Mrs. CPA

The News at 9

Tonight's lead stories:

Snow!  Wait... freezing rain!!!  Wait...  Ice pellets!!!  OMG OMG OMG!  Bread, milk, and Liquor are sold out all over town.

American Idol has brought good publicity to Birmingham (not because we've had three Idols from here but...) because everyone said THANK YOU after getting their ass handed to them by Simon, Randy, and for one day only, Princess Percocet.

Possible Ice!  Falling from the sky!!!  Read our weather blog!

A guy tried to rob a Pizza Hut with a knife.  One of the employees thwarted his "stick" up by hitting him in the face with a box of frozen breadsticks.  Then they took his knife and ran him out of the store.  He used to work there. 

"I'm standing on the side of the highway in Cullman, even though nothing is happening.  Not one drop of precipitation has fallen.  It's more likely that I will get hit by an 18 wheeler than that an accumulating winter mix will actual fall from the sky here.  Back to you in the studio, Tracey."

I can't stand it anymore.  Mr. Cheeks couldn't either. 

Black socks with pjs? Check.
Mismatched pants and shirt? Check.
Drool? Snoring? Falling asleep while (mom's) watching TV and live commenting on American Idol? Check. 

Just like Daddy.

And just In case you didn't catch it - OMG!! Snow! Freezing Rain!!!  Sleet!!!  OMG!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!

Stop With the Introspection, Bitch, and Start Tellin' Some Jokes*

TP' s office has decided to form a team for Ruben Studdard's Scale Back Alabama.  Although the title of the movement leaves a lot to be desired, (alternate titles: Alabama Asses:Too Big; Ruben Really wants you to Loose Weight so Someone will write a story about him and possibly buy his album; Hey Alabama!  Stop eating all that Crap! None of which really have the catchiness of "Scale Back Alabama"), TP's office has formed a team of 8 to hopefully loose the highest percentage of weight in the state in the next 8 weeks.  If their team wins, they each get $1,000 ( Which TP plans on spending on a Wii.). For signing up, they got one of those pedometer things (isn't that what you call those contraptions you put on your belt to tell you how many steps you have taken in a day? Too lazy to Google it.)  TP dutifully attaches it to his belt every morning right next to his snap-back ID badge and off he goes.  He's also figured out that if you just shake it; it starts adding non-taken steps to the count.  Yea!  I have a husband who is so uncommitted to weight loss he will lie to his pedometer.

Anyway, this of course means I am on the Scale Back Alabama weight loss plan too.  I could have several paragraphs on the state of my ass and the amount of weight I need to loose.  Let me condense that for you:

blah, blah, blah, blah, broad side of a barn ass, blah, blah, no more beer, blah blah, stay away from the Taco Bell drive through, blah, blah, weight issues, blah, need to do better, blah, the end.

Anyway.  I've lost about 4 pounds since last week.  I gather TP has not lost that much from the dejected peering over his rapidly spreading belly at the scale in the morning.  (And he does it with all his clothes on.  Any self respecting woman could tell you that you always weigh with as little clothing as you possible can.  There was a woman at LA Wieghtloss who used to take off her pants and have the ladies hold up a sheet for her.  I at least took off my shoes.  Also a must, pee first before weighing.)  So we're working on it.  I'm mainly keeping up the slow but steady pace I have been and TP is saying things like, "You mean I have to eat good all day?"  Yes, dear, you do. 

*Do you have pop culture references in your family that no one ever gets?  This came from last season's Last Comic Standing when the comics preformed with a heckler in the crowd.  Roz (a very large black lady) was heckling another lady (a super spastic little white woman who liked to punctuate her jokes with a leg kick) and Roz's heckle was  "Stop kicking your leg, bitch, and tell some jokes."  And variations thereof.

We also like the Friends episode where Joey or Chandler is required to order food by saying "burger me" and I say things all the time like "tax return me" that no one gets.  And the one where Pheobe changes her name to Princess Consuela Bananahammock, and she doesn't know what BananaHammock means.  Paul Rudd as her newlywed husband, decides to change his name to "Crapbag."  I frequently get e-mails from TP signed Crapbag. 

