Category: Outings

Before I start complaining about my weekend 😛 I’d like to thank everyone for the well wishes :). I’m finally feeling much, much better. I can breathe through both nostrils!

I’m hating Roadrunner right now. For the past 3 days we’re connected for about 10 minutes (sometimes only 5) and then it’s out for about 20-30 minutes. Argh! A technician’s supposed to stop by sometime today but of course you never know when they’ll actually get here. With my luck, it’ll be while I’m out picking up the boys. Grr.

The last time I updated we were about to leave to visit Gramma and run all these errands. (Didn’t get the chance to vent about that evening when I wanted to since RR was off and on all darn night.) We visited Gramma for a good, solid hour. It was nice sitting there with her, chatting. The boys were incredibly well-behaved; they even shared her breakfast table and drew pictures while she watched.

We took her Christmas decorations down and put them away. Mom was looking through her clothes, putting stuff back on hangers when she notices this maroon velour hoodie sweatshirt that we hadn’t seen before. She asks if Aunt Nora gave it to her and Gramma says, “No. Yajaira gave me that one.” I tell her, “No Gramma, we gave you a solid red one.” I pull out the red sweatshirt we’d given her for Christmas and she says, “Oh…well, I guess just put the other one there.” Mom tries it on her and it’s a size too small. All the years I’ve known Gramma, she’s been a size Medium. She’s put on some weight the past few months since she’s been at the nursing home and she’s now a size Large. It thrills me to say this since she was so thin and fraile back in 2004 when she first moved to the nursing home. She’s our little linebacker now :).

We left Gramma’s and went to Walmart, where I got a few things we needed and we walked away with yet another Beta fish. Eenan was jealous that Mom had gotten one for Jaylen, so he asked her for one and of course the woman said she’d get him one. He got a red one and I got them some new glass bowls and pebbles. The cool thing is they both fit on the little “hutch” on their desk so they hopefully won’t knock them over. They’ve been doing pretty good so far with feeding them once in the morning and once at night :).

Mario called while I was at Walmart and asked if I could drop some money off to him at work. I had the darn Senta and Mario failed to tell me that it’s really hard to turn the wheel to the right. Something having to do with the transmission. When I’m trying to turn to the right to get on the frontage road, I get stuck there! I can’t turn the wheel, so there I am, sticking out several feet into the frontage road while crazy Shary Road traffic is turning in. I step on the gas as soon as I get a chance before someone slams into me. Stupid car. If it’s one thing that gets me into a bad mood is being seconds from getting killed because of that damn car.

I get to Mario’s work and lo and behold, he’s out to lunch. I call him, frustrated, and he tells me to leave the money with one of his friends. Fine. I look at the clock and it’s 1pm. I’m starving and so are the kids and we still need to go to Aunt Nora’s. We stop by Taco Bell and get some tacos, nachos and drinks and I call Aunt Nora when we get on the road again.

She’d told me they usually go out in the evening, so we figured we’d go during the day. Turns out she was leaving the house at that exact moment and said she’d call me when she was back.

I’m fuming once again and am even more annoyed that I spent $10 (as little as that is) on Faux Mexican Food for nothing. Had I known she wasn’t going to be there we could have just come straight home and had lunch here.

I start hacking up a lung so I ask mom to pass me my drink. I feel something cold on my belly, but I assume it’s the cold cup so I keep drinking. When I start feeling really cold I stop drinking and look down; there’s a puddle of Raspberry Iced Tea on my boobs and belly. GREAT. We checked the cup and the lid’s fully on and there aren’t any cracks, yet I somehow managed to spill about a cup of it all over myself. Stupid thing.

We got home and ate and I tried my hardest to calm down and be in a good mood. Aunt Nora didn’t end up calling and there was no way I’d drive at night if she had, so we chilled out here at home and I made Chicken Alfredo Pasta for dinner. Eenan ate and then went over to Mary’s to sleep over and Mario, Jaylen and I stayed up watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets LOL. It was supposed to be night 1 of getting the kids used to falling asleep early but that didn’t happen. Not for Jaylen anyway. He likes to cuddle with us when we’re watching TV :).

