Category: Outings

Today was my last day of work for the year, so tonight is my first official evening of summer vacation! I’m so excited and in desperate need of this break. Don’t get me wrong, work’s been awesome (even this last crazy week of endless inventory and seemingly longer hours), but I need sleep need like crazy. Alaethia’s been on this weird schedule (she’s currently kicking my legs and telling me to bring her more “monk”, which is “milk”), but that’s probably thanks to my mother, who allows her to sleep till 11am. Grr. She forgot about Eenan yesterday and let him play 9 hours of video games. 9 HOURS!!!

Anyway. I can’t believe this year’s over. I survived my first actual year of working after being a stay-at-home mom for 7 years. Okay, so it’s not an actual year since I only work about 9 months out of the year…but still.

It was something else, let me tell you. But I’ll never forget working at Nellie Schunior, our crazy packing and unpacking, getting the new library up and running, our field trips and the laughs and good times I had with Mrs. V, Pilar and Elvira :).

It was a busy, crazy week but I’m so happy to announce that I completed all of my tasks and did a little extra. I even helped the summer school librarian with a few things; she was impressed, which made me feel great. Mrs. V. treated me to lunch today (Whataburger) and we had awesome conversation, as always. We got back to work and finished up the final things and when I was gathering all my belongings she hugged me and said this is the first year everything’s been done and completed and it was all because of me. That’s the best thing I’ve heard in a long time :). In turn I told her that she’s the best boss I’ve had, and I mean that sincerely. I got to pick up the kids on time, go to all their assemblies and she just did tons for me. I’ve been truly blessed.

Natalie’s Quinceañera is this Saturday, so we started off my summer by going to the mall and getting a discount on Mom’s dress (she returned it and got $10 back with a coupon), she and Alaethia got shoes and then she treated us to dinner at the food court. She and the boys had McDonald’s and I had stuffed pizza (mushroom, broccoli — yes, broccoli –, cheese and spinach), and Mario met us there and had the same thing. He took off with Jaylen and then Eenan, Aly, Mom and I took a stroll through the mall and came home. Then I watched Mario and his dad (finally) fix our shower. It had been leaking and then the hot water pipe took a crap completely. Now I’ve got new, leak-free pipes AND a new spray/massaging shower head. Woo!

I helped Mary with a few things for the Quinceañera after that. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow before the big day!

I’m going to savor this summer. I’m going to read, BLOG (I’ve got so many old entries to edit and upload), sleep and not feel guilty about it, hopefully get at least a new layout going on this thing, paint the kitchen and redecorate it, visit and have lunch with friends, get on Myspace (addicted, much?), clean!, get organized and just spend quality time with the family, especially the kiddos. We’re not doing much this summer since we’re trying to get bills paid off, but I’m hoping to do a few things with the kids, like going to the museum, movies, beach, and the library. I won’t have to take them much to the library…I went a little insane at the Scholastic warehouse and then at our own book fair. We’ve got plenty of reading material to keep us busy! Oh yes, and work on rekindling the romance with Mario! I had no idea working would put so much strain on a marriage!

I’m so tired. I hope Aly goes to sleep soon. And doesn’t wake up more than once during the night. And hopefully that one time wakes up isn’t half an hour before I need to wake up like she’s been doing. Anyway…I’m rambling.

Been a while since I’ve updated, as usual, but I’m being lazy and sitting around and figured I’d update a little. There’s no way I’ll be able to remember everything since I last updated, but I’ll try and remember the important parts.

My Mother’s Day weekend was awesome. Hope all the Mama’s out there had a wonderful day :). I started my mother’s day since Saturday. Mary, Mom the kiddos, and I all packed into the Equinox and ran some errands then had lunch with Mario at Jesse’s, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. I had some crab enchiladas, which were really, really good and my sugar was okay when I checked it later :). Mario left and we went off to Conn’s to hand over our TV payment and then to Target where I couldn’t resist and bought Alaethia some cute outfits even though I was supposed to be shopping for myself. Mario said, “Get yourself something since I won’t be able to surprise you this time.” He’s excused since he outdid himself for my birthday, heh.

