Not for the Faint of Heart

I feel like I should have posted something about Memorial Day.  I've posted the last couple of years so many times about how I really want to make sure we keep up with little celebrations for every holiday and I'd hate to have it seem like we skipped Memorial Day this year because we didn't.

We actually had quite a nice day, hanging out through the afternoon at home as normal and then going over to my friend's house for a little cookout.  The trouble is, apparently Jamie's house is in some sort of a photographic black hole and even though I'm ALWAYS sure to bring my camera along when we go there, I almost never remember to take any photos.

Although I guess that's not entirely true because I did get some at her daughter's birthday, just not at any of the other dozen times we've gone over there.

Anyway, the only picture on my camera from Monday has nothing to do with the holiday.

It has to do with what I woke up to that morning.

I was tired from the race the day before and had slept in a bit.  I woke up to the sounds of A.J. fussing in her crib and Peter bouncing around in the living room with his Dad.  Stumbling down the hallway bleary eyed a few minutes later I set A.J. down in her bean bag in front of the TV and had my sights firmly set on the couch when Matt stepped up to me.  Excitedly he said he had something to show me, an evil sort of grin crossed his face.

A quick succession of every horrible thing I've ever woken up to flashed through my mind.  Dog and Cat puddles and piles.  Throw up.  Holes chewed in the carpets.  Ants.

He said it was okay, that he'd take care of it, but he wanted to show it to me first and that I'd probably be terrified.

It seemed, actually, like he was really looking forward to seeing me freak out.

He led me to the back door.

I looked out to see the cat sitting there, looking at us through the glass, kitty-smirking proudly up at us again.
(This is never a good sign.)

And behind him on the edge of the porch was his latest prize.

Oh.

Gross.  And also, sad.  It was just a baby!  

Somewhere inside of me I wondered if it's mother was looking for it.  

Then I asked if the kids had seen it yet... both of them being so very in love with bunnies in general... he promised  me they hadn't.  Then he went outside to take care of it as Chase had already begun to "play" with his prize and that is just... gross.

And have I mentioned lately just how much I don't like the cat any more?

It was one thing when he meowed a lot for no reason and demanded too much attention.  It was another thing after his brother disappeared when he continually went potty on the floor by the front door where he felt his litter box needed to be (rather than in the laundry room) until I moved the box out there for him.  But his new little hunting streak?  ACK!

Years ago when we originally got the cats naming them had been quite a process.  Eventually I'd settled on K.C. (short for Kitty Cat) and Chase because they seemed to go well together and they just fit.  When we'd finally picked them up from the adoption place it had taken me just about 30 seconds to KNOW without a doubt which of them was which.  

And apparently my instincts were right, because Chase, yeah... he loves the chase.

Last week Matt found a dead mouse in the backyard.  

And this week a bunny.

Matt saw a snake out in the neighborhood awhile back.  If Chase brings me one of those we're through.  

Something is different about one of these stuffed animals.....

The Tail of my Undoing

The title's not a typo, promise.  I'll explain in a minute.

In the world of military wives, there are all types, but as with anything else, I think the extremes are the most easy to spot.  There are of course, those who seem to utterly define themselves by their husband's career. These women love nothing more than the to tell you about the hardships their family overcomes while their spouse is off on the "front" defending freedom or... something.  They seem to adore bragging about the number of moves they've completed, always find a way to let your know their husband's rank and will attempt to trade their own deployment "war stories" about their many trials at home with even the most decorated of soldiers if given the chance... as if there's any comparison.

On the flip side, there are those who detest the military.  They would do anything to get their husbands into a "normal" job and have been counting down until he gets out since before he even finished swearing his oath.  A good friend of mine falls soundly into this category and she says something about how she'd much rather be a "soft" civilian wife than a "tough" Navy wife all the time.  They tend to ignore the benefits of this lifestyle (job security, travel, education and of course a cute hubby in uniform) and tend to focus negative aspects like the many moves, long hours and of course, deployments.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle, although as my mood swings I'm sure I lean one direction or the other at different times.  I am proud of my guy and all that he does, just as I am proud of what I do to support him while he's off doing his thing, but I do try not to brag.  I honestly believe this is just the plan God had for us and we must figure out how to walk this path, however easy or difficult it may be.  But I also will admit to enjoy part of this lifestyle sometimes.  I'm never going to argue when a company offers us a military discount and as much as moving often can be tough, we've been able to live and visit some amazing places because of it.

