Weekend Update

The baby had the hiccups for the first time (that I've noticed) today. C & P had them all the time, but this baby is more still than even Gabriel was. She moves around so little and so seldom that it takes me by surprise when she does move much. I gasp with surprise now and then when she makes herself more comfortable. At the doctor last week, she seemed to be in the right position, so I hope she'll stay that way. Seems like a long time to stay in one position, though!

Yesterday the fog was amazing--on the way to church we could hardly see anything. David started getting phone calls about it at 5:30 in the morning. He said I kept hitting the bed with my foot every time he asked the operations person another question (I'm sure I just wanted it to be quiet again--my sleep is not the greatest lately between getting up in the night and heartburn). Later when we were discussing it, I remembered pounding the bed because I heard him say, "I've never heard of frozen fog", and I had just told him about it a day or two before.

Here's the picture before church
and here's how it looked when we came out!

Last night a kid at church told me, "When I have a baby, I'm going to call her Cymbaline!" (I'm guessing at the spelling.) Her mom told me she had a classmate named that. Hmmm... interesting. But not on my list.

People keep asking me about a name for the baby, but honestly, I haven't even had time to finish writing down my own short list from my book. I turned in the 3 baby name books that I had checked out from the library. One day when we were waiting for David in the car, Carmen & Gabe & I were all reading them at the same time and discussing names. I have to be careful what I say out loud because Carmen will run with just about any suggestion! She was telling people the baby was going to be named Maricela for a few days. (I like that one, Marisol--except that some Texans--not to name any names--would pronounce it like "aerosol", and I also like Maribel. But I don't like just "Mari", or "Maury", and the connotation that comes with that daytime t.v. host.)

David's family always asks about names and at Christmas they were telling stories about Irma's baby sister Evangelina in case we were interested in her for a namesake. David would consider Angelica (his mom's middle name and awfully close to mine), but what would we call her? Too close to my name. And he would consider Laura (my first name), but that is just too weird to me. I like it, but I've never used it, so it'd be weird to start now.

We watched a good movie recently on DVD and we always watch the credits, but this particular film, I guess because it was a foreign film, had lots of good names in the credits! (The movie was Joyeux Noel, the true story of a Christmas Eve truce on a battlefield during WW I.)
Oh, I also have to recommend Akeelah and the Bee which we watched for family movie night on Friday. Except for a couple of bad words, it was great, and following on our MLK day discussions, we paused the movie a few times to talk about how sometimes people act or think differently because of someone's skin color.

Gabriel resists watching anything unfamiliar--heaven forbid anything take the place of his beloved Cars--and we had to make him watch at the beginning. He kept asking, "Can I go play now?", but finally something caught his interest and he watched the rest with us, delighted.

Toward the end of the movie, Akeelah goes to Washington D.C. and he was thrilled to see shots of the places David sent postcards of two weeks ago.


"And those places are on MY MAP, Mommy!"--Gabe's postcard was a map of D.C. because he's always been interested in maps, just like his daddy--and honestly his mommy too.

Paloma saw the Washington Monument like her postcard, but David picked it for her because she still loves Goodnight Moon so much!

Why we hate Sprint

We have been trying to contact Sprint about our cell phone service for a long time. I've been waiting for our contract to end. My phone is so old, I can't download a ringtone, and although I can RECEIVE a text message, I can't tell who or what number it's from. And I cannot SEND a text message. And, one more thing, the battery is taped on with Scotch tape. Otherwise it will not stay on.

I used to love my phone. It used to be state-of-the-art. It's a palm pilot, too, so it holds my notes and calendar. I learned graffiti on this phone, I've bought extra styluses (styli), I used to sync it with my computer. There are things about my phone I still like: it has my numbers in it, and lots of notes and lists, and my first 50 text messages (though I can only guess whom most of them came from).

