Category: Sadness

I was all on my own that day and it went surprisingly well. Well, except for the internet already being excruciatingly slow on the actual first day back. I had to use my psuedo manual check out worksheet on Excel, which meant that later, before I could do anything else, I had to add them into the system manually. I shelved all the books that I’d checked in and started checking in the huge stacks of dictionaries and thesauruses they’d brought to me the day before. Mr. Murphy helped a bit, even though he left half the books I gave him to shelve because he likes to talk about world events (the depressing ones), but he did push the cart of dictionaries for me to the shelf so I could put up. He had to leave so I couldn’t get him to help with that.

We had a meeting in the library that lasted about an hour, so I had to enter some stuff manually again. One of the top things on my to-do list was getting another bulletin board up and ready. We I have a total of 4 that we’re I’m in charge of. During the meeting Robert, Juan and Rudy showed up. I put them to work after they got permission from their teacher. They helped me staple most of the star border, which I’m grateful for because everyone kept scolding me the day before when I’d been reaching up to staple the letters on the other board. I asked why, what would happen? And the response I got was that the baby would wrap her umbilical cord around her neck if I stretched. What? First time I’d ever heard of that one!

I couldn’t get my darn letter of resignation printed out because the version of Word I’d used to type it up was different from the one at work. All I had to do was install the compatibility patch but of course we don’t have authorization to install anything. I e-mailed and asked Mary if she could print it for me and she did one better: sent it as a .PDF file so I printed a few copies out right away.

I went to lunch and a sub was sent in right when I was coming back. She was a lot of help. I found it the perfect opportunity to turn in my resignation. I was so nervous. I had to control my shaking limbs before I got up to go to Vero’s office to borrow an envelope and turn it in. I spoke to Vero, who was sad that I’m actually going to leave and then I went in to talk to the principal.

He was walking out as I was walking in. I felt my face flushing as I handed him the letter. He looks down at me with a curious expression and asks, “What’s this?” I’m following him into his office as he’s unfolding the sheet and watch as his face turns from a smile into a look of shock. He said it was coming completely left field, which I found weird because I could have sworn I was present when Mrs. V. had mentioned it and I know she’d mentioned it other times. He shakes the letter and with a smile on his face says, “You don’t have to do this!”

He asked if she’d tried to convince me to stay and I said yes, she did since the beginning but eventually she conceded. I said something like, “I don’t want to, but I have to,” and he held the letter in both hands and said, “I can still tear this up!” I almost ran forward and said, “No, no! I’ve made my decision. And I thank you for allowing me to work with you and all the wonderful people here. It’s been a great experience.” That seemed to calm him down and we started walking out of the office. I shook his hand and he says, “You still have 10 days to change your mind.”

I was so proud of myself. I did it without crying!

I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And because I turned it in that day it was exactly a two-week notice. I picked the boys up and had them start working on their homework. I cuddled with Alaethia and as we were watching Noggin’ Sally called asking if Mario and I would like to join them for dinner to celebrate their anniversary since I was there for their very first date. How sweet of them to remember me :). I’m still so thrilled I got to be a part of the birth of their relationship. I quickly got ready, left the kiddos with Mom and the in-laws, who were already outside getting ready to bar-b-q, and picked Mario up (late-ish) from work. We were meeting Pete and Sally about an hour later so we went to Barnes and Noble to kill time. I wanted so many books, but I only walked away with the Lolcats one. Now I can look at it and feel happy instantly :P.

We had a great dinner. I ordered my usual spinach and artichoke dip and had the Shrimp Alfredo. Yum. As we were getting comfortable and had ordered our food, I told them, “You know what guys? It’s funny: I was pregnant exactly two years ago with Alaethia when you guys first got together and now on your 2nd anniversary I’m pregnant again!” Hilarious.

We had some laughs and I love our marriage talks LOL. We told them about Alaethia’s poop story and they couldn’t stop laughing. Sally says, “So that’s what we have to look forward to!”