I try hard not to dwell on the hardships but instead look for the lessons involved and find amusement in the random crap that goes on.  On previous deployments, I've dealt with living over seas, the loss of a pet, flat tires, clogged drains and dead birds in the backyard.  All of which, I believe, I managed relatively well.  But this past year has been much different than every other deployment because of the kids and while, honestly, God HAS been merciful on us, there have been some moments.  I had another flat tire.  My dog ran away.  One of my cats peed all over the house we were living in and got banished to live outside in the rain of Washington for 6 months only to come with us to California and disappear, likely to the coyotes, less than 3 weeks later.  My daughter had pneumonia and multiple double ear infections and still felt it necessary to fling herself out of our shopping cart at Target. I potty trained my son and survived most of his terrible twos.  Matt was reassigned several times and his homecoming date has been revised at least a half dozen times in the last month alone.

I'm sure the list could go on, but it doesn't matter.  The point is, I got through it.  Sure, I reached my breaking point more times they'd I'd care to admit, but through those breakdowns I was always able to deal.  Maybe not in the best way possible, but at least I took action.

Today?

Today I just... froze.

It was dinner time.  We'd been playing out in the back yard.   The kids had stayed outside and I watched them through the open window while I'd prepared our meal and set the table.  Chase (our remaining cat) was up on the hill living up to his name and hunting in the long grass and weeds.  Despite his brother-cat's unfortunate disappearance, Chase always wants to be outside.  He meows and meows at the backdoor every morning.  But as I learned the hard way that southern California is just not safe for domestic house cats, I only let him out in our fenced back yard when the rest of us are out there too and I can keep an eye on him.

Normally he goes and sits in the shade under the orange trees or along the fence and just watches.  But last week or so he ran off into the side yard and when I went to check that he hadn't jumped the fence I came around the corner just in time to see him chase *something* under the fence.  He turned and ran off back up the hill along the fence, still pursuing his now out of reach prey and where he'd turned I noticed something moving in the dirt.  It was a small (maybe 2-3 inch) tail of of some sort of lizard, which I'm assuming the creature had to drop to escape the cat or else was hoping would provide enough of a distraction for the cat that it could make it's escape.  I'd looked at the little thing twitching there in front of me, shuddered, and went back to the children, trying to erase the image from my brain.

The image, as it were, was not going to be so easily forgotten.  Later that same day, while A.J. napped and Peter loafed on the couch watching  Nick Jr. I went out to trim back a bush.  Just as I was making one of my final cuts with my trusty hedge trimmers something fell, moving in front of me.  I screamed, jumped about 45 feet backwards, and suffered a minor heart attack I'm sure, before it occurred to me that I must have hit (or at least threatened) another lizard hiding in that bush and it too had dropped it's tail.  A short time later, having calmed myself down from the shock of seeing the 5-6 inch grey tail fall, twitching wildly right in front of me, I went out to investigate and saw the nasty thing finally rigid and still, laying in the grass where it had landed.  Leaning over from a good 3 feet a way at least, I confirmed for myself visually what it was and then started hoping a bird or something would carry the tail away so I didn't have to worry about one of the children finding it and bringing it to me for an explanation.

That was all, probably, two weeks ago and I had nearly forgot about my new fear of San Diego's lizards today when we went in for dinner.  Peter was climbing into his chair asking what was for dinner and I was strapping A.J. into her booster while kicking the backdoor closed with my foot when I heard the cat, up on the hill, suddenly start meowing.  Assuming he just objected to being locked out alone I finished securing A.J. and stuck my head back out the door calling "kittykittykitty!" to him.

Up on the hill the long grasses and weeds shook violently and then my little white fluff ball came tumbling out of the brush, down the side of the hill, running straight across the yard, up onto the porch and on into the house.  I shut the door behind him and went to bring the kids their plates of foods and when I returned I noticed the cat again.

He was sitting, right in the middle of the living room, looking up at me like the very model of feline pride and perfection.  And in front of him was....

I SCREAMED.

I'm sure my children thought Mommy had just gone and lost her mind.  And I know you're wondering if they were frightened by my scream but they were more confused.  Both of their heads turned to see what I was looking at.

There in front of the cat was another dead lizard tail.

Well, the tail was dead, the lizard, I'm assuming is still outside, up on our hill, perhaps hanging out with all the other stumpy little lizards that must be quite numerous back there by now.

The tale was the biggest I'd seen yet... a good 7-8 inches.

It made me want. to. die.

I have no idea why, really, but I got so many different kind of heeby-jeebies just seeing it there.