We woke up considerably early on Sunday morning, again because of all the noise outside our bedroom. We got up, took showers and ate breakfast (barbacoa tacos) then we headed to Home Depot (with Jaylen only, Eenan was in town with my in-laws) and bought some materials so Mario would finish up the shelves in the bathroom, to get rid of the rackety, flimsy over-the-toilet shelf we currently have our towels stored in. (Of course, Mario never actually got around to building the shelves. Grr.)

We bar-b-q’d later on during the day and learned all about some family drama that’s still going on. I don’t want to air out any dirty laundry, but Jesus, people just need to grow the eff up! I can only see absolute disaster happening (more than it has already) if people don’t learn how to control their tempers =\.

I shall continue the rest of my entry about yesterday (Monday) when Roadrunner stops pissing me off. I wanted to take a nap, but I’m waiting for that darn technician. Ah! Speaking of the devil, they just called to confirm the appointment. Thank GOD.

I felt miserable all Thursday night. Didn’t help that I had to put away dinner since Mario failed to call and tell me he was going to be “out with the guys”. He’d forgotten his cellphone at home, and apparently couldn’t borrow anyone else’s to let me know he’d be late. Really late. It was 12am when he got here. I was already in bed, Jaylen sleeping soundly at my side, reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I decided to read since I couldn’t sleep. My back and ear were throbbing horribly. Mario walks into the room and smiles; not a regular smile, but one of those “let me test the water” ones. I slap on a fake smile and say, “Hi, Babe! I take it everyone forgot their cellphones today?”

He sort of smiles and says, “Actually, yeah–”

I interrupt him and say, “No: ‘I’ll be late, don’t make dinner’ or ‘Babe, how are you feeling?’ But if it were you that were sick, I’d be waiting on you hand and foot!”

He looks half guilty, half annoyed so he turns and leaves. His Godfather, Jorge, had tried calling him earlier, and I figure he wants to get some beers and talk since he’d be leaving Saturday morning and that’s exactly what they did.

Usually I’m pretty “awesome” (as I’ve been told by Mario’s friends) when it comes to Mario going out with his friends or having a few beers with the guys, but since I was deathly ill and would have LOVED to be taken care of, I was annoyed and frustrated and just didn’t want to see his face. I tried going to sleep after that, but ended up staying awake till almost 2am, which is around the time Mario finally came back inside. He ended up sleeping on the couch, since Jaylen had happily taken his place in our bed.

Mario’s way of trying to appologize and be peaceful is joking around. When I’m trying to hack down breakfast he says, “May I ask why there’s another man in my bed?” meaning Jaylen, of course.

I turn and look at him, and since I didn’t feel like being peaceful just yet and say, “Because he was the only one around to comfort me last night.” Buahaha.

I quickly got ready, figured I’d leave my shower for after my appointment, left the boys with Mario and went to the doctor before it was too late. I hate being a “walk-in” because they take long enough when you actually have an appointment, but I felt so terrible that I sucked it up, took my book with me and was totally ready to wait 3 hours to be seen.

It took about an hour for them to call me, and that’s because there were only 2 people waiting before me in the lobby when I arrived.

I get my finger pricked to check my sugar; there was 250 somethings of glucose in my urine and when they checked my finger my sugar was at 160, which is kind of high for me. Turns out the waffles with syrup and coffee I had in the morning weren’t processing too well. I ask if I should be concerned and not eat anything sweet at all in the mornings but they assure me that I’m fine and don’t have to change my diet at all. Good :).

I’m weighing 134.6 (or was it .8?) and my blood pressure’s fine. My luck would have it that I go in for a cold and end up having to be “swabbed” for the GB Strep test. I was supposed to have that done on Wednesday, but since this practitioner had me as 35 weeks 5 days (my actual doctor has be down as around 34 weeks 5 days and I had myself down as 36 weeks 4 days) she insisted I do the test that morning, since you’re supposed to do it at 35 weeks.

I didn’t want to get it done just yet (I didn’t shower, for Pete’s Sake!) so they told me it was super easy, I could do it on myself. My nurse, Laura, even drew an illustration for me, depicting what to do where. So I did it LOL. I’ve never been positive for GB Strep, so hopefully everything is alright.

