Cat Down.

I may have spoken before about our cats, Piano and Forte.  Piano sneaks into our room at night and Forte poops when you chase her.  There, you know everything now.

Maybe not everything: Aaron got the cats when he was living alone and teaching band in southwest Virginia.  He got them from an amazing woman who somehow adopted cats, got their shots and had them spayed, fed them some kind of vet-level healthy cat food, and then gave them to people who lived alone in an apartment and realized that a dog would be too much work.  My musician husband looked at these cats - one black and white, the other gray and white - and bestowed upon each the perfect name: Piano and Forte, where the black and white one was, of course... Forte.  I've been explaining THAT one for almost 7 years now.

Anyway, when Aaron first got these cats, he bathed them EVERY WEEK.  They had treats and jungle gyms and their own beds and their own spots on Aaron's bed and their own designated quiet bonding time (Piano each morning, Forte each evening).  My husband has more pictures of these cats than of me.  The kids eventually took over our lives, but we have more pictures of the cats in Sebastian's nursery than we do of Sebastian in that nursery.

The kids and the cats have a complicated relationship.  Well, if you ask the kids, they're BFFs.  If you ask the cats, they are reminded of their suffering existence and will flee the room.  The cats also hate the dog.  We also live in this tiny concrete box (our house is "Soviet-chic"), so there are not many sun-soaked spots of carpet where the cats can lose themselves in meditation.  Our attitude has been more on the side of "get over it," which you might think is kind of sudden for these two spoiled cats, but we're about 5 years beyond spoiled.

Honestly, I'll tell you the turning point with the cats: It was the moment Forte got herself stuck in the ceiling when Aaron and I first moved in together.  Who does that?  I was sad about it and Aaron launched one of his patented cat stand-offs: he took her food and water out of the room so she would learn her lesson if she stayed up there.  I was 7 months pregnant and maybe a little emotional about Aaron's resolution to only have one cat.  Not coincidentally, Aaron had just discovered Forte's tendency to poop in some gravity-defying way on long car trips, so that might have influenced his perspective.  Nevertheless, our first Christmas miracle was Aaron waking me up with that cat, covered in dust from the ceiling, smelling of the wet cat food Aaron had spread on his hand to tempt her out.

Forte was more or less fine over the years.  Sure, she poops when you chase her - that is a failing that cannot go unsaid - but every vet who has ever seen her has commented on her beauty and what a good cat we have.  Piano has always bullied her, and Forte is always sneaking up to you and running away (and pooping if you chase her), but she's part of our family.

A few months ago, Forte started biting her tail.  Dumb cat: she would bite it until it bled.  It healed, we paid a little more attention to her, and she stopped.  We cleaned the blood up and forgot about it.

About a week ago, she started again.  Biting her tail, howling, running in the other room when we saw her.  We would clean up the blood and shake our heads and pay a little more attention to her.  It didn't stop.  We decided to take her to the vet.

Did you know that, if a cat bites her tail and it bleeds, it can cause an infection?  And if a cat has an infection, it will cause her to bite more?  And if your cat has an infection in her tail, you have to pay a Buttload of Money to get the tail amputated?  All of that is true, and all of that happened this week.  Forte got her beautiful tail cut down to three inches and we paid a Buttload of Money.

Now listen, I'm not totally insensitive and I'm not crazy.  I'm somewhere in the middle where you care about your pets like family but recognize that a Feline Massage Therapist might be the point where you crossed the line.  We've got family on both sides that will offer to take your dog for a walk in the woods when it's time, so that informs our opinion a little bit on vet bills.

So Thursday was the vet visit.  Friday was the surgery.  The surgery, in addition to costing a Buttload of Money, might not even resolve the issue of the cat biting her tail.  She could continue to gnaw away and we would be back at the vet in a few weeks or months, getting another few inches cut off this poor cat's wounded tail. 

Nevertheless, Forte was in the Cone of Shame and it was pathetic.  She couldn't eat; she couldn't drink; I was feeding her from my hand, like Aaron trying to retrieve her from a dusty ceiling in 2009.  Her pupils were dilated like Puss N Boots and her 3 inches of tail were 3 inches of shaven and pathetic.