"What it is?" Peter asked and jumped down from his seat at the table to look closer.  The cat was sniffing his prize and pushing it around a bit with one of his front paws.

"DON'T TOUCH IT!  GET BACK!!!"  I screamed at my son.

I tried to make myself move closer and come up with a rational plan on how to pick it up but I couldn't.  My stomach was churning, my skin was crawling and my mind had gone about 90% numb.  Suddenly I turned into an expert long jumper and I leaped over the tail, scaring the cat away from him prize, and landing, myself by the front door.  I peeked out and saw that my neighbors car was there and quickly dialed her number but it went to voice mail.  I left, what I am sure is, an insane person's message about being a total girl and needing to borrow her husband for a quick bit of help.

When I hung up, a voice mail from my mother in law rang in (odd timing as I guess she'd called right as I'd called) So I dialed her back.  She needed some info on getting the dog home next week but mostly she just laughed at me quietly as I explained the situation.

Peter kept hopping down from the table to look.  At one point he reached out and started to pick it up (which I suppose would have solved my problem) but I screamed again, begging him to leave it alone and he startled, jumped back himself and went back to not eating his dinner at the table.

My mother in law told me to be calm and handle it.  Get a shovel or some gloves.  Or if Peter wanted to, just let him throw it out.  I explained that I would figure it out but first I needed to take a picture or nobody would believe me and since my camera broke I'd need to use my phone for that.  She laughed at me some more, wished me luck, and hung up.  I noticed that I'd climbed up onto one of the end tables where I was now crouching on my knees, looking down on the tail.

Terrible blurry photo because my hands were shaking and I couldn't make myself move closer.
The toy stroller wheel is intentionally cropped IN to give you a better idea of the size.
Yuck.

The tail.  Ick.  The pointy end was towards me and the "stump" end was facing Peter.  I wondered for a moment why those tails never bleed when they break off and then decided I didn't want to know.  All I did know for sure is that dead things skeeze me out and this was just a dead PART of something.  Just like earthworms, snakes and spiders.  Thankfully, in San Diego, earthworms seem to be few and far between.  We haven't had any snakes (and I pray that we never do) and spiders, I can handle, it just takes a bit of a gut check moment and some sturdy shoes on my feet and I suck it up and can deal with them.

I looked at my phone again, wishing my neighbor would call or text back.

I thought seriously for a moment about covering it with an overturned trash can or bucket or something and just leaving it there til Matt gets home in a few more days.  Then I realized how completely INSANE I was being and I left the kids to their dinners while I ran across the street to find help.  I was fully prepared to knock on multiple doors if necessary.  Luckily, the first one got an answer and I fully humiliated myself explaining the silly yet completely dire situation I was dealing with.  My lovely neighbor laughed at me a bit but agreed to help and followed me back to my house.  This particular neighbor seems to stand about 6 and a half feet tall and I'm sure when he looked in and saw my little 7 or 8 inch problem he rolled his eyes.

"That's it?" He asked.  I assured him that it was, and that, no matter how silly it seemed, I just really needed his help getting rid of it. He asked me for a paper towel, and I got him one.  He picked it up and left.

"Are you sure that's it?" He asked.

*sigh*

My blood pressure dropped about 75 points just knowing it was out of my house.

I sat down to eat my dinner and Peter started in at me about wanting a brownie, life was back to normal.  Just. Like. That.

But the complete and utter ridiculousness of situation was not lost on me.  After EVERYTHING that I have done this year.  All the things we've gotten through and handled I was completely unable to deal with... this.

Completely frozen, paralyzed even, by a dead lizard tail brought to me by my cat.

THANK GOD my neighbor answered the door and was willing to help me or else I might still be cowering on top of that end table and my kids might still be pushing their dinners around their plates wondering what on Earth that thing was in the middle of the floor that seemed to have broken their mommy.

Perhaps I should bake my neighbor a cake or something.

Oh, and I'm not talking to the cat.

Potentially one of the Worst Stories Ever

I've been putting off writing this post for forever.

I have a feeling that some folks out there in Internet land are not going to like the way that things played out in this particular situation and I really can't say I blame them.  I don't like it either.

But I always preach about honesty and so I feel that I have to admit and acknowledge what has happened so that I can put it behind me and move on.

