Mrs. CPA

Asked and Answered

Caution: Skip ahead if you do not like anthing remotely related to the whole mommy blogger business.

Miss Zoot went to Blogher and came back with the following questions to be answered at your leisure. You can do them on your own blog, you can do them in the comments, you can do them in Zoot's comments, wherever.

1. Do your kids know about your blog? If they're too young to know, do you plan to keep it open to them as they get older?

My child is too young at 4 months to check it out. I'm sure he wonders what mommy is doing instead of playing with him. I don't think I'll make him wear a Mrs. CPA shirt to 1st grade, but I'm not going to hide it from him.

2a. If so - do you worry they may get embarrassed later? What would you do if they asked you to stop writing about them? What would you do if they wanted you to take it down all together?

I don't really put that much embarrassing stuff about Mr. Cheeks, I don't think. It's more embarrassing stuff about me then anyone else. Since he will be raised in our house and hopefully have the same sense of humor as his parents, I don't think he will think I am being too risqué. When he is a teenager, I'm not sure I will still be blogging. Blogging for 10+ years? That's a long time. If he didn't like me talking about him, I would probably censor myself some, but not take it down. Mom's are going to talk about their kids. I would either talk about his staying out late and bad attitude to real live people or online.

3. Do you think our kids will appreciate the archive of their childhood? Do you wish your parents had done the same?

I have a baby book , but it's not of my entire childhood. I'm not sure I would have wanted them to record some of the things that happened. (See: vacation entry) I'm sure there were lots of funny/cute things that I did that are lost forever that I would like to know about. Like when my Mom found me closed up in the bathroom with the unlit gas heater on and I told her I was, "Going to meet Jesus." You can't put that in a baby book, but I can see that as a blog entry.

4. Do you go back and re-read your past parenting milestones? Do you realize you forgot a lot?

I haven't been recording them long enough to really forget yet. I do like looking back at the pictures especially, since it's hard to remember him that small.

5. What about your children's friends/teachers/moms-of-friends? What if they found your blog? Do you tell your child not to tell anyone about it or are they free to talk about it? Do you worry their teachers or other parents will think it's weird?

I tell my friends about my Flickr page so they can go and look at the pictures I have taken of their kids at parties and get together. Everyone seems to really like it since it's centrally located and they can download and print the pictures that they like. I have had one mom come over to my blog from there. She is not a regular reader, but she does visit and catch up monthly. I wouldn't talk about any of the other mom's openly for them to be mad about anything. If they didn't want their child's picture on Flickr for the world to see, I would mark it private and make them be a friend to see it, if they wanted to. I am past caring about the "weird factor." Maybe when Mr. Cheeks is school age, it will be more common. People do lots of weird things, this one just happens to be listed on Technorati. I'm not posting naked pictures of myself and saying, "I'm Bob's mother!!! He's in Mrs. Simpson's class at Crestline Elementary!!!"

Whiskey River

On Wednesday night, TP and I went to see Willie Nelson and John Fogerty at the Verizon Wireless Music Center.

One of my bosses sent out an e-mail asking if anyone wanted some tickets, as he had a client that had some free ones. If nothing else, I'm all about the free shit. After a "can you babysit" call to Toots (my mother), we were in business.

When the tickets were delivered, we had a VIP parking pass and "VIP" was printed on the tickets. Hell, Yeah. We went to see Alan Jackson one time as a VIP. It means you get to go in a special entrance, eat free hamburgers and hot dogs and you have your own bar. Where you CAN RUN A TAB. If a concert has a bar where you can get booze and pay for it later? That's my idea of heaven. Also, there are separate VIP bathrooms. With real soap and paper towels and no drunken concert fan pee on the seat.

We got there about 7:20, and I stood in line for food while TP stood in line for drinks. The VIP bar has closed circuit televisions, and it appeared that Willie Nelson had already started his show. I know he's old and all, but this is not the time for an early bird special. He was already twenty minutes into his show by the time we got to our seats. Which were the worst seats ever (but FREE!)

We were in the third section and somehow managed the craptacular combination of being right behind the sound tent with a large metal pole blocking my view of whoever was singing and being in the drunken student section. We could hear fine and see the action on the big screens. (Did I mention the tickets were free?)

The mix of fans that attended the concert was truly odd. There were frat boys and their cutie girlfriends, there were cowboys, there were young people, old people, hippies, men in their Regions Bank business casual, shaved heads, dreadlocks, just about one of everything.

There were people sitting in our seats, but obviously we were in the not full/crappy section so we didn't fight over them, we sat in row below. People were moving all over the place anyway. This is probably the last venue on earth were you can (legally) smoke in your seat. People just lit up wherever they were.

