Category: Outings

Last night could have quite possibly been one of our worst nights while Alaethia isn’t sick. It was Day 1 of bottle-weaning and it was awful. She cried from 11 pm to 1 am. I was about to give up and just pop a bottle in her mouth at least three times during those two hours, but I stayed strong and let her cry it out till she was so exhausted that she grabbed the cup from me and fell asleep. Mario, who actually stayed awake the whole time for once, rubbed my back and said, “You’re a good Mom.” Those words make it all worthwhile.

Now we’re on our way to the zoo. I packed everything up this morning and we were all ready and leaving by 8:05am like we planned. We didn’t actually get on the road to leave till 9 something since we were waiting for all the other people and vehicles who’d be part of our caravan. And now we’re here and there’s no parking. This’ll be fun!

Alaethia and I are having the worst night.

Bottle-weaning has begun and she’s NOT a happy camper. Mama’s not a happy camper either because she developed a headache late afternoon and every cry is amplified tenfold. She refuses to drink from her sippy cup. All the other times I’ve tried weaning her these past two weeks I’ve just thrown my hands up and stuck the bottle in her mouth because I couldn’t stand the crying. But I’ve got to do this. I don’t want her teeth to be all messed up. I’ve seen way too many babies/toddlers with silver teeth all along the top and bottom of their mouths and it looks disgusting. I was successful after 3 days with each of the boys, but I keep reminding myself that I wasn’t working and I had a lot of time to just let them cry it out. At the time it didn’t matter if I went to sleep early or not. That’s why it’s so hard this time. But I’m going to do this. She will be weaned by Monday! Wednesday the latest. I just hope Mom works with me and doesn’t surrender to her whines. I must bag up all her bottles — to keep Mom from getting them…and myself!

Today was another low-key day at work. I put away a few of yesterday’s left-over books then printed out some labels and stuck them on the books. I spent most of the morning babysitting supervising 3 8th grade boys while they completed a test they missed. They’re something else, I’m telling you. One of them stuck around “helping” us as much as he could so he didn’t have to go to class. They finally went in to install the computer stations and the head-honcho librarian was there giving out orders, which included moving around all the boxes that were piled up in two corners. Mrs. Ruiz and I busied ourselves with shelving and had two substitutes helping us out.

Mary had called me around 8:45 to let me know that Eenan’s UIL awards assembly was at 2pm. I didn’t want to miss half a day (I would have had to leave at 10:30), especially since I want to save the last 6 days of sick time for an actual emergency and Jaylen’s Kinder graduation. I figured I wouldn’t take my half-hour lunch and I’d leave at 1:50, attend the assembly and then I’d come back to work and make up the time I needed to. My boss didn’t have a problem with it at all, so that was awesome. She even made the call for me to find out about everything at the front office.

I ate a Snickers to keep me from passing out, worked till 1:45, then hauled ass the 8 miles to Eenan’s school. It was great watching him go up there and beam happiness throughout every pore of his body. I’m so proud of him. He got 4 trophies and 3 ribbons. He took pictures with all his good friends, we had cake and punch, and then Mary and Noelia waited around till 3:15 to get Brandon and Jaylen and bring them home.

I got back to work at 3:15 and worked till 4:20. It was nice and quiet. I slapped on some magnetic labels I’d made to one of our carts so we could get more organized. We had piles of damaged books and stuff like that all over the place. Then I shelved some of our non-testable books, which the kids won’t really pay attention to, in a new section of the library. The library finally looks like a real library. They installed the magazine rack while I was gone and added the second, smaller computer station beside it. They positioned the couch and chairs in front of the magazine rack and it looks so cute and cozy. We just need some pillows and some cool murals on the wall and we’ll be all set. Oh, yeah, and the computers for the computer stations.

I came home and just chilled out here with everyone. Then Noelia, Mom and I (and Aly) made plans to go to H-E-B to get more snacks for our trip to the zoo tomorrow. I’m so excited about going, since we haven’t visited in over a year. It’ll be Aly’s first visit to the zoo ever! And Matthew’s too, I think? My feet hurt just thinking about the long walk, but it’ll be fun. I made sure to get lots of baby snacks for Alaethia, to keep her occupied. She loves to be in her stroller though, so I don’t think she’ll give me too much trouble. As long as that stroller’s moving, she’ll be alright.