I don’t remember what we were talking about—probably about how Mario’s out all night while I’m asleep—but Mario said he was thrilled when I called and asked if he wanted to go to Chili’s with Pete and Sally. He says that’s one thing he’s looking forward to when I stop working: spending more time together.

I can’t wait to get together with them again. I love our conversations!

I stalled and stalled all of Monday (the 7th); I didn’t want to go grocery shopping. It was still raining on and off outside and my mood matched the weather. I just wanted to snuggle up on the couch and read. I finished with all 7 Confessions of Georgia Nicholson books and I started reading My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult and found out it’s going to be a movie next year!

John came over and I asked him to go with me. Mom would watch the kids. Awesome. Because going grocery shopping with the kids is never a walk in the park and I wasn’t looking forward to this in the first place.

While we’re driving I joke with John to remind me to buy a pregnancy test because I’m still late. 16 days, in fact. The same thing happened back in February so I was convinced that it was my sudden halt in taking the birth control (since I’d run out in June). All the other times I’ve been late I’ve taken a pregnancy test and it was negative, and like magic I’d get my period the next day. I was going for the same effect this time!

We do all the shopping and with legs that feel like noodles I walk into that isle and get a pregnancy test; the cheapest one you can find.

I see Mario’s cousin and she’s got less stuff to pay for than I do, so I let her in before me in line and hastily toss boxes around to cover the pregnancy test. Last thing I need are rumors!

As we’re putting the food on the conveyor belt I realize I’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of ramen noodles. I’m not even supposed to have those. I ask John, “Why’d I get so many of these?” and he leans in and whispers, “Because you’re pregnant!”

I punch him and hiss, “Shut up! Not funny!” and turn to check if Mario’s cousin heard anything. No, she’s already walking away.

We get home and I put all the food away. Mom’s actually at her house for once. The boys are quietly playing with Alaethia in their bedroom so I grab the pregnancy test and take my chance.

I’m shaking and my stomach is flipping uncontrollably. I’m telling myself I know this thing’s going to be negative, but there’s always that teensy chance it might not be. Besides, I’d gone back and tracked my cycle and my days of ovulation and we didn’t do anything on my most fertile days.

I take a deep breath, exhale and do what needs to be done. I set the stick on some toilet paper on the floor and stare at it.

And right before my eyes–and I’m being so serious, this happened in like, 1 second–I see a plus sign.

With shaking hands and racing heart I go over the pamphlet–DAMMIT! One straight line and one plus sign mean “pregnant”, no matter how light the plus sign is. I look at the stick. Shit. That thing is blue as the sky.

I succumb to the news. I’m going to have another baby. I sat there on the toilet seat and cried for a little bit.

I had no idea what to do. I just sat there in the silence, feeling like my world was caving in around me. I didn’t know who to call, especially because I knew the test was wrong. I didn’t even have symptoms! Well, except for that weird wave of nausea the night before, but I was sure it was the food. I need a new test. That thing appeared too quickly. There has to be something wrong with it.

I text John, because he’s the only one I’ve told anything to, and I’m rambling on and on, telling him how something must be wrong with it. He replies with, “I don’t understand you.”

I’m so annoyed I type back, “I HATE YOU!”

Yes, I was that emotional.

I’m pacing about, and finally decide to call Mary. Its 4:22…she’ll be out of work soon. She can get me a new, working test! So I call and tell her everything. She gets excited, but retains it a little since she knows I’m freaking out. She says she’s stopping by Walgreens so she’ll get one from there.

I check on the kids to see how they’re doing and Jaylen’s happily playing with Alaethia. He’s always so good with her. I feel all warm inside and ask him, “How do you feel about having another brother or sister someday?” He looks up, thinks for a few seconds and nods, “I feel good!”

Mary gets here seconds later with the test. I’d already drank another 16 oz. bottle of water and am ready to take it.