My brother is the king of these obscure references, he and I share the secret language of Wayne's World, Elf, Adam Sandler's 1995 comedy album and Anchorman and could communicate entirely in non sequiturs from those sources.  I think that makes us sad. 

And since the aside has become almost as large as the post.  I'm going back to tax returning. 

Snapshots

You know those pictures you never take but really wanted to?  Like the one of the lady at the wedding with the 80's feather earring or the pregnant lady smoking and drinking at a concert?  Or the one of your baby when he wakes up at 11:30 and his Daddy goes and gets him and his hair is all fluttery and sticking up and his eyes are squinched tightly to keep out the light?  Or he's in the bathtub with his head thrown back giggling and that little bit of neck dirt peeking out and when his Toots says bye, he says bye back for the first time?   Or the way that face looks close to yours in the morning when he's just woken up?  Or when he discovers how a new toy works and how much fun it is to bang blocks together or open and close a cabinet door? 

In those fleeting, blink of an eye moments, I wish I had captured on film, I realize what it's going to be like to watch him grow, to see him graduate from Kindergarten, high school and college, the delight in his eyes when he sees his first bike, a new sibling, his prom date.  It all seems like it is an infinity of time away, but so close I can almost reach out and touch it. 

So those snapshots are in my heart, and my words here, where hopefully I can look back and capture the same feeling I felt when that first "bye" escaped his lips and he smiled like he had just won the bottle lottery.  And how years from now, vestiges of that little boy smile will shine when he introduces me to the person he's going to share his life with.  Or buys his first car.  Or sees his first child grin and giggle in the bathtub and say "bye" to me. 

Do it For Me, Pleeease?

Karen at Troll Baby has prominently posted her blogroll for everyone to peruse and click.  Find someone on my list below that you don't read already.  Someone that will be new to you, or someone you've clicked on before but not taken the time to really check out. 

Do some digging around.  Tell them who sent you.  Tell everyone about them on your own blog.  There are some great undiscovereds out there.   Someone that you might just happen across one day that rocks your world.  Come on, one more blog won't hurt ya. 

I'll post one (or two or ten) of my favorites one day later this week.

View from my Front Door

The fabulous Miss Vicki has requested front door views, and I'm always happy to jump on a bandwagon!

A family of squirrels live in the crack down the middle of the tree.  Lots of times, in the rain, you can see them poking their heads out, waiting until it's safe to come out and dig in my flowerbeds.  Also, TP needs to rake.  He may get around to that in about, oh, March.   We're going to have to cut the tree down this spring because the split could open up at any moment, and with the way the tree would fall, it would go right into the house.  I'll be putting an eviction notice out for the squirrels soon.  Maybe they can go and stay with this lady.  Can you ship squirrels through the mail? 

And just for kicks, here's someone peeking out the back door...

Oh my God

There was a little girl in one of the pre-op rooms next to Mr. Cheeks who was obviously having a hard time with what was about to happen to her.  I have no idea what that something was, but the whole time the nurse was in with us we heard intermittent, "Oh my God"'s coming from the next room.   There was no crying, no wails of terror or please No's, just, "Oh my God" like a mantra, in a little voice that snaked its way into our room.

While we were waiting for Mr. Cheeks to return in his tiny hospital gown, with new holes punched in his tiny eardrums, she was wheeled down the hall on a gurney.  The sides were up and the black bumper obscured all but her tiny 6 or 7 year old sock encased feet, and a small but heart felt, "Oh my God" escaped as she rode by.

Mr. Cheek's surgery went well.  He somehow knew that it was going to be an early day, and we woke up at 5 am on his own.  More proof that this child is some anomaly, this is what he looks like at 5:45 without any breakfast as we bundled him in the car:

I'm not sure there was a cuter baby in a hospital gown.  This must be why they state explicitly in the instructions that you will not be allowed to leave with the gown.  I almost stuffed it in our diaper bag, except it probably cost $154, and I bet insurance doesn't cover stolen hospital gowns.  (TP would be upset if I didn't share the fact that I tried to put the gown on backwards and said I thought it might be "kimono style, which he thought was hysterical.) 