Mario won’t be going, because he works Saturday’s of course. I was going to ask to have it postponed for Sunday, but he told me not to bother since he didn’t want to spend his only day off walking miles. He won’t be having his Friday off for the next 6 weeks, which really sucks. Just when it felt like we were spending a little more time together…

Anyway, I’m, like, hanging by a thread to consciousness here. I feel so sleepy. Mario just got back from Chris’ so he got Alaethia. Otherwise I wouldn’t have finished this entry. Tonight will definitely be interesting without the bottle.

I’m finally getting a few minutes to just sit down and relax. I’ve decided I’m just going to start updating already; no more waiting to see if I’ll have time to catch up on all the entries I’ve already missed. I will update those eventually, just not anytime soon. I still haven’t even written about Christmas or Alaethia’s 1st birthday, but I will!

I’m sitting outside in the cool breeze with Alaethia and Eenan, who are both swinging in their swings. It’s such a nice day out. I had an excellent day at work. Circulation was low for some reason (probably because teachers are busy helping kids cram for the TAKS) which I’m really glad about because I was so sleepy and tired. I had a chance to shelve all of yesterday’s left-over books (which weren’t many to begin with) and check for and stick labels onto the new books. I’m almost done with those, which I’m a little sad about. I really like doing the labels LOL.

I got to finish everything I needed to do so I actually got out on time. Well, at 3:05, but still. Once they finally install the time clocks, or whatever they’re called, I’m going to have to make sure I clock out on time. And go in on time for that matter, heh.

I picked up the boys, rushed home and then changed Alaethia to take her to the doctor to get her 1 year shots. I took her in the Friday before last, when she got sick with a horrible cold, and they went ahead and gave her her 1 year physical. They told me to take her back when she was feeling better to get her shots. We were in and out in less than half an hour, which is awesome considering we’re usually there 1 and a half hours.

Since it’d been six months since her last set of shots I was not prepared for the screaming and the tears. I had to hold down her arms and the nurse held her legs while she jabbed (yes, jabbed) the needles in. Ooy. It was awful. She didn’t do too bad though; she only screamed for about 5 seconds after each poke and got over it pretty quickly. I still gave her some Tylenol, just in case.

When I got home I got a chance to install Alaethia’s new toddler car seat into the Equinox. I bought it since Monday and barely had time to set it up today. Now she’ll be much more comfortable when we go out. She was enjoying watching Alice in Wonderland this past Sunday when Mario, the kids and I were on our way to Long John Silver’s for dinner. Got to get some cute educational DVDs for her!

Since I haven’t update in so long I haven’t mentioned just how brilliant my boys are. Jaylen’s reading at about 2nd grade level (he’s in Kinder) and can write and spell very well, with hardly any help when he has sentences for homework. Eenan’s also doing great. His conduct’s improved and he recently placed 2nd in Oral Reading and 3rd in Storytelling district-wide in UIL. I’m so proud of them :).

I’ve been incredibly tired all week. Well, since last week actually. I don’t know what came over me; Noelia convinced me to sign up for sewing classes with her at Life’s a Stitch. It’s only three classes, but they usually last two hours and I’m exhausted by the time I get home (half hour drive). I ended up staying up till 12:30am Tuesday night (Wednesday morning?) to finish up my “homework” from last week’s lesson: making my own pillowcase without help. I’m making matching Transformers pillowcases for the boys. Then I plan to make curtains (right now they have Pokemon ones in their Transformer-themed room. It’s pretty fun though. Our first lesson was making a pillowcase with piping and the one we had yesterday was how to make a quilted bag. We’re halfway done. Our homework is to sew our straps on the bad and then sew up the edges. Then next week we finish it up and start on the next lesson, which will be patterns. We’re going to learn to make pajama bottoms! Like I’m not obsessed with them enough already!

But yeah. I’ve been tired. What with the lessons, endless laundry, tons of stuff to do every day, hardly sleeping and finally getting over our colds (Alaethia and me) my body’s drained.

Which reminds me…I’ve got the white laundry to do, I need to make dinner, get the boys in the shower, get myself in the shower and try to work on my bag a little. No. I probably won’t do that. But I do have to read to the kids tonight. I promised Jaylen.