What sucks is, starting this Wednesday, I start having lovely weekly pelvic exams done. I can hardly wait.

As for my cold: My right ear was terribly infected, my throat was red and my sinuses make my face feel like I’ve been hit by a train. They prescribed ear drops, antibiotics for my ears, and I was told to get Tylenol Sinus and Robitussin DM for my congestion and cough. So now I’m on 3 meds, plus ear drops, plus vitamins. I hate taking so many medicines during pregnancy. I know they wouldn’t be giving them to me if they were harmful to the baby, but still. It makes me uneasy. At least I stopped the doctor for prescribing Zithromax–that stuff gave me horrible contractions when I got the upper respiratory infection the last month of pregnancy with Jaylen.

We went to cash Mario’s paycheck and pay most of our bills. The first part of the month is crappy for us since we have the “big” payment (the truck) and most of our tiny, little bills. The tiny, little bills add up and we end up almost broke.

We did pretty good with our budget anyway. We (the boys, Mario and I) had lunch at Jesse’s, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, where we were serenaded by a wonderful singer/guitar player and had great food. I had shrimp enchiladas, which were delicious. That’s all I’ve been craving lately! Shrimp!

We went to the Pawn Shop to leave the 2nd to the last payment on the gun Mario’s buying himself and then to JC Penny make a payment and to get Eenan 2 pairs of jeans since these kids are still going through growth spurts! He’s passing all his size 5 jeans to Jaylen, so Jaylen has plenty of pants. It’s poor Eenan who’s been walking around in high-water pants for the past few weeks LOL.

Next stop was Target, where the boys were buying themselves some cheap video games; Eenan with his Tooth Fairy money, Jaylen with his Piggy Bank money :P. We got a few things we needed, and went to Walmart next.

I was going to leave my prescription, but there was a 20 person-long line. I did not feel like waiting; my feet were killing me already. I paid for my pictures I’d dropped off earlier during the week and we came home.

We chilled out here at home for a while. Everyone started to arrive around 6 to have one last “whole family” dinner before Jorge left this morning. Around 7 o’clock I remember we need to go to H-E-B to get my prescriptions (I couldn’t stand my ear ache anymore!) so we leave. The boys stayed here while Mario and I went.

They took forever with the prescription of course, so we grocery shopped while they finished up at the pharmacy. We only spent $66, which is a frickin’ record! We didn’t get any junk food, which could probably be why we saved so much, but I’m cool with that. I don’t need to be pigging out so close to delivering anyway =\.

We ate and talked with everyone when we got back and then just chilled out, bathed and went to bed. Mario put drops in my ears and I fell asleep pretty fast. Staying asleep was quite the challenge though.

At 3am I woke up sweating, coughing and with my ears throbbing again. I pointed the fan to the wall, to at least get some air without drying up my sinuses or making my throat worse. I took all my meds since they were already wearing off, and went to bed. At 5am I woke up with stomach cramps and finally I went to sleep and woke up when the alarm went off at 7:30.

I’ve got to drop John off at work, put gas in the car (because these men LOVE to leave it on extra-empty) then Mom, the boys and I are going to visit Gramma, go to Walmart real quick and then visit Aunt Nora for a while. John wants to go to the mall, but I don’t feel like waiting for him till whatever time they decide to let him out like last week. It’s getting harder for me to drive at night since I need new glasses. I haven’t gone yet because I’m afraid I’ll get glasses and then my vision’ll change again when I give birth. I’ve heard it can happen, so I don’t want to take any chances.

We have a wedding to go to tonight, but Mario will probably end up going by without me with Manny and his wife. I feel like crap, look like crap and don’t have anything to wear so I don’t feel like going at all.

I’m going to lay down for a little bit and then get ready before the madness starts. I just want to hybernate :(.

I’d been doing a little better at updating and there I went and let tons of days pass by again. Grr.

So Mario ended up working on Friday, since he had Christmas Day off and was going to have Monday off, too. It was a pretty darn boring day; I spent most of it freaking out over how fast January’s going to go by.