All of this led to our Saturday mistake of taking the Cone of Shame off.  Forte was fine for hours.  She ate and drank and ignored her tail.  Aaron gave her medicine and she was loving and fine. 

Then, after a few hours, we heard a howl from under the couch.  Aaron leapt over and moved the couch.  There was the cat.  She had gone after her own stitches.  DAMMIT.

We called the after hours vet.  It was going to be $85 right off the bat, plus whatever they had to do.  It might be twice the initial Buttload of Money, 36 hours later.  And this second surgery would do less than the first in fixing the problem.  We talked about the fact that this might be it for Forte.  We called the vet back to confirm that if all we could do, after spending a Buttload of Money, was put the cat down, that the vet would honor our wishes.  Aaron and I spoke about it and what our threshold was.  I looked at him and Forte's life flashed before my eyes.  I saw Aaron's first cell phone pictures of the cats.  I saw his proud smile, holding a freshly-bathed kitten in a towel.  I saw him presenting her, covered in dust and wet cat food.  I saw him chasing her in Oklahoma, cursing as she pooped all over our bedroom. 

I offered to take Forte to the vet.

We got the kids out of bed.  We explained that Forte was sick and I had to take her to the doctor, that she wouldn't come back.  Tears streamed down my face - and Aaron's, much to his chagrin.  The kids assured me we could get a kitten.  Aaron tearfully mouthed the word "puppy" behind their sympathetic little faces.

I got in the car, wishing my eyeballs had windshield wipers to help with the drive.  I called my mom, my sisters, and no one answered.  I called my Dad, who made some perfect Dad jokes like "I hope tonight doesn't cost you an arm and a leg, I'm sorry it already cost you a tail."  He reminded me how few animals die natural deaths and sympathized with my plight of taking a pet in for her ultimate sleep.  I laughed and cried.  I took a wrong turn.  I pulled over and set up my map to get to the vet.  I put the car in gear.

That damn Green Day song came on: And then something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life...

I bawled unabashedly.  I passed a police car.  I told Forte she was a good girl.  I imagined getting pulled over and bawling into some cop's uniform about my husband's cat.  I pulled into the vet as the song came to a close.  I looked at Forte.  We both knew what was coming.

Inside the vet's office, I was a mess.  Fixing her tail would be about $400, and euthanizing her was about $200.  Both included the $85 after-hours fee.  The tech was apologetic and cautious.  Did I want to take Forte home cremated in an urn or would I be okay with a group-pet-burial at a farm?  I was understanding - vet school isn't cheap, and the overhead has to be a nightmare.  I texted the estimate to Aaron - the decision was made.  She handed me one of the tissues that were everywhere.  She asked if I wanted the vet to even look at the cat before the euthanasia.  I texted my mom.  I cried.

The vet looked at Forte - who was beautiful, even without her tail, and a very good cat.  We talked about all of our options.  He detailed the possible procedures.  I texted my mom more for moral support about my decision.

I waited while they took Forte in the back, my tears were dry.  I texted Aaron to ask if he wanted a milkshake from Sonic.  He did, and the flavor was up to me, and he would probably need a god drink.  I did too.  I paid and I left, driving away from the vet with the sound of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" playing on that same stupid, psychic radio station.  Nothing's right I'm torn...

Sonic was a blur.  I called my mom, who was supportive.  I drove home and spoke to her in the driveway for a few minutes before I went in to face Aaron.

When I finally walked in the house, I put the cat carrier down and gave Aaron his sympathy milkshake, avoiding his eyes while I gulped my cranberry limeade.  I set the receipt on the kitchen table and went to put the cat carrier away.

Forte gave away the secret by meowing her protest at being left too long in a cat carrier.  She ran into the living room.  Aaron put his milkshake down and looked, surprised, at me.  I shrugged:

"It turns out, if your cat isn't one of the crazy ones that attacks the vets, that stitching a tail is cheaper than euthanasia so..."

LAST Day at Home

How is it the end of August?  Anyone?  Where have I been all summer?  WHAT'S GOING ON?

