For a Little While

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.