This one forms as quickly as the other one. I yell, “Oh My GOD!” And Mary’s already shrieking and gives me a huge hug. Mom comes in and asks what’s going on. I show her the test. Her eyes get big and she points to Alaethia, who’s standing by innocently, and says, “Another one?!” I nod yes. She looks at her again and asks, “Another one?!” I tell her, “Yes, Mom, another one.” My mom, who always has a way with words says, “Aww, Alaethia’s so little. And you were just starting to lose weight!” Gee, thanks, Mom! She eventually says, “Oh good! I’m happy for you!”

We call the boys in and I ask them, “Do you know what these are,” and I bring the sticks in front of me. Eenan’s eyes are the first to widen and asks, “Are you pregnant?”

I nod and say, “You guys are having another brother or sister!” They both start jumping up and down and Eenan rushes forward and wraps his arms around me. Jaylen comes forward and rubs my stomach and says, “I love the baby!”

They made me feel a bit better :).

My dad-in-law comes over and stands in the doorway. Mary says, “We have some news. You’re going to be a Grandpa again!” He grabs a bag of Fritos and starts munching quickly, just staring at me. He even drops a few LOL. At that exact moment the phone rings.

Oh my God. How was I going to break this to Mario. The last time we had a scare (in February) it didn’t go too well.

He says, “Hey, I’m on my way home.”

Everyone in the background is screaming and laughing about the news. Before he hears it from someone I quickly say, “Guess what? You’re going to be a Daddy again!”

He says, “You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not. I took two tests.”

He’s silent for a while then says, “Okay. Call Maggie too see if she’s there so I can pick up my camera. I’ll be there in a bit.”

And that was it. I was so nervous.

Mary was calling everyone she knew. And everyone was being so nice about it. I was smiling on the outside, freaking out on the inside.

Mario gets home and goes straight to our house. Doesn’t even go over to Mary’s, where everyone is visiting. I come home and ask him, “So, what do you think?”

He says, “What can we do, right? Let’s just go from here.”

My, he was calm. But he also bought a 6-pk of beer. It made me a little nervous just how calm he was.

He’s looking for Carrie Underwood’s video All-American Girl, because the lyrics remind him of Alaethia.

As I’m standing behind him everything hits me all at once:

♥ Alaethia’s so young. I feel like I’m cheating her out of her time with me. I feel incredibly guilty.
♥ I know nothing about what my insurance covers concerning prenatal care.
♥ How am I going to take care of a 2 year old and new born?
♥ I at least spent 6 whole months with Alaethia. I’m only getting about 3 months (counting summer) with the new baby.
♥ How will I work?! Mom can barely watch Alaethia, much less two!
♥ OMG. I’ve had at least 1 alcoholic drink a day for the past week!
♥ And then I feel guiltier. What if something bad happens to the new baby because I’m being so ungrateful for this blessing?

As the song starts to play and I hear the lyrics and start bawling. Uncontrollably. I can’t help it. Mario asks, “Why are you crying, Babe?” I tell him my feelings about Alaethia and the drinking and everything. Mary walks in and sees me crying and asks, “What happened!” Without missing a beat Mario raises his hands up and says, “I didn’t do it!”

I go back to Mary’s once I compose myself and start talking with everyone. Everyone’s already asking about who’ll Baptize the baby, what names are we thinking of, and what if we have twins! Or triplets!

Mario announces it on his Myspace that same night. I scold him, because now I have to tell the girls before they see it on his profile and I so wanted to tell them in person over dinner! I call Sally first, and of course she’s got nothing but encouraging words. Pete even calls later and congratulates us :). I message Karina and Carmen and tell them the news. Mayra and Ricci call me later during the week and are so excited and offering nothing but kind, encouraging words. Paul and Norma see Mario’s status and come over that same night with their kiddos to congratulate us. I text Maggie and she’s happy for us, too, and in just as much shock as I am!

