at night and Big Mario came in to check if Mario had worked on the closets. I told him how Mario hadn’t gotten home early in days, so he hadn’t done anything. He promptly comes in with the closet rods and installed them in my closet. I had to wait for them to dry (he’d spray painted them white) so it was killing me! I just wanted to stuff all my clothes in there but I had to wait.

Mario got home early and we ate dinner, watched some TV, then later when he needed to take a shower, fought with the shower and its low pressure until we totally removed the shower head to get more water.

I had trouble waking up this morning and so did the kids but they were pleasant. I dropped Eenan off first then Jaylen. I stayed with him for a few minutes and helped Mrs. S. open a few orange juice boxes for the kids and then he said it was okay for me to go.

I came home, tried to take a nap since Mario was still in bed but nope, the phone rang so I had to get up. I can’t try sleeping after I hear the phone ring because it always happens that it constantly rings after the first time. We have these hi-tech phones and yet they’re lacking a freaking ‘ringer off’ button. Grr.

I started putting everything away in my closet. I didn’t know I had that much clothing. I really have to look through it and get rid of stuff I don’t wear or that’s super old. I’m glad everything fit and now my couch/futon actually has space to sit on!

Got home from picking up the kids and Mario had made this cholesterol-filled beauty:

I love when he’s home!

Today’s turning out to be pretty good :).

I’ll start with the lows, so that I can end this entry on a more chipper note…

First, I realized that I can’t take the teaching job and that realization sucks. I hate to go all “emo” as John would say, but it seems that everytime a great opportunity knocks on the door, I have to slam the door in it’s face.

I had to work up the courage to call Mrs. C-R and break the news to her. There’s just nobody who can pick the kids up for me. John volunteered to walk to their school and pick them up and bring them home, but I can’t do that to him. Not again. He made me the huge favor of babysitting the kids for me the 9 months I went to school and I can’t do that to him again. I can’t stop him from getting a job (which he’s in the process of doing) just so that I can go and persue something for myself. It’s his turn.

My interview was tomorrow at 2 p.m. She told me to call her tomorrow morning just in case anything changed, but the only thing I’ll be calling her is to confirm my unavailability. I felt so embarrassed and just plain terrible for having to back out. It’s not like I wanted to, but it’s out of my hands at this point. I wish I would have known sooner that there was no way I’d be able to do this. It really sucks.

Another thing that crapped on my day was that I had my doctor’s appointment today and I didn’t get any sono pictures of Alaethia :(. I took a CD-R in so that Dr. C. could record my ultrasound but it obviously didn’t work. The pictures saved in a .CIN format and I searched all morning for a way to convert them (or at least view them) with no luck. Poo. And she grew since my last appointment, too! I can already tell she’s going to be gorgeous :).

Now for the better things:

I had a little trouble getting Eenan to cooperate with me this morning, but eventually he gave in and got ready for school. Jaylen surprised me. I thought he’d fight me on going, but he asked, “Can’t we leave to school already?” when noticed I was taking “too long” to eat my cereal.

Eenan asked me to walk him to his class today, which made me feel like, ‘Yes! He still needs me!’ LOL. I gave him a kiss and he said ‘See ya’ to Jaylen and he went on his merry way.

It was Jaylen’s turn. I gave him a little pep talk on the way to the class.

“You’re going to be a brave boy for me today, right?”

He nods and smiles.

“You’ll be fine. You’ll have fun and be with your friends, like Brianna and I’ll be back for you before you know it, okay?”

He nods again and we get to the door. He gives me a kiss and I watch as he walks into the class. He turns and I blow a kiss to him and wave. As the door’s closing I hear him wail, “MOOOOM!” and I think, “Oh no, not again!”

He’s already in tears when he reaches me and says, “I forgot to give you a hug!” He hugs me and kisses my protruding belly repeatedly. He looks up at me, eyes filled with tears and says, “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t get to spend enough time with you!” I tell him, “It’s okay, Baby. You’re only here for a little while and you get to have fun! I’ll pick you up at 11:30, okay?”

He wipes his tears away and says, “But you’ll never come!” I laugh, wipe his eyes and tell him, “Have I ever forgotten you? No, right? You know I have to pick you and Brianna up. I promise I’ll come for you.” He wipes his face with both hands and we try again. I tell him to have a good day and say hello to Brianna for me, but she’s already sitting at the table eating her breakfast and yells, “Heyyy!” His teacher walks over to me with a huge grin on her face and says, “He’s doing better!” I nod, relieved, and proceed to tell her about his nosebleeds and not to panic if they happen. He knows what to do.