Alright, so to catch everybody up, we have had 2 cats since 2006.  We adopted them at a Petco in Georgia shortly after we moved back from Japan while Matt was there for some schooling.  That's actually a bit of a funny story as it had only been about 3 months since the very unexpected death of my beloved first cat Britney the previous summer while Matt had been on deployment.  The pain of losing my first ever kitty was still pretty raw but for some reason that afternoon we decided to go in and look.  Seriously, we weren't leaving with a cat under any circumstances, I just wanted to look and see if my heart was ready to embrace a new animal or as it turned out, animalS.  It was a Saturday and so as is often the case, several shelters had set up adoption centers inside the store.  No sooner had we gone inside then we ran headlong into a cage holding 3 cats.  Up top were the kittens that would become our Chase and KC and below was a grey and white kitten that looked frighteningly like my beloved Britney had.  I tried hard not to look at the grey and white kitten and I reached over to pet the tiny fluff ball that would end up being Chase.

I hadn't been at it for more than 5 seconds and when Matt asked me if I wanted to take him home.  I'm not kidding, I was just busy blinking away tears and I'm not sure if I ever answered him.  Then the next thing I knew Matt was arranging to adopt them both.  He was fighting off all the other people who wanted to take them and arranging to have the shelter hold them for us for 3 more weeks until we'd be checking out of the hotel we were staying in and heading to California.  My husband does this amusing thing every once in awhile where he turns into some sort of Donald Trump and he is going to get me what I want regardless of the price.  No amount of money was going to be too great that day, we were adopting those cats.   And we did.

And it only cost us the normal adoption fee....

Chase was always the skinny and overly needy one.  KC was always the cross eyed, chubby, neurotic, pain in the butt.  Sometime after we moved to Monterey and had Peter, KC started to have a problem using the litter box.

Then we moved to Washington and his potty problem just got way worse.  You can read about it here but the long and short of it was he was put outside and a few days later I thought he ran away forever.  However, as you can see here, he did eventually reappear in our lives, living mainly the backyard and sleeping under the shed.

When we left Washington at the beginning of November, I obviously brought him with us.  I wasn't really sure how this would go as he'd been outside exclusively for almost 6 months.  Once we got back here, he did really well for a couple weeks..  He was pretty sweet and snugly and I thought for awhile that he'd sort of learned his lesson and we'd be okay.  But soon he starting peeing on the floor again so he started going outside again.  My intent was that he could be an indoor and outdoor cat and could come and go as he pleased.  Except when I first let him out he didn't want to be out and went crazy trying to get back in.  Then once he seemingly resigned himself to being outside again he never wanted to come back in.  It didn't matter if it was cold or raining, he would run when I tried to let him in.

By then it was shortly after Thanksgiving.  One evening as I was putting the kids to bed I could hear him outside meowing like crazy.  He had been in my back yard for a few weeks, happily eating the food I put out for him each morning and spending most of his afternoons sleeping next to the air conditioning unit in the corner of my side yard.  We have 6 foot fences so it seemed unlikely he was going anywhere.

However that night after the kids were asleep I stepped outside to check on my Christmas lights.  When I did I found out what KC had been meowing about, as he was now on the front yard side of the fence.  I guess he'd managed to get over it but was having trouble getting back.  It didn't matter, he wouldn't come anywhere near me even if I wanted to help him and instead as I walked around the corner to check the lights on the garage he "spooked" and took off running up the sidewalk.

This didn't exactly make me happy, but there was nothing I could do.  The kids were both inside and I couldn't leave them there alone to chase after my problem-cat.  I didn't worry about it too much, and I assumed he'd be back in the morning.  I mean, after all, he'd been JUST FINE outside in Washington from May through October.  Clearly there was nothing to worry about.

Except in the morning he wasn't back.

And, scattered across the shaggy, scraggly grass of my front yard here and there were large tufts of his fur.  That part was troubling from the moment I saw it, but as the yard at that point was still pretty awful I didn't think too much of it.  I just hoped his long fur had gotten tangled in the overgrown grass and the stumps of the hedge I'd just had cut down.

Every time I left the house we drove slowly around the neighborhood a bit to see if we spotted him.

We never did.

So the fact of the matter is, 2 full months later, I have no idea what REALLY became of him.

My hope is that he's still around her someplace.  Perhaps he found some nice old lady to take him in.

Except he had his collar (with my phone number) on...

Maybe he took off heading North, back to Washington which maybe he considers to be his home territory after the time he spent there

Oh can you just imagine what SIL would say if he showed back up in her yard?  :)

Except my heart knows that neither of those is probably what actually happened.

This area is well known to have coyotes.

Lots of them.

And the bits of his fur all over the yard that morning could definitely be considered as signs of a struggle.