I can hardly sleep that night. I tossed and turned like crazy. When I woke up the next day I was still in shock, but I told myself–like everyone else had been telling me–that everything happens for a reason and things would work out. Everyone else was happy for me, why couldn’t I be? A baby’s a blessing, no matter what time they decide to make an appearance in your life :).

Title courtesy of Mayra ;).

We woke up near noontime the Friday after we got back from San Antonio. It was perfect timing because Mario’s off on Fridays. We chilled out, sorted through our luggage (I gave him the cap and T-shirt we brought him–he loved them!), watched the end of Enchanted because the kids and I didn’t get to finish watching it the night before while on the way home and then Mom sent us to get chicken for the family. She and my in-laws were going to watch the kids while Mario and I went on a date.

We drove around in circles for what felt like forever and finally decided to try BJ’s Brewhouse, a new-ish restaurant. We were originally going to go to Chili’s, one of my faves, but we wanted to try something new so we went there.

It’s a gorgeous place; kind of an upscale sports bar. Mario falls in love immediately when he realizes they specialize in beer LOL. As I’m flipping through the menu I’m sort of freaking out…the prices are insane! Almost every dish is $20. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good meal, but man, that’s just a little exaggerated!

Mario gets his beer and I get a Strawberry Daiquiri. We decide to get a spinach and artichoke pizza. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. That pizza was SO WORTH the price!! I want some right now…

We picked Mario’s paycheck up after dinner and went to Walmart to cash it since all the banks were closed by then. We shopped around a bit and then I think we went home.

If I remember correctly I paid bills the next morning, went to see Gramma, and then Mom, the kiddos and I met Mario and his friend Manny (who was visiting) at Burger King for lunch. He told us all about his job; which he made sound peachy and all but I still wouldn’t be okay with Mario being away for so long. Mario was actually thinking for some time about going with Manny, but we talked about it and decided it wasn’t in the best interest of our family, regardless of how much money he’d be making.

I can’t remember much from Sunday. I think this is the day I decided to stay home and clean.

Monday (June 23rd) was spent lazying around most of the morning and then John took me to Kumori while Mom watched the kiddos. It was delicious as always. We joked around and enjoyed our food (neither of us had had sushi in quite a while) and then we went to the mall for a stroll. We were browsing around in Game Stop when mom called on my cell. She asks if we’re on our way yet–Alaethia’s been throwing up non-stop. Oh gosh. My poor baby. Her first encounter with vomit, ever. We weren’t sure if it was a stomach virus or if she’d caught Matthew’s Strep. One of the first symptoms he’d had was vomiting. We rush home as soon as I hang up with Mom.

I get home and sure enough, the unmistakable stench of vomit seems as though it’s penetrated the walls. Alaethia’s seems to be in good spirits, though. I get to washing everything, because Mom of course just tossed everything into a lovely, smelly pile. I’m gagging the whole time, because as I’ve mentioned tons of times on this site, vomit is not my forte as a parent.

I ask Mom if Alaethia puked on my sofas, because I notice the throw blanket that she loves to snuggle with was covered in puke. She says no. Once I’m done getting everything into the laundry I scoop Alaethia up in my arms and fall into the sofa with her. And just as we hit the sofa the nasty smell of vomit poofs up into the air. Alaethia had indeed vomited on most of the sofa but Mom didn’t want to tell me. She didn’t have to, I smelled it! It took tons of the cleaner they gave us at Furniture Row and about half a bottle of Febreeze to make the smell come out!

It’s later in the evening and Alaethia starts getting warm. Mary’s holding her while I administer the Motrin. She hated it but took it anyway. Mary’s still holding her while she, Mario and I are talking in the kitchen and Alaethia starts vomiting violently. I feel so bad for her; she’s so helpless and little and all the while Mary’s leaning her over the trash can, Alaethia’s desperately reaching for me. My poor girl.