I'm not sure I understand the allure of paying $35+ for a ticket and then buying enough $8 beer to get shit-faced drunk. You can stay at home and put on Willie Nelson/John Fogerty CD 's and drink a six pack for about ten bucks. It must be the atmosphere. Well, maybe not, it's Alabama in the summer time. It's an inferno, but with extra burst of moisture in the air to make it sticky.

The fratboys were having some very expensive fun. It included dancing in the aisles and taking off shirts and smoking a lot and yelling. The girlfriends were in an equally drunken state, wearing their boyfriends' trucker caps and wiggling in their city shorts. Not to be outdone, I think TP drank about $30 worth of beer. I hope it was good. Because it was my money he was spending.

I guess I haven't been to a concert since picture phones became de'riguer. Instead of a sea of cigarette lighters, it's a sea of phone displays as people try and take a picture of a dark stage to send to all their friends.

I was yawning at 9:30 and the kids were just getting started. Since they were all drinking, there could only be seven years separating us, at most. I don't remember acting like that at 22 or 23, but I'm sure I did. It seems like such along time ago. I think I got all that foolishness out of my system a little earlier than 22. I already lived in Alabama with TP at that point in my life. I was 400 miles away from most of my family and in charge of my 16 year old sister. I've been old for a long time, I guess.

Oh, yeah. Both singers were really good. I was really there to see Willie. His son was on stage with him playing the g-tar and they both looked like they were having a lot of fun. Willie sang all his famous stuff. I realized that's he not that great of a singer though. But who cares? It's classic music. Who doesn't know the words to "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys"?

John Fogerty sang lots of CCR hits, but he made the mistake of having a video/music montage as an intro. People started getting antsy, especially after the 45 minutes it took to get the stage ready. And then the end was Bill Clinton introducing him. In the big red state of Alabama, people don't think too kindly of the ex Pres. Some people actually booed. I don't think anyone held it against him. Everyone seemed really pumped up when he came out (read: drunk) and the drinking/smoking/dancing resumed.

Willie came out and sang "Born on the Bayou" with John. About 20 minutes later, we saw his tour busses pulling out of the parking lot. Early bird special indeed. He was probably going to smoke some pot. I wonder if his son lights up with ol' Dad? Speaking of which, I really expected more in the pot department by the fans. I only caught one whiff and it was quickly carried away.

At 10:30, during a rendition of "Heard it Through the Grapevine" (I really do not like that song. As a child of the 80's all I can think of are those stupid raisin singers. Ugh.) we decided to pack it up and head on home.

It was a nice night out. Although expensive. Between the drinks, and the pizza payment for babysitting to Toots, we dropped about seventy bucks. And that's with free tickets and parking. No wonder people don't go out. Jesus. And the dragging yourself out of bed the next morning when all you really want to do is sleep 'til 10. I'm old. Kill me now.

UPDATED FOR MY CRAPPY MEMORY: What is it with the pregnant drinking? There was an obviously 6-7 month pregnant woman walking with her husband with a half drunk(drank,drinked,??)YARD OF BEER IN A GUITAR. Yes, peaple, you can buy a yard of beer at the Verizon Wireless Music Center. In the shape of a guitar. I hope she a least is going to save the empty $12 plastic hops smellin' thing for her child to have juice out of in the future. Do that shit at home, please.

Tattoo You

Mamarazzi has snarked them. A commenter requested more information. Izzy has one. Wood over at Sweet Juniper does too. I've been called tacky for having one.

Since there is much speculation about the whole tattoo business and what it is like, I will try and explain in more vivid terms than, "it hurts." And I have pictures!

I got my first tattoo in Colorado when my family and I were there skiing on spring break in 1997. My mother doesn't ski, so while we were out on the slopes, she ran around town checking everything out. One of the places she scoped out was the local tattoo parlor. I had been talking about getting a tattoo for several years and had even made an attempt to get one in Florida a few years prior.

So mom found the tattoo shop. She went in a chatted with the owners, a man and a woman, who had been together for a long time and had a couple of elementary school aged children. Mom really liked them and decided that if I was going to do the tattoo thing, at least it would be someplace she felt comfortable.

After we made it back from the slopes, she told us about her adventure and said we could go back the next day. So we did. There was some discussion about my Mom and Dad both getting one, but my brother* said he would never speak to them again, and my sister** started crying. I guess they didn't care about me. They already thought I was a heathen.

My brother wouldn't even GO IN THE PLACE and my sister had my Dad hold her the entire time as if merely touching the floor would start a vine of ink up her leg and she would slowly be colored in like a human paint by numbers.