Um, I got a job.  A good job.  A full-time job in healthcare instead of government which will be very different and very exciting and will help me grow and introduce me to cool people and get me back into the world of the living!  The team is so awesome, it already has a Maggie!  Except she lost her "e" somewhere along the line, poor Maggi, so people will be able to tell us apart.  Biggest foreseeable challenge, obviously, is writing emails and spelling her name right.  I mean, I already know the advanced spelling of her name but I have major muscle memory when I type, so I'm sure I'll have to go back and correct myself all the time.  But no worries: I have the same issue when I type out the name of the country, France.  Since I spell my sister's name, "Francie," more often, when it comes a moment for the country, I type "F-r-a-n-c-i-e-spacebar-delete-delete-delete-e-spacebar."  That's how my fingers are so in shape.*

I am so incredibly grateful for the new job.  I'll start 10 months to the day since I left my last job and we've got some financial catching up to do.  Plus, I'm starting to become a hermit and a wuss.  We're talking like I need a nap after I go to the grocery store kind of wuss and when people ask me if I can help out with something, I'm trying to come up with a coherent answer while mentally performing a full Scarlett O'Hara faint.  I need smelling salts to get the mail.  It's bad.

Audrey's First Encounter with Contact Lenses

I was super tired last night.  My contacts were super dry and all I wanted to do was crawl into my bed, but I could not find my contact lens case.  There was a tower of small candles on the back of the toilet, so I had the presence of mind to realize there was a strong probability that a little girl had found my pretty little lime green contact case and hidden it somewhere that makes sense to her.  I wasn't about to wake her up by looking in the play blender in her play kitchen, so I fumbled around in the bunch of contact cases stacked in our medicine cabinet.

We have a bunch of contact cases stacked in our medicine cabinet because: 

1. They're sold that way because, according to the contact lens case company, you're supposedly supposed to change out your case every month to keep the contact lens case company in business for optimal contact lens care, and 

2. When I bought the six-pack of cases, Aaron and I both wore contacts so it seemed economical.  Then of course within a few months, Aaron was approved for corrective vision surgery and within a few weeks that was done so I have cases to last at least a few more years.  This is much more dumb than economical: I don't need as many contact cases as I have shoes so I bet I'll get careless with them and then find myself needing one and having to buy another six.  

My hand closed in on a familiar shape and emerged victorious with a light blue option.  It's prettier than the lime green, so it will probably be in the play blender soon, but I was exhausted and thankful that I didn't have to go searching for another one.  I took out my contacts and went to bed.

This morning, I opened the Right side and discovered two contacts floating in an excess of contact solution.  I was so tired last night, I put both in one side!  I put the thicker of the two in my right eye, blinked a few times and looked in the mirror.

The me in the mirror blurred and the room spun a little bit.  I blinked to try and de-blurify everything but it didn't work.  The contact felt really thick and uncomfortable which meant that it was not my contact at all.  I had unearthed a time capsule from April that contained only my husband's contacts. HOLY CRAP, this man definitely needed eye surgery.  I threw the contacts in the trash, re-cleaned my contacts, put them in, and got in the shower.  

I set a Saturday morning shower record: I was already rinsing off when the curtain flew out and I heard Audrey's slow "Mommmmmmy?  You in da showwwwooo?"

Audrey loves when I take a shower because she gets to stack the candles and do her make-up and make bouquets of q-tips and identify little treasures that I will have to live without until they reappear in her "titchen" and various purses.  The longer it takes for Audrey to realize I'm in the shower, the less likely it is that I'll have to clean up broken glass or a lotion-covered toilet (she likes to paint).  The shower is a race against time.

I turned off the water, grabbed the towel and smiled down at the little girl who was wearing nothing but a Little Mermaid Pull-up.  "Yep!  I'm ALLLL done my shower!"

"Oh otay, Mommy.  You all done da showoo."  Audrey crashed into disappointment.  With me out, she couldn't claim her forbidden perch on the toilet.  Her eyes searched for something to make the trip worthwhile.  She bent down and stood up, suddenly fixated with something small in her fingers.  "Mom, what's dis?"

"That's Daddy's contact lens.  It's trash."

"It's twaaaaash?"

"Yeah, it's yuck."

She was fascinated with the gooey little disk, still moist with cleaning solution.  Audrey sized it on each of her fingers.  It was sticky, like a sticker, so it went on her chest.  It flipped inside-out, and she caught it by her belly button, noting that it was almost the same size.  Wait!  I could see the wheels turning as she discovered the use for these two little circles that could almost stick to her chest.  She wandered out of my bathroom, holding the contacts close as she tried to place them both where they obviously went.

