A series of unfortunate discoveries..

We have cats. Currently? We have five cats.

Kelly: 9 years old
Olivia: 3.5 years old
Gizmo: 6 months old
Kittens 1&2: 2 weeks old (like furry turds..)

Kelly, bless her heart, is a wonderful feline companion. While she does have the typical (though no less irritating) habit of scratching on things around the house, we have no other behavioral issues with her.

Olivia is a queen. That means 'fertile cat'.. or more specifically 'mother cat'. She lives up to the title. She has always been a tad picky about her.. um.. potty habits. She seems to prefer piles of dirty (well, at least it's not clean..) laundry or an empty sink as her designated tinkle spot. Poop? Goes in the litter box (or so we thought..). We do our best to keep laundry inaccessible and bathroom doors open, and manage to get along fine.

Enter Gizmo (via Olivia). Olivia was apparently quite lazy about potty training her little man. We battled with him for several weeks, throwing little litter boxes in all corners of the house to keep him from relieving himself on the carpet/wood floors. He didn't really care where he did his business.. as long as it was somewhere he wasn't supposed to. He's nearly cured... but is known for the occasional moment of confusion.

I posted some time ago about our other 'pets'.. and, well.. let's just say we've found the source.

Our basement went unused this summer, mostly due to the fact that we moved J's office up to the attic during The Great Room Rotation that had resulted from our discovering the fact that the attic toilet had been dripping for like.. a year.. and we had to move the boys down to a second floor bedroom so we could make repairs (after apologizing to them repeatedly for constantly yelling at them for playing in the bathroom sink and completely soaking the floor.. oops.).

Then we discovered a lovely crack along the basement floor during the Great Flood of 08 here in Iowa. Thank goodness we live up on a hill, we might have floated away. Our ship took on water, but not an unmanageable amount.. just ruined a few stray toys and an old comforter that had been folded up against the center wall to give us a comfy spot to huddle when we'd have an oh-my-gosh-run-for-cover tornado warning.

So one morning, J was digging in the dryer for clean unders.. and heard a kitty scratch-scratching in the basement. He turned and looked to find one of our feline friends doing a post potty dance in a corner of the basement. Upon further investigation, J discovered a couple of festering piles of cat doodie. Lovely. Well, that explains the flies, doesn't it!

So why are they still hanging about??

J did his best to scoop the shit from the doodie box between the washer and the basement stairs.. while KJ and I worked feverishly day and night to keep the many others scattered about the house turd free as well. Strangely, the job got easier and easier for J.. as for some reason the cats didn't seem to be using the box by the basement stairs much. Sure, they were using the others but.. sniff sniff It sure smelled like they were using that one.. Where was the smell coming from???

J grabbed his trusty flashlight one morning after breakfast, and (despite his fear of mild annoyance with the many spiders in our basement) he ducked around the corner and peered under the basement stairs and..

Holy mountains of cat crap Batman!

He made the rather shit-tastic discovery of Mont Chat Merde. He stomped his way up the stairs kicking lovingly greeting any of our lovely feline friends along the way, and came back to the dining room with a rather strained smile on his face. He motioned for me to join him in the kitchen, where he informed me of his most recent, and rather unfortunate, discovery. I went and took a look for myself, not understanding why he'd suggested 'we may need a new snow shovel' when we were done..

"Shit."
"Yeah, exactly." he said. "We're going to need to get some masks or something."
"Masks??"
"Yeah, I don't want to breathe in that crap.." I stifled a giggle.. he said 'crap'.
"I guess.."
"We don't know what's growing in there.. There's probably mold.. and maggots.." he pondered as he swatted thirty-seventy-nine flies away from his face.. "Hell, there could be.. there could be shit spiders!"
"Shit spiders?"
"Yeah, you know.. the big, hairy brown ones, that live in shit. And eat shit. And spin shit webs. And when they bite you, you turn into a shit zombie!"
"A shit zombie??"
"Yeah.. and trust me.. you don't want to meet up with one of those."
"I don't know.. maybe if we had a couple around we wouldn't have to clean so many dang litter boxes.."

So yeah.. I'll talk to y'all later.. We're off to the man store Lowe's to get some masks.. and hazmat suits.. and a new snow shovel. (And then to the grocery store to get some soy sauce to put on the cat stir fry...)

Gizmo, Kelly, Olivia
mmmm.. kitties... YUM.

cupcakes for breakfast.

Some days, I swear my children are conspiring against me.



Other days, I just relish in the fact that I can see them enjoying being children. Today is one of those days. Hectic and busy and preventing me from getting anything done, thus far, but fulfilling as a mother. They have watched no tv today so far. That, in and of itself, is a good day on my calendar. Sure, my oldest started his day at the keyboard playing pirates online, but that was only for less than an hour and only I have been on since.

My children are caked in dirt. Again. I've had the pleasure of witnessing my three little boys giggling and sqealing (ok.. we'll just count Booger as sqealing.. since it's not very 'masculine' for a 6yo or almost 8yo..) in the dirt with their Hot Wheels and Thomas trains (again.. Booger's) and riding their bikes and skate boards around in circles on the driveway..

They ate cupcakes for breakfast. Yes, cupcakes. The 2yo got into them (and licked the frosting off two) before all the boys were even up.. so I let them finish off the 6 mini cupcakes that I'd bought for dessert last night for breakfast today. So yeah.. then I kicked them outside because I had no desire to witness the early morning sugar rush, and then I proceeded to drink my coffee in peace. For once. I think my last sip may have been hot. Wow.

They've been out there ever since. Well, I did call them in briefly for lunch at around 2:30.. having them rinse the top layer of dirt off their hands and faces (sometimes I wonder if they act like dogs out there... getting down on the ground and rolling in it, rubbing their head around and smooshing their face into it..) and serving them some microwave burritos and grapes and goldfish crackers with kool-aid (yeah.. shut up. I need to go to the store..). They're back outside now. Playing in the dirt hole under the tree.. Mmmm.. dirt.



My 2yo, on the other hand.. did not last long outside. They were out there all of maybe 30min this morning before Dog managed to knock Princess flat on her back by clotheslining her with her leash. Nice.



I heard her shrieks and ran outside to see what happened. She managed to walk all the way up to the porch before falling into my arms. I held her until her crying slowed down.. not stopped.. just slowed.



Then I carried her into the house and tried to pinpoint the source of her pain. To no avail. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep on the couch. She stayed there, waking only a couple times, for two hours. Then she woke up and puked all over the couch.. and I thanked God again for our pleather couches and hard wood floors. I carried her up to the bathroom and plopped her in the tub, stripped her down, turned on the water, rinsed her, and filled the tub. She played in the water while I cleaned up the mess in the living room.

She's been fine since then.. So I'll assume it was either just a concussion or an upset tummy from too much sugar.. Those are fine with me.. they're not contagious. There's nothing worse in a large family with small children than a 'stomach virus'. *shudder*



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS the nominating has ended for HotBloggerCalendar... I can has votes plz? kthnxbai.