I had an idea of what I wanted, but it wasn't on any of their style sheets on the wall, so the guy drew a five-petaled flower for me on a piece of paper for approval and then on to my ankle.

Now it was time for the ink part. I was getting sort of scared at this point. Normally when a nurse sticks me to have blood drawn I cry. The lady was going to do the inking in part. She explained that the black outline would be the most painful part, as it was only one needle. The larger parts could be done with a brush type needle and it would be less painful. She got busy.

Maybe it's the passage of time, but I don't remember it hurting that much. The first few strokes of the black outline were unpleasant, but I didn't cry. It's not deep enough to make you think of a needle or sharp object piercing you skin. When you get to the filling in part, your skin is kind of numb anyway and it's pretty neat to watch. It didn't take more than an 45 minutes to do.

A friend of mine, Jay, had come along with us on the trip and he decided that he wanted a tattoo on his upper arm of the Double Dragon logo (which I can't seem to find a picture of.) It was a circle of yellow fading to red with a black silhouetted dragon in the center. We had to go and find a video game book for an example.

The next day we were leaving. The whole family trekked back to the tattoo parlor and Jay showed the artists his book and they transferred it to his arm and filled it in. This was probably not a good idea. Now the poor man is stuck with a fairly good representation of mid-90's pop culture icon on his arm. My only advice is get something timeless. This means no cartoons, or logos unless it's something that you are sure you will love forever. My sister ventured out a little from my father's arms, but my brother stayed in the car the entire 3 hours it took to tattoo Jay.

Now my dad has 5 or 6 tattoos and my mom has one. I eventually got another one when I went with a college friend to do some research for a speech project. Just walking in to the tattoo parlor made be whip out my checkbook and search for something to ink my body with. Unfortunately the rose I had applied was decimated by a stretchmark when I was pregnant. I don't think that one will be seeing the light of day ever again.

I try and stay out of tattoo parlors now. I think if I go in, I will be powerless to resist the draw of the buzzing needles and the colorful body art all over the walls. I again my whip out my debit card and try and find something to spend my money on.

*My brother was sure that tattoo=evil person, going straight to hell. When he found out that my dad finally got one on his chest, he went berserk and quit speaking to him over Thanksgiving. Now my brother has 4 tattoos, one of which takes up his ENTIRE BACK in a geometric design he drew himself. Ha!

** My sister is the only one in the family that doesn't have a tattoo, but she has two illegitimate children, so I guess she showed us, huh?

Not a Post from Work

I'm not posting anything while I'm at work today. I must do some WORK. Or I am going to get FIRED. And then who will pay for the Internets connection at my house?? Huh?? Who??

Anyway, I have a post in reserve, but my brain is not quite ready to unleash it since I think it may make me sound braggy and/or crazy. And a post about tattoos since EVERYONE seems to be interested and talking about them. And I will have pictures! Of my first tattoo and the application of aforementioned tattoo! And I have been working on my fabulous BlogHer vacation contest entry thingy. Which I will also post here for your reading pleasure. But I can't do it right now, because I have to WORK. (Can you tell I'm totally trying to convince myself here?)

Anyway, I leave you with Monday Morning E-mail exchange:

Worker Person:

Vomit – 10

Car seat – 0

Evenflo seat loses major points for not being easy to clean….

Me: Gross. Will keep that in mind when purchasing new seat.

BTW, Penny’s at century plaza is closing, so they are having a super clearance sale. I got Mr. Cheeks some things for next season pretty cheap.

WP: By the time I would find time to get out there, I’m sure it would all be gone…:(

Maybe in my next life, my husband will have a job with better hours.

Me:In my next life I am not getting married. I’m just going to sleep around.

Aaaaaaaaaand, that's a wrap.

So go over at look at Book-Swap and pick out something you want to read. And spend that extra time putting your books in a box and mailing them to me.

Watch out, I'm in rare form today...

It's time to get Cereal, Cereal I wanna eat cereal, lets get into rice cereal, Let me hear your raspberries blow, I don't know if I like this, but feed me some more.

(to the tune of Let's get Physical)

Since we never seem to do anything anymore other than watch shitty rockstar singers and baby stuff, it's time for the obligatory, "I'm all important, my kid ate cereal yesterday play-by-play."

Instead of just blathering on and on about it, (OMG, and then? He spit some out. And then? He didn't spit out the next bite. And then? I put some more on the spoon. Etc.) I'll just post the pictures, captions and you can draw your own conclusions.

Preparing for takeoff. And yeah, I mixed his cereal up with the Smirnoff*. I thought it would add to the sleep inducing properties. And some raspberry flavoring!

"Stupid ass dogs always in my business. Step off bitch! And the little dog too."

