I Thought I Thaw A Puddytat

Remember how I said Santa left Sam a tent with a cool tunnel on it for Christmas?  And how I said he didn't play with it that much but the cats were sure crazy about it?  Well, he has gotten over his fear of it, but the cats are still pretty darn keen on the thing too.  I wish I had the following scenario on video vs trying to use a couple of snapshots to tell the story, but see if you can imagine the scene:



Molly was bee-bopping through the living room when she caught wind of something that required closer inspection in Sam's tent.

She leans in even closer for a better look.  I think there's something in my friend's tent...

Soon, someone else had to come along and see what the buzz was all about.

I realize the quality of this picture is pretty poor, but between Sam's and Molly's heads you can just make out a little striped kitty.  The picture is blurry because I was trying to catch a quick picture before Sam got caught in the middle of a cat-dog fight. 

I wonder how many messes these two will get themselves into over the next few years as a result of their curiosity.

Hickory, Dickory, Dock...

...the mouse ran up the clock...and under the dining room table...and behind the curio cabinet...and the people tried to catch it while the cat sat back and watched.

Let's back up:  Most people have cats to keep mice OUT OF their homes.  We are fortunate enough to have cats that want to bring the mice IN.  Our cats are excellent hunters.  They are constantly leaving "presents" for us on the back porch.  DECAPITATED presents...but presents nonetheless.  There is a field directly behind our house, so it gives them plenty of gift-giving opportunities.  Last Thursday, Ollie's kill count for the day was two mice and a bird.  And we know it had to be Ollie because she was the only one who went out that morning.  That's one busy day for a cat!  She's a regular mouse-assassin. 

So anyway, Saturday night Shawn and I were getting ready to go to bed.  Shawn went to the back door to let the cat in, but when she came trotting in she immediately deposited a baby mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor. 

Time froze for a second.  I had a brief flash of deja vu. 

And then chaos ensued. 

Molly offered her assistance and starting pouncing on the mouse like a big, 70 pound cat.  "ROOF!"  *pounce*  "ROOF!"  *pounce* 

Shawn grabbed a bucket and started trying to throw it over the mouse.  I got the broom and dustpan and tried to trap the mouse with it.  We whisper-yelled instructions to one-another so as not to wake up Sam.  He's over there!  Get him!  Don't let him get past you!  Then the mouse ran between my legs into the dining room with Shawn, Molly and me in hot pursuit.

Annie, the captor, sat back and watched all of the commotion, calmly licking her paws like someone eating popcorn at the movies.

The mouse ran under the dining room table then skittered behind the curio cabinet.  Shawn and I formulated a plan--he would pull the cabinet out from the wall (being very careful to not break anything in it in the process), and when the mouse ran out I would nab him.  I'm not really sure where that all went wrong (I mean our plan was foolproof, right?), but somehow the mouse ended up on the other side of the room behind the dog's water bowl.  Sure that we had him trapped and could soon get some sleep, we cornered him with the broom, the dustpan and the bucket.  He had nowhere to go.  Except mice are very good climbers and he just skittered right over the dustpan back into the kitchen.

This is where the cat decided we needed her assistance.

She grabbed the mouse and took off downstairs with him.  I tried to jump up from my squatting position and somehow hit my elbow on the door frame...right on the funny bone.  My entire left arm went numb, and I started seeing stars.  Shawn took off down the stairs after the cat yelling at me to come help him.  I had my head between my legs saying, "I'll be right there!"  As soon as I can stand upright, that is.

By the time I made it downstairs, Shawn had somehow corralled the cat and mouse into the unfinished part of our basement.  Unfortunately, the cat released the mouse when she saw that Shawn and I didn't appreciate her gift, and the mouse promptly ran into the wall frame and behind the drywall.  We poked; we prodded; we pleaded...but the mouse was nowhere to be seen.  Finally, we decided to just lock the cat and the mouse in the room for the night and we would let her finish what she started.

Sunday morning, I cautiously opened the door to the unfinished room, dreading the carnage that I would encounter...and I saw...NOTHING.  No blood, no guts, no self-satisfied cat licking her lips.  It was as if the mouse had disappeared into thin air.

And that's where we still are.  I am riding on the notion that the mouse somehow found a way to get outside.  Shawn thinks he's just become a permanent resident of our house and will make random appearances now and then.  Neither of us are willing to admit that there is a possibility that the cat mortally wounded the mouse before he ran into the wall and he's...well...I guess we'll know in a couple of weeks if that's the case.  When we will start ripping out dry wall to find the rotting mouse carcass. 

Ew.

Powerful Motivation

Sam hasn't really shown a lot of interest interest in pulling up, and don't even talk to him about walking. Occasionally he will stand up on his knees in the bathtub so he can peer over the side at whatever toy he's just tossed out onto the floor, ensuring that he gets as much water out of the tub as there is in. But for the most part, he's content to sit...or more recently crawl. Now that he has discovered speed crawling, every time we try to stand him up on his two feet, he grunts and pulls downward until we let him go to explore the way he wants to.