I think the hospital bracelet makes him look like a tagged wild animal, but we had learned our lesson when we went for the inital appointment on Monday, and he managed to all but cut the circulation off in his hand trying to get the paper bracelet off.  I let a man who I have seen for a total of 19 mintues put my child to sleep and with a giant microscope and a micro scapel insert pieces of plastic in my child's head.  And I'm really ok with that.  Especially if it means fewer trips to the dumbasses at CVS.

He was the first patient on the slab that morning, so there was minimal waiting, and boy was he pissed when they brought him back.

 

  About 15 minutes later, we went home.  We shoved that ginormus head back in his pajamas and were gone.  TP barely had time to drink his second free Pepsi.

After a bottle, I figured it was time for a nap.  Oh, hell, who am I kidding, I was tired, and I thought I could talk him into laying down too.  But he was fully recovered.  Jumping in the bed, crawling all over me, patting on the headboard and general wiggliness had returned.  But I prevailed, and we slept for a few hours. 

Then we got up and he played all day.  Crawling, laughing, playing, banging, chasing the dogs and being a general busy body ALL DAY LONG.  And I wore my pajamas the whole time. 

Saturday work has started, and when I finally made it home at 2, TP and Mr. Cheeks were still in their PJ's and the house was a mild disaster area.  TP stood in the kitchen doorway, and said, "Is this how he was yesterday?  Because I could barely keep up."  And then the whole family retired to the bed for a long nap.  Dad, welcome to 10 month old-hood. 

 

Totally Tubular, Dude

So Fiday, Mr. Cheeks is getting tubes.  In his ears.  After being put to sleep with some gas. 

Hopefully, this will make his life a little better, although if he got any happier, he might pop.  We have to be there early in the morning and we'll be home by 9 or 10 o'clock with a baby that has two more little holes than when we left the house at the ass crack of dawn. 

Of course I'm taking my camera.

Update!!  We're home and everything went great!  Off to take a nap.

It's a Genetic Condition

Anyone who has read more than two entries here knows how klutzy I am.  I get it from my Dad.  In no particular order, he has broken his arm running away from a bee, broken his leg from falling in an empty swimming pool in the middle of the night, broken his ankle skiing (which involved a steel plate, screws and missing Disney World for him),  a numb side of one of his thumbs from trying to cut a piece of string with an ax, a dead front tooth from trying to break a stick with another stick, the list goes, on but those are some of the more spectacular ones. 

Since he loves to ski, when he found out his church's youth group needed a few chaperones for the annual ski trip he signed right up.  The closer the trip got, the more I would say, "Dad, please don't hurt yourself.  Please come back in one piece.  Please don't run into a tree."  In our family, any and all skiing calamities you have ever heard of are serious scenarios that could occur at any given moment to my father. 

On New Year's Eve, I picked up my phone on the way to church to call TP and tell him to get a phone charger, and I saw I had a text message from my Dad.  It said:

"2 broken ribs lung collapsed am ok talk 2 U Tuesday"

And I laughed, and responded:

"Hope U R kidding and that you bought me a surprise before you nearly killed yourself"

Then I realized that he might not be joking. 

He wasn't.

One of the guys in his group cut him off on a green slope on the way back to the condo.  Daddy thought this would be a good ski jump, or he couldn't get out of the way fast enough, and launched himself 10 feet through the air, and did indeed, break two ribs and collapse his lung. 

And then he rode home on a bus for 22 hours.

But he got Mr. Cheeks a really cute T-shirt.  And we have a nice picture of Dad on top of a mountain that was taken about and hour and a half before the incident.  He looks happy.  And I bet he goes back again. 

FINE. IT'S A POST.

Here, I'm posting, are you happy now?