I think the is the start of a long, mutually beneficial relationship. Mr. Cheeks eats, the dogs clean up. Everybody wins! (Especially my lazy ass self who doesn't want to clean the floor.)

"I don't really know what to make of this stuff. It's sort of like that stuff they put in my bottle, but with floaty crap. Hey! Who let my milk go bad?!!"

"I don't want the red spoon! I want the green spoon! And the orange bowl! Pay attention to me! This tastes funny. Is there any pizza crust left in that box on the table? Give it to me, I wanna check."

*****Doctor's Report*****

We spent 14 bazillion hours there. I could barely remember my name as I clawed my way to the door. 17.8 lbs, 26 inches long, and a 17 inch head. All 90th percentile. I'm still hoping for the standardized test percentile/growth chart percentile correlation. Also, ears look better.

There was a husband and wife who came in with their set of boy/girl twins who were probably younger than Mr. Cheeks (he could have total kicked both their asses). Anyway, the mother kept speaking French to them. But she would speak English to the Dad. In a Southern accent. Not French. Hey, I'm all for teaching your kids to be bi-lingual, but stop showing off in the well baby waiting room. And why would you want to teach them French? Why not Spanish so they can go to Lorna Road and hire day workers?

*Before someone sends me a crazy e-mail or calls Alabama DHS, I used formula. Really. Formula. And don't give me any crap because it's not breastmilk. Cause I'll pull out the surgery pictures.

Discoveries

I discovered two fabulous new bloggers this morning thanks to CPA Mom (CPA's unite!)

Hollow Squirrel

and

Elleoz

All three are fabulous. Hurry, go and visit them.

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

It's raise time at the ol' CPA firm. July 15th is when the raises become effective. It's always exciting to open that paycheck and see what the results are. So, in honor of my spectacular review and raise, I decided to go and spend some of it on myself.

Toenail painting:

Also, lunch:

And dear Jesus, 50 damn dollars of gas:

Diapers and formula were next on the list.

My life is so exciting. Three years ago, I bought a new car with my raise. Last year, I think we went out and had a lot of food and entirely too much to drink. This year I bought formula at Sam's Club. And spent a combined 3 hours in the doctor's office and CVS for earache and the associated medicine (Which, by the way, Mr. Cheeks is allergic! to! Penicillin! Hooray! Now we have something different. That cost us $86.)

This peanut is totally worth it though:

Go Hogs Go!

Firsts

Mr. Cheeks has his first ear infection. In both ears. And he hasn't complained a bit. No crying, no fussiness, no rubbing ears, no nothing. The only reason why I took him to the Doctor was because I caught him wheezing today. The Doctor made me hold him down and he peeked in his ears and even had to use the scraper o-ring thingy in one ear. Not a peep. Just some wiggling. I have the perfect child. (You can send your congratulations in the form of Paypal donations.) Forty minutes in the CVS line later, we have our very own bottle of pink antibiotics administered for the next ten days! (OMG he weighs 17.4 lbs. I'm dooooooomed.)

I just told my husband that I would like to watch two shows on the SciFi channel. Eureka and Dead like Me. Both may turn out to be completely dorky, but I have NEVER watched a show on this channel voluntarily.

A lady at the Doctor's office told her daughter I was tacky because I have a tattoo. This woman was sitting RIGHT BESIDE ME. She told her daughter that "tattoos are tacky," and that she would never tell her that is was O.K. to get a tattoo, and that she didn't know any tattoo artists because she "didn't approve." I certainly didn't say, "Hey, Mr. Cheeks, I promise that I will never wear a skirt as tacky as that woman over there." I kept my mouth shut. (Just in case you are wondering, it's not the mouth keeping shut that is a first; it is being called tacky to my face that is new.)

I have to talk about what I did with my raise soon, too. Right now? I think I'm mildly drunk, and I need a brownie.

Happy Friday night!

Therapy

This is after he spit up all over the comforter and we had to find a new quilt for his snotty nose/gunky stomach self (the baby, not the dog).

Someday, my child is going to need therapy. I know it. I have accepted it. And when he goes to that very first appointment, the doctor is going to ask him what he is there for. And I can almost guarantee that it will not be the usual suspects - "My mother won't let go", "my father embarrassed me in 2nd grade and I never got over it" - oh no, it will be, "I slept next to the dog's butt too much as a child."

Voxiness

I have two invites to Vox if anyone wants them, let me know.

I think I'm going to use my space over there to talk about books, TV and occasionally music. But probably not movies. Since I will probably not ever get to sit in a theater again without it being a cartoon. And really, who want to hear about a DVD that everyone else has already seen in the theaters? And if I do get to go? It will be a Mrs. CPA worthy red letter day post, not entertainment.