:(

I mean, if your wondering I've not seen or found anything else to confirm my dreadful suspicion, but from what I've heard from some of my neighbors it seems likely.

Oh.  And there's something else about this too.

Right around the time KC went missing Peter started going on and on each night when we put him to bed about a Dragon.  I have NO idea what started this.  He'd long been a fan of our Puff the Magic Dragon songbook but this was seemingly unrelated as the book hadn't been out since before we left Washington.  He didn't seem to think the dragon was particularly good or bad or in any way scary, he was just adamant that there was one.  At first I theorized that he saw his nightlight reflected in the overhead lamp in his room and maybe thought they were eyes.  I also thought maybe he saw the yucky smudge of dirt in that overhead light and thought it looked like a dragon.  But when I turned off the nightlight and cleaned out the smudge he still went on about the dragon.  Heck for all I knew it was just his imagination kicking into high gear.

The dragon talk went on and on for weeks, all through the time Daddy was home and afterward and only just recently seems to have stopped in the last few days.

So what I'm thinking is.... what if Peter HEARD whatever scuffle went down in the front yard between the cat and the coyotes?  It would have been RIGHT outside his room, and his bed backs up to the wall that faces the front yard.  Anyone who's ever heard a cat get into a fight could tell you it's rarely quiet and I can't even imagine what it would have sounded like if my suspicions are right and he got into it with a bunch of coyotes, presumably as he was attempting to make his way back to the safer side of our fence and the back yard.

That might have sounded like a dragon to my son right?

And the dragon talk definitely started right around the same time as KC's unfortunate disappearance.

What a terrible thought.

I guess we will probably never know what happened to our fat cat nor what brought on Peter's belief that there was a dragon living somewhere near his bedroom.  While, I really do hope that I'm wrong about this, I can't help but think they're probably related.

And, even though KC was, generally a tremendous pain in my butt a lot of the time, I did love him and I really do miss seeing him look up at me with those big, blue, crossed eyes of his.

I miss you KC.

I definitely don't miss your puddles, but I miss YOU.

If you're still out there somewhere, please come home.

If not, I pray that I'm wrong and whatever happened to you wasn't so awful.

Also, if you're curious, Chase is still here.  He's as neurotic and needy as ever.  He's FOREVER getting out (even though I obviously want to keep him in now) and recently has developed a litter box problem of his own.  I just don't know what I'm going to do about it....

Sweetness

I don't know why the cat puts up with this...

Our own version of Looney Tunes

If Peter could actually speak so clearly....


Hugo the Abominable Snowman Peter: [holding Daffy my cat Chase, whose shirt fur makes him look like a rabbit] Oh, what a cute little pink bunny rabbit!

[cradling Daffy smothering Chase]

Hugo the Abominable Snowman Peter: Just what I always wanted. My own little bunny rabbit. I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him...

Daffy Duck Chase: I'm not a bunny rabbit meeeeerrrrow....

Hugo the Abominable Snowman Peter: ...and pat him and pet him and...


Daffy Duck Chase: You're hurting me. Put me down, please.  meeeeeeeeeeew!!!

Hugo the Abominable Snowman Peter: ...and rub him and caress him and...


Daffy Duck Chase: [shouts] I ain't no bunny rabbit! Reeeaaaaaaaawlgggghhhh!

and then

Mommy:  [after grabbing the camera and quickly snapping a photo] Son, will you please get off the cat!!!

*Classic original dialogue respectfully adapted from the Looney Tunes episode "The Abominable Snow Rabbit" (1961.)

Silly Kitty

I guess he's hot?

Banished

I did something sort of drastic.

The fact that I finally did it is probably a sign that I really had reached my breaking point.

Because I really do feel awful.

And probably, somebody is going to attack me for what I did, and writing about it on the internet is a bad idea, but like I said:

BREAKING POINT.

Something had to give.

You see, since we'd come to Washington, my fat cat KC was a huge problem.  No matter what we tried, he continually snuck downstairs to beat up on SIL's cat and eat her food.  And he was peeing EVERYWHERE.

The peeing had been an increasing problem for awhile.  In San Diego, before we ever had children he'd occasionally pee outside his box.  In Monterey, after Peter was born he took to nearly ALWAYS peeing outside of it.  And I really do mean right outside.  Seriously, he'd go in, crap or whatever and then come out, crouch down and whiz all over the floor RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BOX. 

Neat huh? 

