The Icing On the Cake

I put myself in time out this week.

If there were an episode of Mom's Behaving Badly, I'd have been on it.

Sometimes I'm not proud of my behavior. Sometimes I yell more than I'd like to. I'll admit it. I strive to have more patience when my house turns into a loony bin, but still. There are just those days. The pile-up. The "when it rains it pours" days.

And then when one of those days is happening, like for instance, I'm in the middle of a migraine, none of my electronics are working, a note is sent home about less than stellar behavior from my kids at school, there is but one thing that will send me over the edge every time.

Cat poop.

Because cat poop only happens on those days that all those other things are happening.

Never once do I come home from an awesome run, slow motion running and hugs from the kids telling me how awesome I am, putting flowers in water and turning around to spot the little nuggets in the corner.

Nope.

Not once is it on the day we come home from the park, tiny siblings hand in hand and laughing and frolicking nicely saying kind words to one another to find a surprise waiting for me on the couch.

Nope.

It only ever happens on the day when it is sure to send me flying off the cliff. A "Terrible Day Sundae" topped with cat poop in my bed.

I mean really, cat. Does my house just look like one giant litter box to you? Or do you see my eyebrows doing that thing that they do and decide you're going to find a great place to squat that's really going to piss me off.

Because the cat poo isn't coincidence. I'm sure of it.

It's strategic.

I can almost even picture him sitting in the corner rubbing his whiskers like they are his evil mustache, head back in that terrible cackling laugh.

Why! Why, I ask you!

Why does cat poop only happen at the worst time ever?

It's my question to the universe.

Anyway, my personal time out is almost over. But it's been nice to have been on a bit of a techno-hiatus, if even for a few hours. I'm refreshed. Which means there must not be any cat poo in the forecast. Of course the percentages could change by the end of the week.

* * *

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The Icing On the Cake

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2010/04/icing-on-cake.html?m=0

I Think My Cat Needs an Intervention

We're out of wet food.

I don't know how to explain it in "cat" in any other way but to say it to my cat in "human" and then make that "we're out of it and I don't know what to do" gesture (you know, the one where I shrug with my hands up by my shoulders) but we're out of wet food and that's just it. He doesn't understand this.

I'm not selfishly withholding! I'm doing the best I can. Really, cat. I am not the terrible person you think I am.

Because we do, still indeed, have food!! Yes, I realize that it is dry. Oh the horror.

Apparently now you're above that and it's just not good enough anymore. But that's not my fault. You have built yourself some ridiculously high standards. No, you won't be getting that silver platter and crystal cat food dish that you see on those wet cat food commercials (why do those commercial people put these crazy ideas in my cat's head anyway! I should write a letter...)

Yes, I see you strutting by me with your nose stuck up in the air, thinking, "How can you expect me to eat that?" And I see you throwing your body at my feet and trying to trip me when I open the pantry and the fridge. And when you invade my privacy by sticking your paws underneath the bathroom door. I know what you really want. You're not coming to say, "Hello, lovely cat owner!" You've got alterior motives. You're begging for wet food. And I shrug and tell you there is no wet food, but still you don't understand. Or you won't understand. And yes, there is a difference.

The thing is, the more my cat does this, the angrier I get.

He's begging but he already has food!

I feel like he's tugging at my shirt in the candy aisle. I've created a monster! I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that while I was opening that first can of wet food, I was really opening a giant can of worms. (Kind of like I wish "present me" would go back in time and tell me that getting the kids a free cookie at the bakery at the grocery store was a bad idea).

But I can't. Now I have a selfish begging cat (and children who beg for cookies when we pull into the grocery store parking lot).

My cat's attitude about dry food is completely out of control. I think I heard him start calling himself "The Situation."

Now, the drive to have him volunteer at a soup kitchen is overwhelming.

I want him to look outside and see the "have not" kitties and know that he has it real good. Even though I have considered leaving the door open for him a time or two. (He has a little bit of a temper.) But I don't. And we love him still. Sure, maybe he doesn't have wet food today (Oh, woe is me!), but he does have his own separate bathroom, a roof over his head, an abundant supply of (dry) food and water, loving toddler hands to pull his tail pet him and pet him and pet him, and I'm thinking he has it pretty good!

Now how do I explain this in "cat"?

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I Think My Cat Needs an Intervention

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-think-my-cat-needs-intervention.html?m=0

Poor Putty Tat

My poor kitty is in trouble.

She has had this bum eye ever since I've known her. She got clipped in the left eye by a groomer years before I adopted her and it's been kind of a problem ever since, getting kind of oozy and infected from time to time. I know, it's gross. But that's my girl.

Her face has so much character anyway, the bum eye just added to it. You think she's pissed off with the scowl on her face but really that's just her face. She's my little old lady.

I catsat her for two weeks when I lived in New York and yada yada yada, she just decided to stay with me.

We had bonded. I learned a lot about her in those two weeks.

Like, she eats french fries. But not straight off the floor, only if they're on a napkin.

She's dainty like that.