And that is how my daughter discovered that contact lenses are the perfect size and shape... to cover her nipples.  

Happy Saturday

When I finally got out of bed this morning (my eyelids were glued shut, so I fought the battle until 8:30), Aaron had already watered the yard, done some dishes, and set the kids up to eat their leftover donuts at their small table.  I tried to act like I'd been there the whole time by starting laundry and making coffee so my darling productive husband could sit down and play his new video game.

(Before anyone gets distracted by the relative merit of video games, please note that the main reason I'm even near the computer right now is that I'm looking up how to kill random bosses or whatever in the game.  I think I just used 1992 language to talk about a 2013 video game, but this is my husband's hobby after all and I think interrupting my morning article reading to look up this stuff is enough dedication.  I don't need to learn current terminology.  Plus, I'm a Mom now so I need to stay several years behind on "the lingo" or I would deny my children a full Mom experience.  Or I just used the term "bosses" correctly in which case, YEAH, I'm ON IT.)

And so, back to this morning...

I was making coffee so I could complete the eyelid-ungluing and eat my donut, but was distracted by a little girl who was running back and forth behind me, wearing nothing but Big Girl Underwear with her hair in a messy librarian bun.  She was also screaming "YAY YAY YAY!" while she ran.  This is God's way of seeing if you are really committed to your morning coffee - if you can do it while your eardrums are violently shaking, the angels will make it extra specially delicious.  I pushed the button to start the coffee maker.

"YAY YAY YAY!  Mom I so CITED!"
"I'm excited TOO!  I'm having coffee!  Why are YOU excited?"
"Be-TUZZ!!!  YAY MADIGAN YAY!"
"Oh yay Madigan!  What did Madigan do?"
"I gave her my donut and she ATE IT ALL!  YAY MADIGAN!"

The DJ of my life screeched the excited happy child/morning coffee music to a halt.  My smile disappeared.  "Audrey, let's not feed the dog donuts.  It will give her a tummy ache."

Aaron joined in from the other room: "Audrey!  Do NOT give the dog any food!  ONLY DOG FOOD!"

On the momentum of an "OooooooooTAY," Audrey sprinted down the hall, followed by Madigan... followed by a scream from Sebastian.

I was pouring the coffee when he came in with a devastated look on his face.  "Madigan ate my donut."

It seems that Audrey's method of dog training is especially effective.  We will have to work hard to help our dog unlearn this donut eating trick.

Since you're wondering, no, my coffee was not extra specially delicious this morning: it turns out the angels do not smile on people who allow a two-year-old to run around naked and teach their dog how to eat donuts.  Also I had to share my donut with a very disappointed little boy.

Happy Saturday.

The Shoe Police

Madigan and I were outside for her walk this morning, since she can't use the re-sodded backyard for 30 days (this should be a fun month), and got to talking to my neighbor, Katrina, who walked across the street for a short morning chat.  After about 5 minutes,  my front door opened, and revealed Audrey, wearing nothing but a pull-up and hot pink sneakers.  She pushed her hair out of her face, then casually strolled out, swinging her arms and calling to Madigan.  I didn't even try to convince her to go back inside since Katrina is her favorite person and Audrey's all-but-naked presence only complimented the towel I had worn on my head for a "short walk."  We're classy like that.

Audrey walked right up to Katrina, like she usually does.  We both expected her to put both arms up and ask to be held.  Instead, she looked down and said, loudly and with authority:

"Ms. Trina!  YOU don't have your SHOES on!"

Contagious Accents

Sometimes I don't realize I have an accent.  I grew up in Central Virginia, but assimilated pretty well when I lived in Chicago for two summers, so I got a little Midwestern.  Then I lived in Louisiana for a year, where I settled into a deeper Southern accent, but I thought that a few years in Northern Virginia had neutralized me a bit.

I was wrong.

I have had Siri on my phone for over a year now and I never use it because she can't understand a word I'm saying.  When I ask her to call my husband, Aaron, she offers to look things up on the internet.  When I enunciate, I hear this twang come out and I throw the phone across the room in horror.  Siri's dumb anyway.  I don't REALLY have an accent.