I got myself a blouse at Target, but had no luck finding anything else. We ran a few more errands and then went to Edinburg to the Scholastic warehouse. They have this huge 30-80% off sale at the end of May and I didn’t want to miss it. Jaylen picked two books, I got Eenan a few chapter books to keep him busy during summer (the Animorphs books were $1-3 each!), I got them the 365 Disney Stories for bedtime, and got myself a few books, too. I spent $50 and Mom got me My Sister’s Keeper by Jody Picoult for Mother’s Day. Mary bought a whole bunch of books, too. We had a great time, except for the smoldering heat in that mostly-metal warehouse.

We had a book fair going on at work (which went fairly smoothly if you ask me, and I was in charge of it) and my boss told me to take the kids over to pick some stuff since I was having a hard time choosing (I wanted everything!). I should have just left them at home; they ended up spending another $40 and before the book fair was gone I spent another $35!! My bookcase is ripping at the seams! One thing’s for sure, though, I definitely won’t run out of reading material during summer!

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, Andy and Noelia brought over a botana for lunch and treated Mary, Mom and me. How sweet of them ^_^. They brought us gifts: Noelia knits these wonderful blankets and knitted me a pink/green/brown one! They also gave me a scrapbooking tote. Loved, loved, loved my gifts :). Had a great day chilling out with my kiddos. We took Alaethia outside and she had a great time collecting petals.

I’m totally printing this out as an 8×10!

John’s birthday was Friday, the 24th, so we took him (and the family) to eat at Kumori. We invited Sally and she was so sweet and took a cake. I was so upset with John that night…he was being such a bad sport! He wouldn’t take pictures, wouldn’t say thank you, and didn’t even want to cut the cake. Grr. I get angry thinking about it. But at least I got to eat sushi, watch the boys and Alaethia have fun eating their rice with chopsticks, and spend time with Mario.

Jaylen graduated from Kinder on Wednesday the 28th. I thought it was going to be fancy and at the Fine Arts center but it was in their cafeteria and had an underwater theme. It was so hard to take pictures since it was so crowded, but everyone made the best of it. They performed to such cute songs and then once they got their “diplomas” and walked back to class we signed him out and brought him home.

The boys had their End of Year awards assemblies on the 3rd and 4th of June. I had to miss work both mornings, but my boss is the best; she had no problem at all with me being out each morning. It’s not like we had a lot to do anyway. The most we were doing was collecting payments for books or taking in books people were finding while cleaning the classrooms out. Jaylen got tons of certificates, but since he’s in Kinder and they only give trophies and a gift (this year they were giving away stereos) to kids with perfect attendance (and he’d missed a few days due to Strep each time) he didn’t get a trophy. He got tons of certificates, but hello? What kid doesn’t want a trophy. When I took a picture of him with his thick folder of certificates I told him how proud I was of him and that he did GREAT this year. His eyes got watery and he blinked away tears and said, “Then why didn’t I get one of those?” You don’t know how awful I felt. He is such a smart kid, top in almost everything, but the lack of a trophy made him feel like he wasn’t good enough.

When I was at work I told my boss about Jaylen’s assembly and how sad he was and how awful I felt that he felt that way. She said, “Hold on, we had an extra trophy!” So she finds it and gives it to me to give to Jaylen. How nice is that?! I’m telling you, this lady’s wonderful!

I gave it to Jaylen after school and he loved it. He proudly displayed it on top of his TV and showed it to everyone :).

Eenan got TONS of trophies and ribbons and even got a bike. I had to rush around signing them out to take them home, driving around with Alaethia to pick up the bike and get the huge box out of the car to get to work.

The last days of work were spent sorting/organizing our storage room. We had the help of a few kids and in the end a few things were missing, but they solved that problem. Well, part of it. It’s so disappointing, but that’s what we get for trusting too much. I’m glad the room’s ready for next year, though. It was about time!