She's not much for the PDA. She's not a lap cat. I thought I could turn her into one and I made it my mission by deciding I would hold her every single day thinking eventually she'd grow to like it. But I'd just end up being scratched when she launched off me in her desperation to flee. So I decided not to try and change her.

She is who she is.

Sometimes she comes out from hiding and acts like she wants to be petted and allows you to pet her. And then she purrs like crazy. But it has to be on her terms. Mostly she just keeps to herself.

Sometimes I find her sitting in odd places. Like the high chair, or on top of the toilet. No rhyme or reason. It's even funnier because she doesn't wander around that much so it seems a little out of her personality range to have any curiousity whatsoever. So it makes me laugh and feel kind of like I should slip away and not disturb her when I spot her just sitting in one of those places with that look on her face that says absolutely nothing, except maybe, hey how's it going? Just gonna sit here for a while if you don't mind.

Well this morning, I woke up and started to get the kids breakfast and saw trickles of blood on the floor. I followed them around and they led to where she was sitting, in one of the dining room chairs. Turns out, the bum eye has had it. (It was actually pretty mortifying looking so I'll leave it at that.) We fled to the vet and I found out she has a thyroid problem, which causes high blood pressure, which in turn can cause a terrible eye malfunction.

So she's going through surgery tomorrow to have her eye removed. I'm going to miss that crooked, funky little eye that people would make fun of even though I would get mad.

Someone once told me she looks like she got hit in the face with a bag of nickles. I mean really, the cruelty.

My poor little girl.

She's like one of my children. My heart broke to see her all injured and bleeding, but just like one of my kids, she just sat there like nothing was wrong. She only got annoyed because I put her in the travel bag.

She's there right now at the vet's place. I hope that all her blood work comes back okay and that she can handle the surgery and the anesthesia. Because she's 15 and elderly and sometimes they can't take that. But not having the surgery would mean she'd be a mess and be in pain forever more, and we can't have that.

So send me some kitty prayers today please. If all goes well tomorrow, she should come home tomorrow afternoon and I want my little Putty home with me.

Poor Putty Tat

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2009/10/poor-putty-tat.html?m=0

Thursday Thirteen #11: Milestones, Moments and Madness

It's been a busy week in the O' household. Lots of little milestones and lots of little things I learned about lots of little things. Here's my list of:

13 Milestones, Moments, and Madness

1. Poops started school this week as you may have read about every day so far. He had to bring a plant. They're going to garden this year.

2. He didn't even bat an eye when the teacher came and took him from my car and walked him in through the gate. No "Bye!" no nothing. Which I expected. I did not cry. I am proud. But I did go park the car and watch him in class through the two-sided mirrow-window thing for a few minutes. Just to see. Of course it was only a half-day (which means one hour. Yes. I'm lame.)

3. Can you believe that was the first hour of his two-and-a-half years (besides the two weeks he spent in the NICU) that he has ever ever ever been in the care of someone else besides a family member?

4. I know. Time to cut the apron strings.

5. And that one hour must have had quite an impact on him. Because he came home, wanted a "big boy cup" (without a top), and suddenly wanted to do everything solo. He'd yell, "No! Ay Ay do dat!" when I'd start to do something for him. To which I say, ok! go for it! Mr. Independent...and by the way, how bout wiping that butt?!

6. Meantime over the weekend, Mini started really crawling (he's been crawling for months but in that wriggly military crawl). Now it's the real thing. Like it's old hat.

7. Then as if out of nowhere, he started pulling up and standing.

8. I've learned that he hates pureed green beans, but loves them whole. He loves pureed carrots but hates them whole. He loves peas, any which way. But if you slip in that whole carrot (the mushy can kind) he'll look at it, then at you like you are crazy, bang down his hand as if to say, "Excuse me? You think I am eating that?"And wail till you give him a pea. Oh, and you can add "anything he can pick up off the floor" to his favorite-foods-list too. No matter how clean my floors are, he finds that speck. And eats it.

9. I threw out our area rug this week because it's the type that holds in food and crumbs and hair and just overall grossness which Mini had been consuming entire meals out of.

10. Gag.

11. However, whilst pulling up on the side of the couch, he slipped and fell backward and at that moment I had wished there were a carpet, even of the gross crap-harboring variety, to cushion my poor baby's tiny head.

12. Poops is in a terrible phase in which he CANNOT CONTROL THE VOLUME OF HIS VOICE! And there is yelping and barking and screaming at piercing octaves and anyone who is on the phone with me at any given moment is guaranteed to ask me, "Is this a bad time?"

13. Boy kitty keeps mounting poor elderly girl kitty. And the evil sounds that come out of her mouth whilst trying to flee are enough to tell anyone she is not having it. There is growling and hissing and fighting and then chasing. And the chasing is usually me running through the house after boy kitty yelling, "Leave her alone!! Bad kitty!" My favorite time of day is when all of the above is happening all at the same time. The screaming, the pulling up and falling, the eating stuff off the floor, the mounting, the chasing, the phone ringing...is this a bad time? Nope. These are the sounds of my house.
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Thursday Thirteen #11: Milestones, Moments and Madness

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