Days Lost

I can’t even find a place to begin–I’ve taken way too long to update.

I was too busy from the 12th to the 14th uploading old entries from 2004 & 2005 whenever I had the chance to get online, so I never updated my blog. Manually, one by one, I added the old entries. Which sucks. But anyway, I got a few months done (September 2004 to January 2005) and plan to get the rest of 2005 to 2006 done in the next few weeks. I’m even considering adding 2002-2004, but we’ll see. Sounds like a bit of a stretch LOL.

Wed. night, 11th – Mario was at Jorge’s and I was in a horrible mood. I felt better when I heard a knock on the door and my dad-in-law presented me with a squirmy, terrified Blue Spiny Lizard. He was at Ricky’s ranch and he found him in the sink outside. The boys named him Dragon :). He’s a beautiful shade of blue-ish/brown.

Anyway, the while stripe on Dragon’s collar and the white spots on his upper neck aren’t always there. He’s usually dark, but his spots/stripe turn white when he’s alarmed or frightened. Liz has definitely enjoyed his company. I thought she’d be territorial and kill him or something, but she’s actually very friendly with him and is even learning new things from him!

He loves to dig himself up in the sand and sleep that way. The first time I caught him doing that, my heart sank because I thought Liz killed him (and had the courtesy to bury him) or he died on me.

And here’s Liz learning the craft of obscuring oneself:

Pay no attention to the cricket carcasses and droppings…they had a feast that day.

So far Liz has learned to bury herself and jump on the ceiling of the tank. Dragon does that; jumps on the ceiling and sleeps there. Well, one day I found her hanging on the side of the tank. She didn’t quite make it on all fours up there, but her two front legs were clawed to the top. I took a picture, but it’s blurry so I won’t add it here. I think it’s really cute that Liz usually sleeps on top of Dragon :).

Thurs. Oct. 12th – I didn’t have to watch Matthew the next day, since Tommy’s taking care of him now. After I picked Jaylen & Brianna up from school I came to drop Brianna off with Mom and took Jaylen to his WIC appointment. We actually get WIC for him. I’m surprised, as it’s the only thing he qualifies for.

We get there, take a number and after 10 minutes of Jaylen playing with the (germ-infested) toys, they called us in. I found it strange from the beginning that they were asking to take my weight and height. I kept asking, “Isn’t this for my son, Jaylen?” and she kept assuring me that no, it wasn’t. She pricked my finger to check “my” iron and upon scanning my chart says, “You lost a lot of weight, right?” Stunned I tell her, “No? How much does it say I weigh?” She says, “186 pounds.” I laugh and say, “No. Are you sure that’s my chart? I’ve never weighed 186 lbs. in my life!” Again, she assures me that it is, and sends me to the next room.

The lady tells me, “Hi, Jaylen.” I nudge him and tell him to say hello. She gets a weird look on her face and asks me what I had to eat the day before. I had a bad feeling, so I tell her, “Are you sure this appointment’s for me? I thought this was for Jaylen?” She says, “It is. Aren’t you Jaylen?” I say, “No. I’m Yajaira, Jaylen’s MOM.” She gets really embarrassed and appologizes profusely and says she’ll get his chart. Apparently, they had mixed my number up (2) with another lady’s (21) and the only reason the second lady believed me was because she had Jaylen’s info on her desk for the appointment.

I look at my poor, throbbing finger and the lady notices and says, “Miss, I am SO sorry they poked you.” LOL The rest of the appointment went without a hitch, especially since Jaylen saved himself from a finger prick!

Kinda scary that something like that could happen. I kept thinking about how horrible it would have been had we been at the hospital or something. John and I were joking around saying I’d go in for something like a bad cold and come out with my leg amputated. Terrible joke, I know, but it’s a very possible scenario!

I think it was that afternoon that we got home and found Gerby-gerb (our Gerbil) dead :(. He was a little old man already, in gerbil years anyway, and had passed away. He’d already been with us for about 2 years, and they don’t have a very long lifespan so we figured it was old age. Jaylen cried of course and we all felt really bad (including my dad-in-law) since we had him for so long and he was the last rodent we had left :(.