I took her to the doctor the next morning and her Strep culture’s negative so it’s most likely a virus. They prescribed the usual: Pedialyte and Motrin and just wait it out. I don’t even get the Pedialyte at the pharmacy because they don’t have the non-flavored one (to mix with juice) and buying the flavored ones they do have is a waste of money. She never drinks them. So we give her Gatorade (which was hard enough to give her, much less the crackers and soup) and when she became really desperate, watered-down milk.

She didn’t throw up anymore but she had constant diarrhea. We’d never gone through so many diapers.

Mario gets home from work and we’re talking when Jaylen rushes to the bathroom because he’s got a tummy ache. Sure enough he missed the toilet by an inch and threw up all over the bathroom mat and anything in a three-foot radius. We get him cleaned up and into bed and put a wastebasket near his bed just in case. I disinfect everything with Lysol and throw out the rug completely.

As we’re getting into bed we hear Jaylen throwing up violently, again. We rush to his bedroom and once again he didn’t even have time to lean over towards the wastebasket; he threw up all over his Transformers comforter. We clean him up, roll everything up, throw it into the washer and get him new sheets. I’m trying to be extremely careful and try not to breathe in anything or touch anything without washing my hands. I spray everything down with Lysol again and as I’m changing the trash bag inside the wastebasket I see Mario leaning in to give Jaylen a kiss on the cheek. Uh oh.

I’ve got Eenan keeping himself separate from the other kids and it’s extremely hard for him since he wants to be with Alaethia all the time. Alaethia’s still got diarrhea but her appetite’s getting a little better. I feel so bad for Jaylen. He asks if he can play Game Cube and I say of course. I get him the controller and he props himself up and starts to play. I went into the room to check on him about 10 minutes later and he was asleep with the controller in his hands. Poor baby.

Mario calls around 12 noon and tells me he’s caught the bug; he’d already thrown up three times. He was on his way home.

He quarantined himself in our bedroom and I spent most of the day tending to my sickies and cleaning up. I don’t think I’d done more laundry or used up more Lysol and Clorox cleaning wipes in my life! Jaylen threw up at least 3 more times that day and he got diarrhea. I’d noticed that with this virus, once you got diarrhea the vomiting was over.

Mario’s such a big kid; if I went 10 minutes without checking on him, and if he was awake, he’d moan, “Ohhh…no one cares about me…” LOL

Mario’s week of vacation was supposed to start the next day, Thursday, but we laugh that he began half a day early. Certainly not the way he wanted to, though.

I kept wondering when the bug was going to hit me, since I was the one who’d had contact with everyone. I was sort of hoping that if I was going to get sick for the brunt of it to be that Wednesday and wear off for Thursday, because I had a dinner date with the girls and wasn’t going to miss it for the world. I don’t know how I dodged the bullet (obsessive hand-washing, perhaps?) but I didn’t get sick at all. Neither did Eenan.

Mario felt much better Thursday and so did Jaylen, thank goodness. Alaethia still had mild diarrhea but at least her appetite was back. Mario wouldn’t watch them alone, my mom and in-laws were there to help. So I left to meet the girls at night feeling okay; not as guilty as I thought I would.

My first stop before meeting the girls at Olive Garden was at Conn’s, where I would pay for a third of what I got Mario’s camera for. Turns out I had to re-sign and do the contract all over again since the guy who originally worked on my account wasn’t there anymore. So I couldn’t give them a payment on that day, or for another two weeks.

Karina was already at Olive Garden so we ordered our drinks (I got a Strawberry Mango margarita) and just had a good time chatting. Carmen got there next and then Sally did. We ordered our food and ate and had great conversation. It’s great getting together with them. It doesn’t happen often so when we do get a chance to meet up we’re bursting with stuff to talk about. Sometimes I feel like we don’t get to talk enough! There are only so many hours that a restaurant stays open, for example. Olive Garden closes at 10…we were still there at 10:30! Our waiters were nice and patient and even took photos for us.

I can’t stress enough how awesome it is to have these girls back in my life. And I’ve got Myspace to thank for it!