We tried everything.  We spoke to the vet.  We moved the box.  We changed his access to various parts of the house.  We moved his food upstairs so he'd never have to go anywhere near my children in case they were the problem.  Still.  It was nasty.  In the end, we resorted to buying Puppy Training Pads, setting those out and letting him pee on those.

Then we came here.  For the first few weeks we gave my kitties free run of this house.  Soon though it was discovered that one, or both, or possibly all 3 of the cats in the house were competing for territory and peeing ALL over the front room and anything that was left on the floor in there  (Ew.)  We took steps to keep their cat downstairs and my cats upstairs.  We tried locking them up at night, but OH THE MEOWING.  We tried putting sticky stuff on the banister, but eventually they learned to get over it.  Somewhere along the way one of them got downstairs and beat up on SIL's cat and then left a big old crap on their sofa.  (OMG!!!!)

Finally I took fabric and hung a rather ridiculous curtain all the way around the "balcony" that overlooks the stairs.  This worked best, but KC (for sure, I'm not sure about Chase) eventually even started to over come this barrier and sneak downstairs again.

Meanwhile, he was peeing all over upstairs.  Eventually, after spending a small fortune on cat calming aids, 2 HUGE litter boxes, and nightly pee pads, and lots and lots and lots and lots of scrubbing the carpets, it seemed like maybe he had stopped peeing upstairs in weird places and I *thought* we had reached a manageable level of chaos there.  I spoke to the vet about it.  She was certain that his behavior was stress related based on our new living situation.  I left messages with a few no-kill animal shelters about surrendering him and finding him a better home, but they never called me back.  I was rapidly reaching the end of my rope, and if I could have just gotten him contained upstairs, well, things might have gone differently.

So, last week. 

We reached the 2 month mark of this deployment.  This deployment that is 396 days long.  Yes you read that right.  April 10, 2011 to May 10, 2012... ish.  13 freaking months.  And we'd only just, finally, survived 2 of them.  61 days down, 335 to go .  Ouch.  The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. 

In parenting, there's a saying about how "the days are long but the years are short."  Um... bullshit.  For me, now, the days are actually flying by.  But when you're counting down from 4-freaking-hundred, well, it doesn't matter how fast they go.  This year, is anything but short.

I was in a very, bad mood.  I cried all over poor SIL. 

I tried very, very hard not to take it out on the children.  What the dog got, well, he mostly deserved for waking me up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go outside and NOT EVEN using the bathroom.  And then....

Thursday evening we went and had  family photos taken since A.J. is 6 months old.  We got home late that night as I stopped over to see Mike and Mishana afterward, so everybody else had gone to bed and I found KC in the front room making yet another mess.  Despite the fact that it was nearing midnight, I put my kids to bed, emptied the litter boxes and the diaper genie so that trash would go out with the morning trash pickup then I got down on my hands and knees and I scrubbed the carpets again.

Even still, in the morning, there was poop there.  I don't even know when or how, or even for sure, WHO did it, but I swallowed my emotions and cleaned it up again.

And then, later that afternoon after a frantic and stressful trip the grocery (mainly in search of more cat-urine stain remover) I came home to find him in there AGAIN making yet ANOTHER puddle. 

I lost it.

He ran and disappeared up the stairs.

I'm ashamed to admit how much I started yelling.  My poor children were both needing changed and fed and put down for naps but I had to clean up ANOTHER puddle before it soaked in.  My kids needed me to take care of them and instead I yelled at them and made them wait for what they needed because of that damned cat and his stupid messes.

I found KC hiding under my bed, dragged him out and deposited him outside onto the front porch.

A few hours later my anger lifted enough that I thought to put some food out there for him.

He could go and be an outside kitty from now on. 

Throughout the next 36 hours or so, he hung out hiding in the bushes on the side of the house and the porch.  He looked pathetically up at us as we came and went in and out, but he was not getting back in.  I sort of wished I could have put him in the backyard, where he might be safer, but that territory is already claimed by SIL's cat. 

Oh and by the way, SIL, had another cat escape here a few years ago and it ran away and was never seen of or heard from again.  They theorize that it may have been caught by a hawk or an eagle, since a nest was found nearby full of cat collars, which is, well, disturbing and very very sad. 

I didn't want KC to run away, necessarily and I certainly don't wish him harm.  I just couldn't keep dealing with his pee.

By Saturday evening, he was gone.

SIL and BIL thought maybe he'd gone into their garage to hide when the kids had it open for their bicycles but another 48 hours later there have been no signs of him in there. 

I think he may actually have run off.