Saturday – Woke up with a sore throat because I brilliantly had the fan on when it was in the 40’s during the night. (My hot flashes could care less how cold it really is outside.) We spent the day chilling out and I felt great until around 2pm. Out of nowhere I started getting horrible pains in my lower abdomen that were coming every 3-5 minutes apart. John was freaking out; he could tell just how uncomfortable I was. He told me to call Mario but I told him no, I didn’t want to bother him when it was probably just Braxton Hicks contractions and I need to drink more water since I was probably dehydrated. John said the baby was probably thinking, “This place is getting really small…the water’s getting really low…I’m starting to see a light…” and that maybe I REALLY SHOULD call Mario.

Mary invited us to the movies. I almost didn’t want to go, but I took a shower hoping I’d feel better. I still felt uncomfortable, but went to movies anyway.

We watched Night at the Museum. It was really cute; totally going to buy it on DVD when it comes out. Eenan said it was “Hilarious!” and both boys laughed the whole time. Halfway through the movie, my belly didn’t hurt anymore, even after eating pickle, dipping popcorn into nacho cheese and drinking a small Coke.

Almost immediately after I got up from my seat when the movie was over, I got a horrible, stabbing pain in my back. It felt like a pinched nerve and felt terrible with every step I took. I could barely walk to the car.

Mary decided to pick up pizzas for dinner from Pizza hut. Since Jose and Elda were picking up pizzas from the same place and were already done when we got there, Mary suggested I come home with them, Jorge, Sammy, Brandon and Angela to rest for a little bit. Jaylen and Eenan stayed with Mary, Noelia and Yazmin. (Mary later told me Jaylen said, “Take care of yourself and Alaethia, Mom!” Aww!)

After laying on the couch for a while (and feeling insanely bored and alone), I went to Mary’s to eat some pizza. I didn’t have much of an appetite. Mario got here a little later and we all sat around and talked since everyone was here for dinner.

Eenan had four loose teeth. The bottom adult teeth already came in behind his baby ones and the top ones started doing the same thing. Their dentist told me the bottom ones were fine; they’d eventually be pushed out, but if the top ones did that they’d have to remove them. Of course I was praying his teeth would fall out soon.

I got my wish that night. The kids were all playing in the living room and Eenan somehow got a tooth knocked out by accident. After cleaning him up and lecturing him about how they all shouldn’t be so rough, he went back to play and got the other one loosened, too! I got his little “Tooth Fairy Pillow”, which you can hang from a doorknob or bed post and has a pocket just for the tooth out of my closet. Noelia bought him that little pillow when he was around 1 or 2 :). He was sleeping over at Mary’s so he was a little nervous that the Tooth Fairy wouldn’t find him, but we reassured him that all teeth have little invisible tracking devices and the Tooth Fairy would certainly find him ;). I also told him that I was going to leave a note for the Tooth Fairy asking to leave me a “copy” of his tooth, since I wanted to keep a memory of it :).

He was really happy that the Tooth Fairy gave him $5. I think it would have been $10, except the Tooth Fairy didn’t have any change, heh.

Mario and I stayed up watching The Devil Wears Prada. It was 1am by the time we went to sleep.

Sunday – The boys stayed with mom the next afternoon while Noelia, Mary and I went to get ribbon, candles and stuff for my babyshower and some stuff for Noelia’s wedding. We came home, worked on invitations, then went back to Wal-Mart a few hours later for ribbon and shrimp cocktail stuff, since that’s what we were having for dinner. We made a stop at H-E-B for Clamato, one of the ingredients, since Wal-Mart was completely out. We picked up Bonnie and got home around 6. Mario was already here when we arrived since he was let out 15 minutes early. His tummy was upset so he chilled out at our house for a while.

Jose, Elda and Mary made shrimp cocktail and I made cheese dip (ground beef, Rotel, Velveeta all melted and delicious together). Everything was yummy. We went out at 9pm to pop fireworks. Mario and Jose popped the big, dangerous ones and Brandon, Sammy, Eenan and Jaylen watched and enjoyed sparklers and poppers. Mary came out for a few moments since she was watching Bonnie but Elda, Mom and I stayed out the whole time and took pictures. I won’t even bother posting them to Flickr since they suck ’cause it was dark.