Since it was during lunchtime and my dad-in-law was home, he helped us give him a little burial and even made him a little cross. I played basketball with Jaylen for a while to take his mind off Gerby and then we came in to do his homework.

Grimm, John’s cat, went missing two-or-so days before and we couldn’t find him anywhere. We all thought the worst and after not seeing him for two weeks now I can’t shake the feeling that something happened to him :(.

Fri. Oct. 13th – I dropped the kids off at school that morning, came back home, snuggled up with Mario and took a nap till around 11am. We needed to go to Weslaco to the radio station to pick up the Scream Factor X tickets I’d won, so Mario, John and I climbed in the truck and we picked up Jaylen and Brianna.

The drive was fine halfway over there and then it started pouring. We couldn’t see anything in front of us and everyone slowed down from 65 mph to around 40–it was that scary. We finally found the exit and found the station just as quickly. Thankfully we had an umbrella in the car so Mario and I got down. Got the tickets and ran (as carefully as possible) to the car.

The drive back home was just as terrifying. We counted 5 accidents on the way back, including one where a tan truck had spun around and was facing the wrong way–scary.

We stopped at Wal-Mart really quick before going back home, where Mario bought John a pre-paid Cingular cell phone as a surprise.

We had lunch at home, then picked up Eenan afterschool and went back to town. We came to JC Penny first to pay our bills, and I finally caved in and bought some much-needed bras. Granny bras. I made the mistake of checking my size online and ended up with a huge (and I mean huge) size. I felt so bad about myself. I unhappily grabbed four bras and we paid for them. $60. Bleh.

We got a few things we needed from Wal-Mart and then headed home. I’d gotten paid for my last week of babysitting and stored away $60 for Mario’s birthday. Woo!

While on the drive back home I started freaking out because I knew there was a reason we should have deposited money in the bank that afternoon. Mario said it was okay, I could do it in the morning. Still I had a nagging feeling, and after scrolling through my mental bill-checklist, I realized I needed to deposit to pay for our Capital One credit card. I didn’t get to deposit and send the payment out till the next day of course, so we got charged a whopping $60 extra! I hate credit cards! I hate how “in the hole” we are right now. We never even wanted credit cards and look what happens…we can’t even get that darn Capital One card paid off because of all their ridiculous fees (and I’m not just talking about how I screwed up, either).

Sat. Oct. 14th I spent the next morning paying two more bills: Home Depot and Target. We went home and I can’t remember much now, but I think I just cleaned and we just chilled out the rest of the day.

Sun. Oct. 15th The next evening we left home about 3 hours before we needed to be in line at the Scream Factor X Haunted House. We’d never been there, but from what I’d read and heard, we needed to be there pretty early if we didn’t feel like waiting in line for hours.

We took the kids to Burger King for some dinner. After we all ate, they played in the Play Park or whatever it’s called, for about 10 minutes and then we left. We gave the kids a pep talk about how it was Family Night at the haunted house, but if they felt scared by any characters at any time, then they could yell, “Monster Be Good!” and the monster would behave itself. They loved this idea.

We get to the haunted house in McAllen, which used to be a hotel called the Rio Hotel. There were already 20 people in line. The kids were antsy and thirsty and hell, I was thristy, but I never better than to drink an ounce of water because there were no bathrooms in sight. We stood in line for about an hour; it was hell only because of the three loud and hyper little teenage girls behind us. Then I hear the Scream Factor guys telling a woman there were 7 to a group. I counted and it just so happened we’d go in with the girls. Grr. I thought, ‘Great, they’re going to scream so much they’re going to scare my boys!’