But my phone is so old, my students make jokes about it. (One time, when I took up a student's phone, I said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to read your messages." He joked, "I know, your phone is so old, you don't know how!" (Which is true--the students know that I can't even send a text message.) So that was funny, and we all laughed.

Last week I tried to log on to find out about when our contract would expire. I wasn't able to log on. The web site said they were upgrading their system. It didn't recognize my phone # or David's. We also added a third line in August '06 for David's parents, but that phone got dropped in the water many months ago and although it doesn't work, we've still been paying for it.

Today after trying the web site again from two different browsers (no dice), I called customer service, waited on the phone 10-15 mintues of elevator music and a really annoying message saying, "You can log on to sprint.com anytime--it's free, easy, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!" Well if this were true I wouldn't be on hold!

So I finally got a guy in person who kept saying, "Hold on while I wait for the system to find your information", and he tells us that we can't cancel the last line added since it hasn't worked in many months without paying to get out of the contract.

David said he specifically asked in the store when he got this phone, "Will this affect my contract?", and he was assured it would not, although it would be billed with our other phones. He was told by the Sprint (store) employees that it would not extend our contract when we added on the phone for his parents, and now Sprint wants $200 to get out of the contract before August '08 OR for $100, they'll give us another phone to finish out the contract.

Or, to get out of all of our Sprint contracts on the three phones, it'll be $600.

We first talked to Jason, then got passed to Sarah, and we keep asking (and waiting) for a supervisor. They all say the same thing. So far this phone call has lasted 46 minutes. Now David is talking to "Steven".

So now we're considering our options, including contacting the media, our hiring a lawyer (which of course would be more than $600--someone should go into that business), just not paying the bill anymore.

UPDATE:
David found a web site called consumerist.org with just the information we needed. We called again, this time recording the conversation on video, and boy was it worth it. We will not be charged the $600 when we cancel our contract!

Cell phones in class

I almost never write about work. It's not that interesting things don't happen there, but that I don't have or make time to write them down. This one, I had to write down.

While the students were supposed to be doing a quickwrite today, a student was texting under his desk (he sits in the front row because this has been a problem on many occasions). I asked him to bring me his phone; he took his sweet time in doing so, much to the amazement and entertainment of the class. He actually finished the text he was working on first. I was taking roll so I didn't get up to get it.

I put the phone next to my keyboard like usual when I take one up. (I took his up on 3 other occasions--2 on the same day when he gave me a dummy phone the first time!)

At the end of the period, he asked if he could have it back. I said no, this is the third time I've taken yours up. It's going to Ms. W. Talk to her about it.

He argued, saying, "She won't give it back. I've already had it taken up three times."

I said I was sorry he had made the decision to use it in class again.

He started toward my desk like he was going to grab it; I stepped in and picked it up, saying, "Let's take it to her now and talk about it."

(He had taken it from my keyboard drawer on at least one of the prior occasions. I did not intend to let him do so this time.)

He said, "I'm going to turn it off."

I said, "I'll do that."

He started to get upset and used the F word in a couple of ways: "F that!" "This is f-ing ridiculous!"

"I'm going to get my card out!" he said. And he tried to grab the phone out of my hand, at which point it broke into several pieces.

He left, and the few other students who were in the room marvelled at what they'd just witnessed.

A pain in the a*#!

I had never given much thought to this phrase. I just figured it meant any old pain, a bother or a nuisance of some sort.

But lately I have experienced a pain that has brought new meaning to the words! There is a reason people use it. Let me just tell you, it is no ordinary pain.

The good news is I don't have it all of the time, just when I overexert myself. That's what I get for gaining so much weight already. That, heartburn and snoring. Not that I'm complaining. This has been an easy pregnancy.

This from Wikipedia:
Sciatica may also be experienced in late pregnancy, primarily resulting from the uterus pressing on the sciatic nerve, and, secondarily, from the muscular tension and / or vertebral compression consequent to carrying the extra weight of the fetus, and the postural changes inherent to pregnancy.

