Mrs. CPA

Given the Choice

Between editing a riviting post about what I've been up to in the past month or taking a bath and reading a book to Hudson and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

I chose the latter.

But I'm not out of the game yet!

Accchhhooo!

Excuse me. It must be all the dust on this blog making me sneeze.

To tell you the truth, I don't know what happened. I have no excuses. I'm sorry.

I do have some cute children.

It's NaBloPoMo month, and I'll continue my three year posting streak this year. I can almost guarantee that my quality will deteriorate as the month wanes, but I'll make up for it in quantity, by golly. 

Maddie is One

One year ago on September 10, we had this tiny little girl...

And now we have this giant walking, talking (sort of) full of life big girl. I can't remember our lives without her.

Acknowledgements

I need to acknowledge a neat surprise that showed up on my doorstep several days weeks over a month ago. Ebeanstalk sent out a number of baby toys and toys for 1 year olds to toy experts (like me!) for review. This helps ebeanstalk select great learning toys. They sent Maddie a shape puzzle from Melissa & Doug who make lots of wooden toys. We are big fans of Melissa & Doug at our house so this puzzle will be well loved for many years if previous Melissa and Doug products are any indication. Ebeanstalk has a great concept of having all of their toys reviewed by experts who pick what age they are perfect for and their website is easy to use to get a great toy. Everything in the 1 year old group is something I think Maddie would love to play with.

As you can see, Maddie really enjoys playing with the puzzle. If Hudson gets it out, as soon as she notices it on the floor, she's pushing him out of the way to get to it. All five pieces have knobs that won't impale your feet if you step on them in the middle of the night. I think that also means they're easy for little hands to grab, but my feet are also appreciative.  The puzzle is house shaped with five shapes. The color of the piece is on the back of the puzzle so it also helps kids match up the colors. Our sun, while a circle, will only go in if it has the words at the top, but all of the other pieces fit any way in their holes without any trouble. It's bright colorful and fun. I don't think I could ask for anything else in a puzzle. 

That's her "Stop interrupting my puzzle playing time with your dumb camera, Momma!" face.

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If you haven't noticed (or if you don't really care, just comment on my cute baby), I'm not really doing any reviews anymore at Want to Know What I Think. I've run out of time to do basically everything, including blogging. So this will be the last and only review that I'll be subjecting you to. Maddie turned one, so I'm going to be talking about that next time. Which won't be a month away or anything. Pinky Swear.

Some Children Went Bowling for Labor Day

 

 

And an almost 1 year old stayed home and played with her nunchucks.

 

And we also let them jump from tables into a big pile of pillows.

 

And they played Batman Castle in the bathtub.

 

 

And loved on our Toots.

Third Grade

I had Mrs Biggs. People always asked who I wanted to be my teacher. My mom was a third grade teacher that year, so I would always say her.

This was the year that I read the most books (25) in the whole school for a read a thon and won a set of encyclopedias for the library. I have a medal somewhere I think. My favorite book that I read was one about a girl who goes out to visit her Aunt and Uncle in California. Before she leaves her mother buys her a pink raincoat. She won't wear it. She eats an olive off the tree thinking it's already pickled. She meets a boy and when she gets home she decides she can wear the raincoat instead of the yellow slicker she's always worn. The cover was pink library hard back and I read it twice. I also read every Nancy Drew book in the public library.

Mrs. Biggs bought us playdough to play with on rainy days. We traded colors and horded little balls of brown, sky blue, pink, and other colors we mixed up together.

Holly May had a shirt that said "this human bean needs love" with beaded fringe on it. I wanted one of those so bad.

The girl who sat next to me was a Jehovah's Witness. She always had to sit out during the pledge and never got to stay for parties. We both loved Randy Travis. She had a shirt that had a silhouette of two people on a swing and "Just a Swingin'" on it. I wanted done of those too.

Mrs. Biggs used to let me read to the class and hand out papers after she graded them. I loved it when people didn't put thier names onthe papers, and I could ask who they belonged to.

One time we had a substitute, and she told my mother that she didn't know how Mrs Biggs got anything done without me. My mother told me this meant I was being too helpful. Third graders can't be too helpful. Can they?