Another annoyance was a lady who was from Mexico and said she just had to have her daughters cut in line with their friends because they needed to leave back home soon. Everyone in line was livid, so the guy didn’t let them go through. It’s clearly stated in the rules that no cutting is allowed or you’d go to the very end of the line. They just waited on the sidelines. I was pissed to find out though, that they somehow slithered their way through and got in because we were leaving right after they were!

Thankfully, by the time we went in something happened at the front and there were 3 kids, two girls and a guy, waiting. They let us through with them, but they were still a little loud. We went in to the dark, smokey room while they told us the rules. I went first, with Jaylen pressed up in front of me and Mario was behind us with Eenan pressed up against him. We round the corner and one of the girls, the last of her bunch, yells and steps on Jaylen’s foot. I yell, “Hey, watch it!” and push her (along with her friends) a few feet, where they thankfully stayed the rest of the tour.

The kids did so much better than I thought they would. There were no tears, and minimal screaming. They loved that they could tell the monsters to behave, and used it to their advatage–they wouldn’t even let the monsters growl or anything before yelling, “Monster, be good!” At one point Eenan yelled, “Monsterbegood!” over and over again because it was so dark. We went down these creaky old stairs that led us outside, where girls that were working there complimented the kids. She said they were the youngest they’d seen all year that had actually made it that far.

We went in through another door where they led us to a creaky, old elevator. It wasn’t a smooth ride at all! It kind of jerked from side to side as it went down. The kids loved it, though.

We went through a few more dark, cobwebby isles, down some with strobe lights, and finally, at the end, we went through a long, cylindrical tunnel with tiny light bulbs and black light that spun around while the ladder we walked on moved in the opposite direction. Same one they have at Ripley’s Believe it or Not in San Antonio! It feels totally weird; like you can’t keep your balance and are falling right off of it. The guy noticed I was pregnant when I was halfway through the tunnel with Jaylen and asked, “Ma’am? Do you need help? I can help!” But we were good. It was a fun night :). Mario went to Jorge’s after he dropped us off at home. I could have cared less since they Desperate Housewives was on and my feet were killing me!

Wed. Oct. 18th I don’t remember much from Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday I went to the groceries with Mom and Jaylen, before we picked Eenan up from school. This was also the day that Jaylen decided to dress himself in this lovely number:

I actually let him stay in it before he threw a fit. Thankfully, he at least agreed to remove his beanie before we entered the store LOL.

When we’re back at home and I’m putting groceries away, John knocks frantically on the door and barges in. He’s got a look of terror on his face and he says, “Something’s wrong with Wookie!” I’m confused, since we hadn’t seen Wookie in days but I follow him anyway. Sure enough, there’s his beloved Wookie, and she looks in really bad shape. It pains me to remember the details; she looked so ill.

If you have a weak stomach, please skip this paragraph.
She couldn’t walk. One of her legs was literally dangling as she tried to take steps. There was a horrible smell coming from her belly and when John checked to see why, he said she had green stuff, green gooey stuff spewing out of her and there were little while worms slithering all over her belly. I worked up all the courage to check for myself; I thought he was seeing things. But no, he was right. The worms weren’t exactly maggots; they were too small. But they were clearly there and we didn’t know why. Part of her tail was missing, too. Her breathing was labored and we just decided that she was suffering. Who knew where she was the few days she was missing and just what the hell happened to her? We decided she needed to be euthanized, but we had no idea how to go about it. John was in tears and could barely look at her. With Mary’s and Elda’s suggestions, we decided to give her some sleeping pills, to at least help her die a bit peacefully, albeit slowly. She passed away the next morning when John had already left to work and I was out (can’t remember where at the moment…grr). My dad-in-law was home, thankfully, and did us the favor of burying her by the time we got home. He was really upset about it, too, since he knew we’d been looking for her and her brother, Grimm. I’m afraid to know what happened to him. I don’t even want to say it but…I think the same thing may have happened to him, but he didn’t find his way home :*(.

I think this is all that happened throughout those days. I’ve taken way too long to publish this. It was collecting dust in my drafts =X. (Finally posted on Nov. 21st, 2006)