It was freezing outside. My nose started running and I got worse by the hour. Everyone cleaned up (except me. I can’t bend anymore!) and we came back inside to chill for a while. We went back out at 11:55 to see all the huge fireworks the neighbors like to get and hug eachother and call people (which didn’t work out for most of us since the phone lines were backed up). We had to quickly go back inside since crazy people started shooting their guns. We do live in the boonies, afterall.

Monday – I had a horrible night’s sleep. Peed like, 5 times, and the other times I woke up I was coughing because of my itchy throat. Since Mario wasn’t working, we thought, “Yes, at least we can sleep in!” but that didn’t happen. We woke up at 9am to Big Mario blasting rancheras and Tejano music from his radio in his carport/workshop, which just so happens to be a few feet away from our bedroom. We laid there, wide-eyed and annoyed. Mario kept talking about how he couldn’t wait to start building a house–he was in a terrible mood. He told the boys and me to have breakfast and get ready so we could leave somewhere, anywhere. He got impatient and left on a drive somewhere. We were ready by 11:30, which is when he got back and says, “You know, I don’t feel like going anywhere anymore.” Grr. I hate when he does that.

We chilled out at Mary’s with everyone. Mario pissed me off during lunchtime because he didn’t give me shrimp cocktail. He had a HUGE bowl that I new he wasn’t going to finish (and didn’t) and drowned it in hotsauce after I told him I couldn’t eat it that way. He insisted I could and said he’d get me a bowl, but I told him no thanks. Later on I found out there was more and he knew about it, but he still didn’t give me any. I decided to suck it up and just ate deer soup my dad-in-law had made. It was pretty good anyway. *hiss*

We’d made plans to go to the movies at 4:55, but since nobody else never confirmed plans and my mom-in-law got busy we decided to go for the 7:15 showing instead.

Since nobody was sure they were going to even go, we decided to go to a taqueria called “El Primito” we like to go to. Eenan didn’t want to go, which kind of upset me but, fine, we let him stay. Jaylen went with us. We get there, and they’re closed. Talk about nothing going our way. We quickly start getting annoyed.

We can’t decide where to eat; Mario doesn’t like my suggestions but won’t make any suggestions himself. Everyone decided to go to the movies after all, so as a last resort we decided we’d go, too. Finally, something would go right. We went to check out the movies but Mario had a fit since they didn’t have a poster for The Marine and he didn’t want to watch anything else. He starts driving back home.

On the way, he makes me even more upset about something stupid like not thinking of a restaurant to go to, so I bawl my eyes out since I’m so darn emotional after all the little things that go to me throughout the day. We get home and I sit here, trying to stop feeling like crap. After 20 minutes he asks Jaylen if he wants something from Star’s. Jaylen says yes, corndogs. He asks me if I want anything. I hate Star’s right now since everything they make gives me heartburn, but I decide on a burrito supreme and some munchers. He gets back and we’re quiet, but peaceful. We eventually started making small talk and then he started playing around with me, which is his usually way of appologizing.

I got a text message from Sally and called her right back. My phone’s a PDA and does almost everything but the damn thing doesn’t allow me to text message, piece of crap. We decide to get together the next day for lunch. It would totally do me some good to chat with a friend and I’m super excited to get out of the house since Mario usually has the truck now that the kids are at home and John borrows the Sentra for work.

I was too emotionally and physically tired to clean that night, or even take a shower, so I leave it for the next morning.

Tuesday – I get Mario up and ready for work then haul ass cleaning like never before. Where I got all that energy from is beyond me. I washed the pile of dishes that had shamefully accumulated since Friday since we’re always at Mary’s since family’s over almost every night. It took half an hour to wash a sink-ful of dishes, and that’s a record. I’m a total snail when it comes to washing dishes.

I thought Sally would get here at 10am, but she was running late and would get here at 12 instead. I was sort of relieved that she’d get here a little later–it would give me time to finish up and shower!