Last night, Shawn and I were putting the finishing touches on dinner, and we had been watching Sam chase Annie around the kitchen for about 20 minutes. She actually seemed to be tolerating their little game well, waiting until he was just within grabbing distance of her and then slowly getting up and sauntering away. He would giggle and take off for her again, panting as he went. (It seems the louder you puff, the faster you can crawl. Think Animal from the Muppets. Kitty! Aarrh...aarh...aarh!) After a while, she threw him a curve ball and jumped up onto the windowsill.

Sometimes all you need to try something new is the right motivation.

Random Pictures From This Week

This is Sam. Sam discovered the pet gate this week. You'll notice that this particular gate has a pet door within the gate. We bought this gate so we could put the cat food in the basement where Maddie couldn't get to it but the cats could come and go as they please. I caught Sam trying to crawl through the pet door. Crawling through the pet door and tumbling down the stairs is probably Method #9,128.

This is Sam's butt. In this picture, Sam's butt is going back to the pet gate as fast as it can. I wonder how many times over the next few years I will be chasing this little butt saying, "Sam, no!"

This is Annie. Earlier this week, Maddie got a haircut so Annie graciously volunteered to do clean-up duty after Sam ate his lunch. If you look closely, you can see her licking her lips. She was actually eating a little bit of cheese that had fallen to the floor.

This is Maddie's water bowl. Sam is fascinated with it. He has been trying for all he's worth to get to it. He finally made it this week. I had brought him into the bathroom with me and shut the door so I could keep an eye on him. He took advantage of his opportunity to do a little fishing.

This is Sam's cheesin' grin. I love it. I love the way his nose wrinkles. I love the way he flashes his teeth. I love the way he sticks his arms out in front of him and bounces like he's riding a horse when he does it. I love this kid.

Starting next week, I am going to be jumping on the Thankful Thursdays bandwagon. I have seen a couple of other bloggers doing this, and I really like the idea. You can get a feel for it here and here. I'm really excited about this! Be sure and stop back by next Thursday for my debut post.

Annie's New Bed

Annie loves to find places where she can hide and sleep for hours. Come to think of it, I would love to find a couple of places where I could hide and sleep for hours. But I digress.


This is not the first time I have posted about Annie's hiding places. She has been known to sleep in Sam's Poop Chair, in a basket of diapers and in his stroller. Every now and then I wake up, and in my sleepy stagger to the shower, I notice a random paw sticking out from underneath my dresser.

So you can imagine my surprise when Sam and I walked into his bathroom a couple of weeks ago to see this:



The cold, hard countertop is neither warm nor private...two things that I thought were prerequisites of hers. She eventually managed to drag herself up, stretch and yawn the way cats do, and flounce away in a huff when we started splashing around in the tub. I guess we disturbed her.

We Took The Christmas Tree Down

The cats are sad...

Is It Worth The Effort?

For some reason, the cats are fascinated with all of our baby gear. If you don't believe me, you can see for yourself here and here. I'm not sure if it's just a cat's natural nosy instinct or what, but they just can't seem to get enough of Sam's stuff. We are forever finding them in his crib, in his pack & play or in his carseat.





A few days ago, I even walked into Sam's room to find Corkey curled up on top of his changing table. Doesn't she know that's where we take care of the poop?



But their FAVORITE place to curl up for a nap is in his chair.









I cannot count the number of times I have removed a cat from the poop chair (dubbed that because it vibrates and always seems to...well...make Sam poop). We finally wised up and started leaning the seat up against the wall so no uninvited guests could use it.



It would appear that we've been outsmarted once again.

Shawn got home yesterday afternoon only to find that Annie had somehow figured out a way to get herself into the seat, despite the fact that it was sitting nearly vertical. He just left her alone. We figure if she's willing to work that hard for it, she deserves to sit wherever she darn well pleases.

Guess Who We're Having For Dinner

Earlier this week, I was in Sam's room getting him ready for bed. I heard Shawn yelling at one of the cats, and I figured she had puked in the floor or something equally as disgusting. When we were all finished, Sam and I went out to investigate. What we found was two cats lurking behind Shawn and a not-entirely-dead mouse in our kitchen. It seems Shawn had been rounding up the critters for the night, and one of them brought a dinner guest in for the evening. She deposited the mouse on the kitchen floor and proceeded to torment it the way cats do with their prey.

Shawn had the broom and dustpan, trying to scoop the mouse into it. The mouse, still having just enough fight in it to get away from the large, frightening thing trying to knock it around, had scampered under the kitchen table to hide. Sam and I stepped in to supervise help.