I left feeling so much better than yesterday. I got home and tried waking Mario out of his coma. Mr. Man was busy watching TV till 2:30 a.m. and then kept waking me up to, uh, “cuddle” from 4-5. I finally had to put my foot down and said, “No, means no!”

So needless to say, we were both tired and sleepy. He got dressed and got his stuff together and I sat on the couch to watch TV to help me stay awake. It was 8:25 a.m.; I had my appointment at 10. I ended up falling asleep. I had a feeling I should wake up at what seemed like just 15 minutes but the clock said it was 9:52! I got smoothed out my clothes, fixed my hair really quick and left. I didn’t even get to put make up on. I made it at 10:01!

I had a conversation with a girl I met there who’s 3 months along. She was there to maybe find out the baby’s gender (she wants a girl since she has a boy) and she congratulated me on my girl. We talked about our ailments and previous pregnancies. I didn’t get to ask her what she had, but I hope she got the healthy girl she wanted :).

I was panicking because they took much longer than they usually do today. They finally called me in at 11:12 and I stared at my cellphone till 11:20, when the doctor finally came in. He said we’d be doing the measurements again and the triple-screening (AFP).

We go into the room and I hand him the CD. He tells me he’s really not familiar with the machine, but we’d give it a try (great!).

He measured Alaethia’s head, torso, legs and checked out her spine and said everything looked great. She was moving around a lot this time; she was kicking her little legs, moving from side to side and either she sucked her thumb or touched her face–we couldn’t tell. I asked him to please confirm her gender and he took a still of her bottom. He points to the screen and says, “Ah! That right there’s her little vagina” LOL! I asked him, “So it’s okay to buy her clothes now? and she said, “Sure!”

I weighed 127.8 this time and the nurses said I’m doing great with the weight gain. They were surprised to see how gigantic I am now :P. They also asked about her movements and I told them that I didn’t feel them a lot, but I have been feeling little flutters and “spasms”. I’ve actually been feeling her move much more today. It makes me feel at ease knowing that she’s moving around in there. I was so worried before!

They took my blood (11:30) and I get out of there at 11:33. Thank goodness the school’s nearby; I made it right on time at 11:35. Jaylen ran to the door when he saw me and hugged me, then Brianna grabbed me, too. They were much better behaved today. I felt so overwhelmed yesterday (the kids + not being able to take the job + having to fix Elda’s computer + having to clean up after construction = emotional wreck). It was the cutest thing when Brianna started snuggling up with Mom and then she snuggled up with me. Mom called her my “new daughter” when we had to go pick Eenan up LOL.

John went with me since he had to drop off an application afterwards. It actually didn’t rain at 3 today (it rained both Monday and Tuesday and only at 3 O_o).

We dropped Brandon off at home, then went to Burger King. Got the kids some tenders then we went to get the boys’ haircuts. Jaylen was cooperative, Eenan was throwing fits. He loathes haircuts. He’s always afraid they’re going to cut more than they should, but we go to the same lady everytime and she knows how they like their hair. Didn’t stop him from getting himself into trouble and getting grounded for an extra day, though.

The lady and I spoke about how much the school district sucks, ideas why last year’s principal is now working at Target (no, really), and how the school’s construction is ruining her business. She even complimented my belly and said, “4 or 5 months right? It looks like you’re that far along.” She’s the only one who’s been right. Everyone else freaks out by the size of my stomach LOL.

I also chopped all my hair off on inpulse. Something just came over me. It used to be waist-length, now it’s a little under my shoulders. Crazy. I do love it though. It feels so much healthier. I was due for a haircut.

Mayra asked me about how remodeling’s going and it’s actually picked up speed a little. I helped my dad-in-law finish texturing the walls so now I need to paint. Hopefully those closets will be up in the next 1-2 weeks. I seriously can’t wait!

I also got my beige futon cover and clear frame magnets for my fridge from the ABC catalog. The living room looks like it got a makeover just by changing the cover and my fridge looks so organized and spiffy :).

Once the hallway’s done I want to buy a small mirror and table to give the hallway some life. If not, just this nice corner shelf where I can put some nice vases/trinkets.

At least I have my redecorating to keep me busy now that I’ll be home for this entire pregnancy.