My mother's classroom was right across the hall from me. She had some teal Reebok's. She also had some rubber cement in her drawer that I was fascinated with. A girl and I went in her room for something and I guess I didn't put the top on tight enough and it accidentally spilled. I got in big trouble.

Shane Sims brought puppies in for show and tell one day. One time he brought a machete.

One lunch recess, I filled up my lunchbox with bees I had gently stepped on and captured.

I got some new shorts and t-shirts. The shorts had suspenders I think. On pair was blue and one was pink. I wanted to wear those SO BADLY that I would ask mom every day if it was be warm enough to wear them. One day she finally said by mistake that the weather was going to be warm . It was about 50 degrees that day. I froze my ass off. (Do you remember this Mom? I think they came from K-Mart and I had to borrow a coat.)

Mrs Biggs demonstrated what happens when you eat using some green beans from the cafeteria, some clear tubing and a plastic baggie. It was sort of awesome.

I found the most eggs at the Easter Egg  Hunt at the Easter party. For the first and only time. Someone followed me around hoping, I guess, that some would fall out of my basket and they could run off with them? I don't know. I won a chocolate bunny.

There was a honeysuckle vine growing on the fence in front of where we parked out car. That is still my favorite scent in the entire world.

Second Grade

My teacher was Mrs. Doss. We also had a student teacher that year. Annie Florieannie (I have no idea how that is really spelled. At least she'll never google herself and end up here.)

I borrowed and read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Then Mrs. Doss read it to the class aloud in little bits and pieces. On the way to music or PE, kids would beg me to tell them what happened next.

My mother says I tested at the High School reading comprehension level that year.

My long term hatred of spelling words became evident.

I don't know who dared me to draw a dirty picture, but I did. Then I tore it up and that person told on me. I lied my ass off. I know she knew I was lying. But my story about making a belt was pretty quick on the fly. Plus the other person dared me to do it.

I got in trouble a lot for reading when I wasn't supposed to be.

I stole extra worksheets out of the trash can to play school with at home. I took them all home and punched holes in the top to put them on a ring. I didn't punch the holes in the same place in all the sheets. Which I didn't realize until I was finished punching holes in all 300 of them.

I quit drinking milk. Pretty much forever.

I Remember

First Grade

My teacher was Mrs. Davis and her classroom was across from the water fountain and Giget Denton's room.

We had readers with a fat red stripe across them.

One day our morning assignment was to write our numbers from 1 to 1,000. It took me a long time.

We did flash cards with our words. I kept mine in a little back index card box.

My mom brought Jello and bananas one day for the class (powdered Jello with banana dipped in it is delicious.) Mrs. Davis told us to wait until everyone had one, but I was so excited I ate mine. And then held my hand over the toothpick and acted like I hadn't. I'm sure she noticed, but didn't say anything.

Roy Lee had asthma and kept throwing up in the trashcan. There was a book about a fish called LeeRoy, and we loved reading it when he was at at school.

Someone in my class named Linda was burned by a gas grill exploding(?? I think that's what it was.) She always wore one of those hard plastic masks with a stocking mask over it to try and help it heal. She never wore shorts or short sleeves again, even though it must have been 4,000 degrees in the summer. I don't remember anyone teasing her about it. I hope she's ok.

I would hide my head and Adam Poe's head under our towel/blanket at nap time. He was dark complected and had dark hair.

One time everyone except 4 kids were out sick with the flu in miss Giget's room. They got to play games all day and goof off. I was so jealous. There weren't enough sick kids out of our room to do that.

I played the lead in the school play about Dental Health Month. I was supposedly asleep in a sleeping bag and my first line was "Who-who-who are you!?" said while rubbing my eyes and speaking to a bunch of giant posterboard teeth. I was in my nightgown in front of the whole school and it never occurred to me to be embarrassed.

I Remember

Kindergarten

I came home from my first day of school and told my mother we had fruit cottontail for lunch.

My teacher had polio as a child and was not much taller than us. She goes to my church now. I don't think she remembers me.

My Aunt Twilla covered my pencil/crayon box with contact paper and wrote my name on it in fancy letters.