If I have an accent, it would rub off on my kids, and they would say things in some random dialect that I've picked up and they wouldn't know where it came from.  Can't be having that.  Plus, since we're a military family, we'll be moving all over the place and my kids need a Newsanchor Neutral accent so everyone can understand them.

I had a close call years ago, when my Little Man was born.  Aaron's mom brought it to my attention.  She hails from Pennsylvania and spent years moving with the military before settling in Virginia, so she's the source of Aaron's pretty neutral accent peppered with what I think are Pennsylvania-isms (ex: The laundry "needs washed."  Who skips the "to be" that should be in there?  I think it's Pennsylvanians).  I have a notably stronger accent than Aaron, but it doesn't take much.

Anyway, Sebastian was like six months old and Aaron's mom mentioned that the women in her aerobics class asked how the "Little May-un" was doing.  My eye sockets expanded so fast I had to catch my eyes before they popped out.  She immediately looked embarrassed, but I laughed.  I knew exactly where it came from - my brain already had a montage ready of me cooing a six-syllable "man" at my child for this moment when I realized I was passing on some serious Southernness to this innocent baby.  I fretted about it for months, and successfully reduced my term of endearment from 4-6 syllables to a comfortable 2-3.

Fortunately, Sebastian's babysitter was a Mexican woman who had previously lived in London, so when he started talking and somehow picked up the term "Oh Man," the word came out kind of surfer-Californian - and thankfully, only one syllable.  I celebrated and forgot all about accent modification, figuring that if I kept my children around enough other people - especially Aaron - they would be immune.

Then last week, Sebastian asked me which car we were taking: the green one or the "vay-un."  The next day, he lectured Audrey about dragging her blanket on the "gray-ound."  The final straw was when, through his four-year-old speech impediment, I heard him ask for Ironman fruit snacks, with an empathic "Eye-oon MAY-un!"

Maybe Audrey - whose speech patterns deserve their own homage - has somehow been saved?  No.  She might sing the "Spiderman" theme song as "Spi-Mahn," with that same surfer-style single syllable that Sebastian used to use, but if you ask her to open her Eye-oon Mahn fruit snacks by herself, she'll tell you sadly that she "tay-un't."

These poor innocent children...

AFTERWORDS: After finishing this post, I heard myself asking Aaron if I could read it to him, when he gets a "chay-unce."

See Fish Hide

As you might remember, we got the kids each a betta fish several months ago.  They lived in a small aquarium in Sebastian's room with a divider down the middle so they wouldn't fight and the kids could each see their fish at night and everyone was happy.  Except me.  Because Audrey's fish sucked at life.

We got a "baby betta" that never grew, and it pretended to be dead every day because it hated me or it was making a bubble nest but more likely because it hated me.  It was my nemesis.

But I'm not going to dwell on that because the problem seemed to resolve itself during our trip to Virginia in May.  When I returned, I went to feed the fish and found that the divider keeping Sebastian's awesome blue fish from her sucky pink fish had been removed.  I confronted Aaron (because I would have preferred he scheduled the death match when I was in town), but he said he took it out after finding the little pink fish dead at the top of the tank.  I like to imagine that the little pink fish was just playing dead to try and mess with Aaron the same way it's been messing with me for months and then came to life briefly while it was flushed, feeling fear and remorse and cursing my name as the water drained it into the sewage system, but Aaron insists it was seriously dead this time.

We did what most good parents do when a child's fish died: We didn't tell Audrey and debated whether to pick up another one that looked similar in case she asked.  Avoidance is underrated.  We were tacitly united in this decision, though Aaron decided not to buy a new one before I decided not to buy a new one.

I got caught in a tight spot the other day, when Audrey asked me to lift her up to see her fish.  I said "Well, um..." and froze.  Aaron and I had not covered protocol for this moment, but it seems he had found himself here before with Audrey and she filled me in.

"Mom, pick me up so I can see my fish hiding!  Daddy show me my fish is hiding in the leaves!"

Of course!  While Aaron and I did not confer on the new strategy, I see where he has helped me to evolve to the next step in good parenting, shifting seamlessly from Avoidance to White Lies.  Glad Audrey caught me up.

Good bye fish!  And good riddance!