Probably, he's around here nearby, somewhere, hiding under other people's bushes and maybe we will see him again.  The half eaten bowl of food is still on the porch and I'll keep filling it.  He's also still wearing his collar, which has my information on it, and he's micro chipped so if somebody wants to return him they can. 

But honestly, I can't make myself care that much.

The nights since he's been out have been so much less stressful without all of his garbage to deal with.

I really do wish a shelter had called me back about finding him a better home.  Or maybe he's better off, running free in the neighborhood with the other outdoor cats and strays where he can pee where ever he damn well pleases.  

I do hope to see his big, blue crossed eyes looking up at me again, but if I don't... well... I wish him well.

Godspeed KC, you big fat pain in my butt.

Watch out for birds of prey.

Picture-palooza

Alright folks, it's really no secret that I love taking pictures.  And in these last few days, I've taken about a billion.  It's almost like it's been pouring rain, nearly exclusively, and there isn't anything else to do. 

Still, when I uploaded these to my computer even I was surprised with just how many I felt REALLY needed to be shared. 

They're really random.  But each of these make me smile for one reason or another, and if nothing else, I figure the Grandmother will be happy to see them all.

This weekend marks the beginning of Spring Break around here.  This means that the cousins will be home all week, and due to some exceptionally rainy weather they quickly became overly rambunctious.  It wasn't very long before Peter joined in with their shenanigans.  Here he is wrestling his middle cousin...

Desperate to get out of the house for awhile and give our boy a chance to run wild for a bit, we headed off to McDonald's for lunch and some fun at the Play Place.  Here Daddy is trying to share his fries with A.J.

After scarfing down a cup of ranch dressing with a side of nuggets and fries, Peter went to play.  He was especially drawn to the animal sculptures they had for climbing on.  He kept saying "Eeeow" to it.

He liked the turtle too.

Eventually he did venture toward the climbing structure.   He went underneath and explored first.

I was worried that he was technically too young for the main climbing part, that he'd get hurt or stuck up there, but this is as far as he went.  (I think the busy Saturday crowd of loud and energetic children running amok intimidated him.

Mostly, he spent his time running around on the large piano. 
(I must admit, the former music teacher in me was very proud.)

His sister, on the other hand, hung out with us, sitting in her car seat carrier, blowing spit bubbles and making funny faces.  Eventually an evil smell began to come from her and we figured out what all those faces had been about.  Then it was time to go home since Mama was unprepared and didn't have a change of clothes for her.

Apparently, our plan to let Peter run around and expel his energy worked, because after we returned home he spent a large part of the afternoon relaxing and watching a movie... in his sister's bouncy chair.... snuggling with his sister's blanket and bunny.

The next morning (Sunday) A.J. finally started to warm up to her Aunt.  Well, either she warmed up to her or she finally just gave up crying and went to sleep.  I guess that's progress.

That afternoon Matt's brother left to go out of town for Drill.  Since he won't be back before Matt leaves himself I snapped this picture of them saying goodbye.  Obviously my husband took the moment very seriously.

Meanwhile, up in the playroom, my little budding musician was playing The Little Drummer Boy.

Naturally, his oldest cousin decided he needed to show him how real musicians get things done.  Peter was in awe.  Brutus was terrified and nearly jumped out of his fur every time the trombone slide moved past 3rd position.

Matt took his middle nephew with him to get themselves long overdue haircuts.  He looked SO cute when he got back, minus his crazy mop of Harry Potter hair.  (If you don't believe me, scroll back up to the first photo in this post!)  I was fascinated to see how much my son resembles his cousin when they both have the same hair cut. 

That afternoon, we headed over to visit Matt's BFF (Peter's Godfather) Mikeand his family for dinner and drinks.

Peter wasted no time snuggling in on the couch to watch a movie with their oldest daughter Tayler.

A.J. just kept busy looking ADORABLE in her little overall dress.

She also played a lot with Tristen, their middle daughter.

So cute.  She's holding Tristen's hand!

I was quite amused a little while later when I found Peter had moved from one couch to the other to snuggle with the (elusive, middle school aged) youngest daughter Riley too.  He just has to make sure everybody loves him I guess.

Totally random, but seeing the cat like this on the rail of their deck totally reminded me of
those photos of stray cats you see from like Italy and France.

I laughed when I came into the kitchen and found Peter sitting there with the girls all ready to eat. 

After dinner, Peter entertained himself by playing with their Rockstar guitar.

This morning when I got out of the shower Matt was playing computer games with A.J. on his lap. 
Not sure how he was doing it with one hand since our daughter was chewing happily on his thumb.