There were rhythm sticks in the music center and the ribbed one's were electric paddles and the smooth ones were regular paddles. We were convinced that both items were present in the Principal's office.

I wanted to know how to spell "I" and couldn't understand that I needed to just write the letter.

Warm, little naps. Chips ahoy cookies and milk that someone brought over from the cafeteria in red milk crates while we slept.

Getting all my hair cut off one afternoon.

I desperately wanted a backpack. I had nothing to put in it, but I wanted one.

The standardized tests we took, where I had to fill in the circle under a chicken.

I Think I Have Blog Perfomance Anxiety

I did finally get that silly picture of me with a bag on my head off of the top spot. Unfortunately, the replacement was more alcohol. I know you were all staring at my bacon anyway.

I think I have finally come down from my Blogher high as the smell of swag dissipates in my house. I wasn't going to be a post-Blogher quitter, but I certainly didn't come home inspired to be a better writer or blogger. I came home tired as hell and ready for a nap. And then I had plenty of work to catch up on. Even though everyone was at the company picnic on Friday, they managed to fill up my little bookcase Wednesday and Thursday while I was gone. It was nice to come back and have something to dig my little yellow check mark pencil into.

As I said yesterday on Twitter and Facebook, Maddie took her first steps on the 31st. Tim's Mom and step dad came over for a visit that Friday afternoon, and she decided that Grandma's necklace was too much to miss out on, so she just toddled over to grab it. I think we all held our breath until she plopped down on her little booty. This week she has taken it to new levels with sideways walking, carrying things while walking (next stop-A PURSE), and figuring out how to get her leg over the firetruck ride on toy. She has not yet mastered the art of getting off the firetruck. Or pushing it with her feet. So there's a lot of sitting around looking pretty and then yelling for someone to get her off or push her. And then you take her off and she whips that little donut stacked leg right back over the seat and gets on it again, and grins at you, like, "Push me woman! You can not resist my cute face! PUSH ME."

And I do.

Hudson has overcome whatever fear he had of large bodies of water. Last summer, he was jumping in the pool all willy nilly with no regard for his personal safety and my distaste of having pool water splashed up my nose. This year, he would get in our backyard pool, but that was it. My dad's girlfriend's (DGS) soft sided pool? Forget it. The pool during our trip to Hot Springs? He almost cut off the circulation to my brain when I finally dragged him in the 4 feet of water. Our next trip to DSG's he would get in the pool, but only in Maddie's yellow baby ring.

Our zoo has a pool party during the summer and we made sure we had the yellow baby ring. He played in that for a little while, but the zoo had blown up some of those single little kid rings and tossed them in. He got a Cars one of those, and started going down the slide in the baby pool. The next thing I know, some friends of our show up, and I ask Tim, "Where's Hudson?", and look up to find him at the TOP OF THE GIANT WATER SLIDE TO THE BIG POOL. By himself. With his little cars ring around his waist.

I got in the pool and was there when he came out of the slide. He and Tim went down about 100 times after that and he was jumping off the side with reckless abandon before we left. And then he tried to kick me when I told him it was time to go.

So I guess he's over that.

My birthday is next Sunday (the 23rd. If you want my address for gift sending purposes, just ask!)(Kidding.)(Well, unless you really want to send a gift, then I'm not.). Tim's birthday is the Sunday after that. And Maddie's birthday is a week and a half after that.

We are not having a giant 1st birthday with ponies and a clown. Family dinner. That is it. But there will be C.A.K.E.

Nothing funny has happened to us lately. Really. I did try and kill a fly with a dishtowel and hit my knuckle on the edge of the counter top. That was not funny. Also, OOWWWWW. I have parallel lines of burn on my arm from touching a covered casserole dish when I was tying to rearrange a hot, full oven. Not Funny. Those eggs I dropped at the grocery store on Saturday and caught with my skirt so it made me look like I was having a very fertile and incontinent day were not funny. Hudson, Kaden, and Kendall running around the house, without any clothes, using their towels as capes - that was funny. Whoever is sneaking into my house while I am at work and asleep and putting all those #%*!@@ damn, *)(#$^% $##%*()@!  dirty dishes in my sink. Not. Funny.

I will return.

After these messages.