Free to a good home

Free to a good home:
Three cats
Included - (1) child sized squeeze toy, (1) phantom mouse watcher, (1) midnight hallway roadblocker, (11) couch shredding clawed paws, (3) twitching tails.
Not included - Brains.


I swear. After a few incidents of cat food spilled all over the kitchen floor from one of the genius felines (trying to get it on the counter when I put it up so E wouldn't get it), I broke down and got a baby gate for the kitchen. I cut a nifty little hole in it, so the three-legged one could get through and everything. I had it at the entrance to the kitchen and all was hunky-dory.

And then. Then, I moved it approximately 4 feet closer to the food bowl and completely disrupted their lives. The two couldn't figure out how to go through the hole, and wouldn't jump over it, and it was too close to the scary stove for the other one. I had at least one sitting in the kitchen and one under my feet all night, meowing. Even after I shoved them one by one through the hole, they turned around and came right back out. Then sat there on the wrong side, staring at the elusive food bowl. Meowing.

It takes a lot of meowing to get on my nerves. Really, it does. But see, here's the kicker. They woke the baby. Seriously. They meowed so freaking loud they woke the kid.

Dumb cats.

(no, they really aren't going to new homes, and yes, I did put the gate back and allow the starving creatures to get their food.)

True love, it's what I'm dreamin' of . . .

Meet Kitty, the meanest, nastiest, most terrifying three-legged feline around. This is the cat that would bring squirrels, rabbits and birds to my grandfather daily. This is the cat that I inherited because I am the only person he doesn't maul. This is the cat that will shred your forearm just because it came within striking distance.

And now?

This is the cat that purrs and cuddles and licks the little girlie's head. This is the cat that lets her climb on him, pull his tail and grab his ears.

This is the mellowest, softest, cushiest pillow around.

They must laugh deep down inside

Tonight, the baby got her bath and then ate and was drifting peacefully off to sleep in my arms. So, I sat her up to get that last burp before she was totally out. And, I ended up wearing most of what she had eaten. Lovely. Off to be changed, both of us, and then back into the chair with a super-happy and wide awake E. Cautiously, I let her eat again, hoping we wouldn't have a repeat performance. Content, she drifted off again and was soon that wonderful dead weight that sleeping babies are. Off to bed she went. No sooner had I tiptoed out of the bedroom, a car alarm went off. Right below the window. Un-happy and wide awake E. After shutting all the windows and reluctantly turning the AC on, we headed back to the chair. And rocked, and rocked, and rocked. Finally, she was that lovely dead weight in my arms again. I slid slowly out of the chair and began the shuffle towards the bassinet. It's a very calculated shuffle, only the feet can move, and perhaps a little sway of the hips, but nothing of the upper body can so much as twitch. The bedroom was dark and I silently congratulated myself for navigating around the chair and between the bed without stubbing my toes. And then it happened. Out from under the bed, shot the furball known as Rascal. He had all the room in the world, but clearly, between my feet was the most logical path to take. In a desperate attempt to catch my balance without flailing my arms wildly, and thusly dropping the baby, I twisted around to land myself sitting on the bed and managed to knock a whole stack of things off the chest. Which promptly woke the baby. And she cried. The bottom-lip-quivering-make-you-want-to-cry-too-cause-it's-so-pitiful cry. She was, of course, wide awake.

So, again I shuffled down the hallway and back to the chair, where our new little routine started all over again. And the cats slept soundly at my feet, most likely plotting their next ambush.