Eenan vacummed and Jaylen took toys they’d left in the living room to their bedroom. I cleaned the turtle tank while Mom swept for me. I got the tank clean and turtles fed and mom refilled the tank with water while I quickly took a shower. Didn’t have a chance to blowdry or flat-iron my hair, but at least I was clean :). Thank God for the extra help!

Sally gets here and she talks and catches up a bit with my mom and the boys. Mom watches them while we go to Chilli’s. We spoke about every single subject we could think of.

That’s what I’ve always loved about that girl: we can be apart for years but when we meet up again it’s like we’d been talking the whole time. We had some great food (which she refused to let me help pay for!) and even better talk. Our old friend Magda married another childhood friend of ours, Steve, which I find totally adorable and just…wow! I love to hear about stuff like that. Like when I heard about Johanna and Ralph? Totally unexpected! They knew eachother since they were little and ended up married. That’s just so awesome!

Sally vented to me about her current situation and then she listened to me vent about ours; my thoughts of the future and so on. Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. We talked about Vero, too. I wish I could see her and catch up. And with everyone else, too!

I’m hoping, hoping, hoping we can meet up again next week. It was great catching up. I’m definitely going to need my friends after I have Alaethia, especially if it’s going to be like the last two times when I had mild Post Partum Depression. Only it was really crappy after having Jaylen since I really didn’t talk to any of my friends anymore. That’s one of my New Years Resolutions for this year: make more time for my friends!

Later in the evening, Mom, Jaylen and I stopped by Stripes (formerly Circle K) and got Mario an orange juice (his throat’s botherin him now, too) and some donuts and a Yoohoo, Kool-aide drink and donuts for Jaylen and I. We dropped them off to Mario and then went to Target, where Mom wanted to get Alaethia some things off of my Registry.

Not only was traffic total hell, but just about every-single-thing I put on my Registry is on clearance! It totally sucks. I’m probably not even going to get her the Womb Sounds Bear since they totally ran out at that Target. It’s listed at $4.98!! It used to be $19.99. I’d LOVE IT if I could find it for that price at another Target. Too bad Mario has the truck :(.

It took about an hour or so to find everything she wanted to get, plus marking everything on the list so the cashier could “remove” them from the Registry. Since they added that stupid median on McColl and there’s no way to easily get to the other shopping center, I had to go all around the damn block to get to Pet Smart. I had a horrible, throbbing pain in my back when we got in the truck, probably for standing and walking so long. I could barely move!

Jaylen remembered we promised him a Beta but I told him we’d wait till Friday, so we could get everything his fish would need since we were in a hurry. Mom offered to buy him the fish, so he got a blue Beta. They were sold out of Beta tanks completely since Christmas but the girl said we could keep him in the little cup we bought him in for a while since it’s all the space he needs. The girl cleaned out his little “tank” and told us which food and water conditioner to get him and we were set. We got baby crickets, since they were sold out of large ones if you can believe that, and finally came home.

Jaylen was infatuated with his fish and was showing him off to everyone. He was so happy and proud he quickly came to find the perfect spot for him. He decided Blastoise would be his name and he would reside on his desk. Aww :).

We ate lasagna at Mary’s and Mario got home a while after. We chilled out with everyone and then came home to bathe the boys. Eenan wanted to sleep over at Mary’s and was excited that the Tooth Fairy would be visiting him again. Earlier during the day before Sally came over, he somehow turned the loose tooth backwards. I told him to let me gently pull it, but he said he’d rather the doctor do it. After telling him the doctor would charge us $200 just to pull the tooth away from the tiny bit of gum that was stuck to it, he let me do it. It came off right away and he started making plans to buy a game, or a toy LOL.

Mario and I stayed up watching The Family Stone, which could easily be one of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen. Both of us got teary-eyed near the end and just sat there with my head on his shoulder and his head on mine. We went to sleep when the movie was done and I told him how lucky I was to have him and he said the same about me. I told him my concerns about the future; what I want and how maybe I shouldn’t be in such a hurry for Alaethia to grow up so I can work since I’ll definitely regret it once she does start growing up, just like I mourn the kids’ babyhood.

This will be a good year, I just know it. It will be if we make it one.

(Alaethia’s got hiccups again :).)