We had an awards assembly for the top readers and had a raffle as well. It was so nice watching the kids faces light up when their name was called. One of our readers got about 7 prizes…she practically got a whole entertainment room’s worth of stuff! See, it pays to read ;).

We had a Librarian’s meeting during our last week of work (where they gave us each an Eric Carle mug!). It was one of my first times drinking/eating something really sweet (mango tea and cream pie) and my sugar didn’t go up at all!

I caught yet another cold which I thought was brought on by getting soaked putting groceries in the car at Walmart on Saturday. As crappy as I felt I went to work because I knew my boss was taking turns with relatives and taking care of her mother, who’d recently been in the hospital. She was off every other day and I’d just caught up with all our work (we’d been so behind thanks to our snail-paced internet) so I didn’t want to get swamped again.

I asked John to accompany me to the mall to return a blouse and buy some jeans. He said okay; he wanted to check out video games anyway. We’re walking around looking for the store (which they moved across town, thank you) and he tells me he’s starving. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry or not, but I knew for sure I needed a seat because I was feeling dizzy and my heart was racing like it had been for the past two weeks. Elvira kept telling me, “You need to get yourself checked, girl. That’s not right.” She’d actually been telling me about a month already but I was in denial. I pinned my lightheadedness, racing heart and jitteryness to the 6 1/2 hours between my breakfast and lunch.

So we’re standing in line at Quizno’s, where John wanted to get a sandwich, and as I’m trying to figure out what I want I feel like the room’s spinning. He looks over at me and says, “You don’t look good, you’re swaying. Eat something.” Again, I blamed it on my terrible sinuses and headache, but I listened and had some broccoli soup and a Sobe drink. We sat talking for a while and I began to feel better. We stopped by the other store, I found a blouse, and we rushed home because I needed to make dinner. By the time I was done with everything I was exhausted and felt awful again. My head hurt, my heart was racing again, I couldn’t breathe because my nose was so stuffed and my throat felt like it was on fire. I started wondering if maybe I’d caught Strep. I was about to get up to take a shower when my mom said, “Don’t go to work! Stay home and get better!” I said, “No, I have to go.” Mario passes by and tells me, “Don’t go in.” And after feeling like a turtle on it’s back trying to get up to shower, I realized they were right, I was too sick. They convinced me to go to the doctor the next morning, so I got into bed and woke up early to shower.

The boys had slept over at Mary’s, Mom was staying with Alaethia, and Mario was working so I went on my own. When I’m in the vitals room they ask what my symptoms are and I told them about my cold and asked if I could be screened for diabetes. They were a bit shocked and asked why. I told them how I’d been feeling awful for the past two weeks and I felt like I might have diabetes. Then I weighed myself: 128.7. Officially THE MOST I’ve ever weighed in my life.

When the nurse practitioner checks me she says my throat’s inflamed (but not Strep), I have a chest infection and Sinusitis. She prescribed some meds for the Sinusitis (which I just realized I need to take again), Zithromax for the infection and a steroid. Then she sent a nurse in to poke my finger to check my blood sugars. After 10 minutes I could hear a commotion outside; they were in disbelief that the reading was mine. My sugar was at 203, 2 hours after I’d eaten breakfast. The nurse walks in, her expression serious, and says, “Yajaira! I can’t believe it. You’re diabetic! I’m so sorry.” I tell her, “It’s okay. I kind of expected it. Not this soon, but I did.”

She gives me menus and pamphlets for my new diet. Everything must now be sugar free and diet and no sweets other than the ones in the menus, most of which are fruits. She wanted me to go in today while fasting to do labwork and get that glucose test done where you drink a really sweet punch; usually the one one when you’re pregnant. I said fine. She said we’d try and get me back on track by just doing my diet and exercising, but she was afraid I might at least need to be on a pill.