I'm also eating Mexican cornbread.  Internets, next time I get the bright idea to make an entire pan of Mexican corn bread can you please talk some sense into me?  Because, damn, it's a lot of cornbread and I can eat the whole pan, which my scale does not like in the least. 

So, for New Years, TP, Mr. Cheeks and I went to visit my brother and his fiancee in Warner Robbins, Georgia.  As is typical of all road trips TP and I take, I have no idea how we got there because I slept the whole time and tried to keep from coughing my brains out my nose. 

You know how you get all worked up about something, like say, getting completely drunk while your child is being supervised by responsible people at a non party location?  Yeah, well, I was all pumped up to guzzle peach martinis and drag-ass home the next day, but I managed to have about 4 drinks, sit on the couch, and wake up without the slightest hit of a headache.  I know, there are starving children in Africa who don't even have parties and there I was not even appreciating what I had.  I had to use my nose spray and rest at 11.  Hold me back now!

John Davis and his fiancee (who is totally awesome and has no idea what she's getting herself in to), have a beautiful house and it was full of people and food (Including such exotic offerings as deer sausage and pickled shrimp).  There was quite a bit of drunkeness going on, including TP.  And being all grown up and responsible and stuff, people CALLED CABS when they needed to go home.  The cabs never showed up, and another non-drinking guy ended up being the taxi service but still - THEY CALLED CABS.  That's how I knew I was in Georgia.  In Alabama, everybody just pats each other on the back and there's some nervous laughter about being too drunk to drive and then everyone gets in their cars and somehow makes it home.  Like at my office Christmas party.  (I didn't do it this time, and probably won't ever again.  When Mr. Cheeks takes his mommy's drunk driving conviction transcript to show-and-tell, I'll never get invited to the good playgroups.) 

John Davis sent pictures of his excellent Christmas light arranging skills earlier in December.  Since he doesn't have a job, of course he lined the whole driveway, the flower beds and installed spotlights on the wreaths and landscape anchor points.  It was complete with zip ties holding the cords together and light spacing worthy of an LAX runway.  I quickly realized as I unpacked that I left the giant can of Mr. Cheeks' formula sitting on the counter at home, so I thought I would run to Winn-Dixie and get some.  "Don't run over the lights," JD called as I walked out the door.  I don't think I even have to tell you what I did, do I?

After I finished laughing about it, which was about the end of the subdivision, I called and told on myself.  I only managed to pull three or four more out of the ground before the night was over. 

And I only fell once.  I wasn't even drunk!  I swear! 

The part I'm glossing over here is that Mr. Cheeks spent his first night away from TP and I.  Jolie's sister, Nicole, offered to keep him while we partied down.  I couldn't even go over there to drop him off, so Tim and JD went.  The main reason I couldn't go was because I couldn't stand to hear TP give the "instructions" 286 times.  I could just picture the scene in my head, and that was enough. 

"Now, he likes to lay on his left side, but only if he rolls that way himself.  Do you mind if I borrow a measuring tape and measure the width of the slats on the crib?  What about CPR, can I see your valid certificates?   The cereal should be put into a clean bowl for measuring, he likes exactly 700 grams of oatmeal mixed with 300 grams of rice cereal..."

TP probably wrote his phone number down in 6 places, including Mr. Cheeks' butt.  You know, just in case a telephone number stealing racoon snuck in the house in the middle of the night and ate all the paper ones.

Mr. Cheeks went to bed at 10:30 and slept the whole night without so much as a peep.

We got up and drove home to a house full of appreciative dogs I have no idea what Atlanta even looked like.

And I get to see all of those drunken teachers in February at the wedding.  I hope they aren't planning on using Christmas lights in the ceremony.

 
I know, he's wearing snowman pajamas after December 31st.  *gasp* What a fashion don't.

I Seeeeeeeeeeeeee you!!

Hey you, it's national de-lurker week!  So peek out from behind that monitor and tell me who you are! 

I promise I'll come de-lurk at your house too.