Also, A.J. has started to try going on little adventures by herself.  Before this picture, she started out in the center of the play mat, facing the entirely opposite direction.  She still only rolls front to back, but I guess she's perfecting her scooting skills.

And, she's big and steady enough now that she can spend some time in the exersaucer. 
Look how happy this makes her!!

Finally, since I wasn't in any of all those pictures, I'll include this one too.  The skinny cat came and sat by me as soon as I sat down to blog tonight and was trying to use his big blue eyes to lure me into petting him.  His efforts failed.  (It really freaks me out when he does that.) 

An Accusation

Yesterday morning Matt insists that he was awoken by me kicking him. 

Immediately following my alleged slumbering attack on him, he heard one of the cats scritch-scratching at our bedroom door and he is convinced that I heard this and it was why I kicked him... so that he would get up  and make the cat go away by feeding him or smothering him or something.

Surely I would never do such a thing.

Because it isn't like my beloved spouse has ever been known to spread out widely on his back in the exact center of our bed and snore... LOUDLY... like a chainsaw and wake me up in the middle of the night.  And it isn't like under normal circumstances he outweighs me by anywhere from 60-80 pounds and it takes all of my very limited strength to heave that heavily slumbering man (who quite literally can sleep through a war- all though at this point he thankfully has never had the chance too) onto his side so that he *might* stop snoring.

And it isn't like when he's sleeping in the exact middle of our bed (with his head firmly planted BETWEEN his pillow and my own) this leaves any room for me to sleep.  Nor is it likely that I might need a few extra inches in our bed these day for my sizable midsection since, you know, I'm carrying a full term baby in there. 

Furthermore, it couldn't possibly be like there is a fuzzy orange little dog that sleeps on the foot of our bed and tends to sort of spread out and take up more and more space as the night goes on.  And while the prospect of Brutus playing the role of fuzzy slippers and warming my feet at night is a very sweet one, I can assure you that with my particular little canine this is not the case.  If I ever so much as attempt to slide my feet underneath his warm sleeping fuzzy body he jerks awake and growls like a chihuahua caught in a rat trap or something, and, well, frankly I fear that he might chomp off my little toes one of these nights if I force the issue.

And it isn't like there are ever times when that same fuzzy orange little dog will wake up in the middle of the night needing to go outside.  In those instances Brutus has certainly never been known to stand on the chest of the very sweet man I married and bark, LOUDLY, into the face of his master who does not stir even in the slightest for several minutes lest I intervene without a very gentle nudge (or smack) in the arm from me in order to let that doggie out.

I'd like to add that while Matt is an excellent father and is very helpful with our son he has not EVER heard the baby cry in the middle of the night and gotten up...  willingly.  Yes, sure on a few occasion I've FORCED him to wake up, and in some of those instances as Peter wailed on for hours I might have been known to inflict some sort of minor violence on my spouse in order to rouse him and get a little help before I lost my mind but, I can assure you, I've never kicked him.  (The bed is too high!)

Finally, it isn't like the night before I had spent many hours attempting to sleep with that same beloved child in our recliner downstairs since he had no interest in sleeping.

So, despite all of my assurances, Matt insists that I kicked him  *hard* to wake him up yesterday.

I can promise you all out there in Mommy-Blog land that I have no recollection of ever having done such a horrible thing thing.

And certainly I never would.

(Except that now I know how easily this wakes him up...)

For Gramma and Grandpa

I love the Internet.  Uploading pictures is so much easier than sending a thank you card. :)

On Friday, just after lunch, the doorbell rang.  Peter had a package from his Grandparents!!

Oh, he was very excited!

Before long he was tearing into it!

But he seemed a bit confused by the box though...

Mommy helped him get a better view of what was inside.

 Little People Cars!!!!

He got right to work testing them out.

This left Mommy to get the rest of the present out of the box. 

Unfortunately, some assembly was required. 

Peter tried to help Mommy put the thing together.

Chase supervised. 

(He couldn't have any of that paper getting away.)

Before long, Peter was displeased with Mommy's work and called for reinforcements. 

(Plus, Daddy let him hold the screwdriver.) 

Peter made quite sure that the instructions were being followed precisely. 

While KC watched from the stairs, biding his time until he could climb into the empty box perhaps.

At long last, it was finished!  A whole parking garage came with those cars!  WOW! 

Thanks Grandparents!

Judging by the state of the dining room, Peter had himself some fun that afternoon playing with all his birthday surprises.