I went to the pharmacy to get my meds for my Sinusitis and everything and started texting, calling and messaging everyone to let them know. It hadn’t hit me until then, really. I got a little teary-eyed for a little bit, but pretended it was because I’d been coughing up a lung. It was so weird having to go back to Dollar General to exchange the cough drops I’d just bought that morning because they weren’t sugar free.

I get home and tell Mom and she’s in shock. She kind of just stood there staring at me for a little while, like she couldn’t tell if it was actually me standing before her. And then I started with my diet. Edith, the nurse practitioner was right, she said it was going to feel like I was eating all day because I’d be eating every 3 hours: 6, 9, noon, 3, 6pm and 9pm. I called my boss to let her know I wouldn’t be in on Friday either due to my labs and told her about my ordeal. She said we’d even move my lunch hour half an hour earlier so I’d stay on my 3-hour diet. I’m so glad she’s so understanding.

Although I felt like total crap from the infection and Sinusitis, Eenan and I both had dentist appointments. I got the boys out of school early and then Eenan and I went. We thought he’d need a crown, but he just got that same filling redone and another 2. I got two molars on top filled that really needed it, plus a small one between two teeth on top. I still have two more to get filled but I didn’t want to spend too much with all the medications I’d be needing for the diabetes. I’m so proud of Eenan; he did much better than I thought he would. He only screamed once when they injected the Novocaine. Shoot, I almost screamed, too.

Mario and I went to Jorge and Maggie’s that night to chill out. We spent some time laughing outside and then on Myspace while Joe cut Mario’s hair Chuck Liddell-style (from UFC). We got home pretty damn late and we slept about 5 hours. Not even the shower at 7:45am helped. We got to the Dr.’s office and they drew blood and I drank that gross drink immediately afterwards. Then we waited an hour. Mario forgot something to entertain himself with so we just read forwards on my Centro and then we sort of took a nap until it was time to get my results.

We went to the back to get my results: 222. I am officially diabetic. My lab results won’t be in till at least Tuesday, but those results will state what Type of diabetes I have and if I’ll be using pills or insulin. I asked if there was any chance of just stabilizing my glucose with just diet and exercise and Dr. Edith said no, I’d need pills at least. Blah. Totally not what I wanted to hear.

We went to the pharmacy to pick up my glucometer and strips and all that. It seemed surreal. As we stood at the counter getting counseled Mario jokes, “I didn’t think we’d be doing this till we were old.” That’s so true. I was hoping I wouldn’t start having symptoms till I was at least 40!

They taught me how to use the machine and off we were with my little pack, which I’ll have to carry with me from now on. I’ll have to check myself right when I wake up and 2 hours after I eat, which’ll be at work.

We ran some errands for Mary with Aly watching The Little Mermaid in her carseat and then stopped by Dollar General so I could buy some snacks, like graham crackers and Rice Crispies cereal. Mario cruelly bought some Oreo Cakesters and he and the boys ate them in front of me at Mary’s. I wanted to hit something. But I got over it. Although I do want them all to follow my menus to keep them healthy for the future, I can’t rip everything away from them =\.

I followed my menu for dinner and oh my gosh, I couldn’t finish the amount of food. The three main meals are actually really big meals–well, to me anyway. My “fruit” consisted of a third of a whole melon! I still need to ask my doc about certain foods; I’m confused about how much sugar I can actually have, because my 8 animal crackers have 7g of sugar. I wonder if that goes for everything else? As long as I follow the serving size and amount of sugar, I can eat it?

I took me three tries (and pokes) to get enough blood for a good reading on my machine. I was disappointed to find out it was still at 170 :(. I don’t want to have problems like this for the rest of my life :(. They called me a “Rare case” at the doctor’s office today. I’m, so far, one of the youngest females to develop diabetes.

I always thought I’d shrivel up and die if I got diabetes, but I’m not shriveled or dead! I’m okay. And I’m going to eat well and exercise. And hopefully the silver lining will be that I’ll lose some weight in the next coming months.