I moved the kitchen table over just a tad so Shawn could get to the mouse, but he outsmarted us. He limped his frail little body over a couple of inches so that he was back under the table. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but we did this dance 3 or 4 times before we realized it just wasn't working. Remember that during all of this, Shawn is knocking the cats out of the way, because they were only too eager to dispose of the mouse themselves. I vaguely remember threatening a lifetime of living outside if mouse guts ended up on my kitchen floor.

Finally, exasperated, I said, "Just pick the mouse up by the tail and get rid of it!"

To which Shawn replied, "Mice carry rabies. If I get bit, I really don't feel like getting about 40 shots in the stomach tonight."

Dude, the mouse is two breaths away from dead. I think rabies is the least of it's worries right now.

Granted, I would have been happy to take care of it, but someone had to hold the baby, right?

Long story short, we finally managed to get the mouse out of the house without a major crisis, but we'll be checking mouths before we allow anyone else through the door in the future.

The Dime Bag

Last week, Shawn ordered some medicine for Maddie off the internet.

Sidebar: Maddie has two blown ACL's...or at least the dog equivalent. A
few years ago, we were playing with her, and she suddenly went limp in her hind
left leg. We took her to the vet, and he said she had torn a ligament in
her knee. After a little research, we learned that 85% of dogs with the
same injury would tear the same ligament in the other knee within a year due to
overcompensation with the other leg. Almost a year to the day later, she
injured her other leg. We considered surgery to correct the problem, but
even the veterinary surgeon that we saw (yes....we are THOSE people) said the
surgery is a bit controversial and Maddie was not a black-and-white case.
He said he would not do the surgery in a small dog and absolutely would in a
large dog, but Maddie was in that gray area where it was pretty much up to
us. After much research, we decided NOT to do the surgery, primarily
because she would have had to be crate-confined for 6 weeks after the surgery,
and I just felt like that was cruel to do to a dog who had never been
crate-trained. We started high-dose glucosamine and an anti-inflammatory medicine, and she has done remarkably well.

As an afterthought, he ordered some catnip for the kitties. The package arrived this weekend, and we unpacked it, then got sidetracked (imagine that...), so the contents of the box remained on our dining room table for the rest of the day. The catnip was in a little ziplock bag, and had he not told me what he had ordered prior to its arrival, I would have been a bit suspicious of what Shawn was buying on the internet.

I woke up Sunday morning and went bee-bopping through the living room and suddenly stopped short. There was catnip EVERYWHERE!!! Not only that, there were four very happy cats roaming around the house. Apparently, they had not only managed to open the bag and spill its entire contents on the dining room floor, but they then proceeded to ROLL IN IT and transport little pieces of cat weed all over the house.

Lesson: when you buy wacky weed, don't leave it out where little hands can get in it.

Sunshine Shots

Maddie loves those breezy, sunny days when the grass is freshly mowed. She loves to get outside & roll around. I love that she still enjoys playing outside.

What is it about cats & sun spots? Annie found this spot in our kitchen last week. She napped like that for the longest time.

What's Yours is Mine

Shawn's aunt made this really great basket full of diapers, outfits, toys, and random baby necessities. I have unloaded the basket & dispensed of everything in it except for the diapers. Because we're still waiting on Sam's furniture (I know...I know...), I had no place to store them. So, I just stashed the basket & diapers in this handy little nook under the counter in Sam's bathroom for the time being.

Annie found them.

Seriously, I guess I should have known better, but I never considered that she would make a nest on top of dozens of diapers. I have a feeling we're going to have lots of conversations about boundaries in our house very soon.

Trying Out All of Our New Toys

Annie is a hider. She will find a place to be invisible & retreat there whenever she wants a nap. She doesn't really like for anyone to know where she is. If we discover one of her hiding places, she will usually abandon it & find a new one. We have discovered her under the bed, on one of the shelves in the closet, behind the couch, in the clothes hamper...

I came home a few nights ago to discover her newest hiding place. It would appear that she is showing her support for the baby by trying out his new stroller...strictly to ensure its safety, I'm sure.

Introducing Annie...and her belly

This is Annie. She & her sister Ollie have been a part of the family for a little over two years now. One sunny summer day, we stopped at the grocery to pick up supplies for a cookout. As we were searching for a parking space, I spotted two kittens running under a car. Being the suckers that we are, we caught them & took them home with promises to take them to the Humane Society early the next morning. When we got them home, they were so sick that they went to the vet instead. Our vet told me they were so malnourished & underweight they would likely be put down immediately if we took them to the shelter. I vowed to nurse them back to health & find homes for them myself.

Fast forward two and a half years. **sigh** These guys have hit the lost-pet jackpot. I think Annie's malnourishment problem is under control now. It appears that she got tired in the middle of her bath & had to take a break. She's so cool!