My doctor said it can get worse; it can cause shooting pains down the leg, in which case she would put me on bed rest for two or three days. So I'm trying to behave myself. You know, exercise less, blog more. (o;

The after party

Allison had us over the night after Lauren's party to help eat some of the catered food that was left over.

Later, almost all of the adults were watching the playoff games and the rest of us were lounging around in Allison's family room when Zoe came in and said,
"Mama, open my pants!"
"Why?"
"Paloma's going to change my diaper!"
The whole room cracked up.
Apparently they had some sort of deal to change each other.
Scary, but true.

Lauren's Sweet Sixteen

Mom did an awesome job on Lala's cake, of course. I wish I had a good picture of Lauren from the party--she looked beautiful! But I didn't want to get in the way or cramp her style with her friends, so I never got a close-up.
Everybody was crazy to see baby Truett--only our second time to see him in person!
And he was feeling much better than last time we saw him! We're so glad about that.
The place was decorated in pink, and there was yummy pink punch with sherbert in it.
Lauren had mostly family and a handful of friends over to celebrate.

From this same vantage point, Gabriel told me, "Take a picture from here, Mom! You can see everything!"

Truett is surrounded and adored.
I nearly had a panic attack when I saw Gabriel carrying him!

This was the closest I saw Oliver and Paloma playing together, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture.
She was on to other things--namely playing with Zoe and tickling Truett.


Seeing Chrys & Mike reminds us of the days before we were outnumbered (though I'm not complaining, just remembering Gabi & Jano's joke: "When we had one, we had everything covered. When we had two, we were divided. With three, we were conquered!").
The group poses before we sang "Happy Birthday".
Maya and Zoe wanted to help blow out the candles.
Maya is funny about my taking her picture, but this one turned out cute anyway!
She also made faces for Devin's sister when she tried to take their picture on her cell phone.
Lauren's dad Brian and stepdad Bill seemed to enjoy each other's company, at least for a while.
Devin was in charge of ice cream; my mom told him to ask people "Homemade Vanilla or Vanilla Bean?" but he wouldn't, so he was in trouble.
Carmen participated in the cupcake theme too.
And here's my cousin Bethany looking beautiful, having her cake and eating it too.
Even most of the grownups had a good time.
All it takes to keep a certain group happy is something sweet.
Devin's little brother Drake was one of many who had a good time with Zoe's vaccuum cleaner.
Some of us hung around the food for quite a while.
And I had to take a picture when I noticed all of the teenaged girls were texting on the couch. This is acceptable party etiquette? I must be old. They were funny though.
Gabriel played ping pong in the garage with Carmen and Mason, but I didn't get to stay to take more pictures for some reason.
Maybe because I heard Lauren was opening her presents.
See? Oliver liked the vaccuum too.
And I had fun catching up with Chrys.
Truett must be teething! He had a hand in his mouth most of the night.

One of Lauren's friends brought her a copy of National Enquirer. I remember when my friends used to get a kick out of those in high school, too. Funny.
Paloma got a turn with Lala's big cupcake pillow,
and when she did this, we knew it was time to call it a night!
Happy Birthday Lauren! I can hardly believe you're 16.
We love you!

Happy Birthday, Martha!

We've been bad about making plans for birthdays on David's side of the family over the past couple of years. Sometimes it works out okay, but since we were having a big party for Lauren and David's side didn't know that, it didn't work out for Paloma & me to help celebrate Martha's. We had Carmen's basketball game that morning, got gifts together, ate lunch, and the next thing we knew David & the kids were running late to go to Lety's.
Anyway I'm sorry I couldn't be there.
We wish you a great year!

Welcome home, Daddy!

David came home waaay after the kids' bedtime but Gabriel really wanted him to see the poster he made, so he taped it on the wall at the top of the stairs.
This is the back side which shows the days Daddy was gone.
Of course Carmen also made a sign
and so did Paloma.