Our foster cat went to an adoption event today. Unfortunately, she did not find her forever home. She doesn’t show very well at an event like that- she’s kind of loud and doesn’t like being stuck in a cage.
We did find out, though that she loves being on a leash. So, that’s weird. She’s such a sweet cat, and she loves people, but doesn’t like other cats. It seems that most cat people enjoy having more than one cat. So we brought her back home and she will stay with us a bit longer.
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Recently my kids have been watching a very… unappealing (to me at least) show called Super Kitties.
I knew my older 2, who are 5 and 3, were pretty into it. They’ve been playing Super Kitties in the car, pretending whatever random things they have are different character and repeating lines from the show. Today, on the way home, my youngest, who is almost 2, started YELLING, “Super Kitties! Super Kitties!” “What???” I asked back, shocked. “Want Super Kitties! Super Kitties! Super Kitties!” Oh boy. It is truly hilarious to me, now, that my first child didn’t watch a single moment of TV until after he was 2. It’s gone a little downhill on the screen time since then. Call it mother’s intuition, or just careful observation, I always know when my poor daughter is about to get sick.
She has a very telling look in her eyes when something is coming. Usually, it’s a fever. When I walked in to pick her up from preschool today, I saw it, and my heart sank. “Can I just take a nap when we get home?” She asked. That’s not typical. My stomach still turns when she gets a fever, thinking back to when she was just over 1, the day before thanksgiving, and she had her first seizure. We could tell, by that look in her eyes, she wasn’t feeling well. She was just… droopy. She wasn’t yet walking but crawled out into the living room and I was half paying attention to her, half doing about a million other things. She laid down on the rug with her face toward the shag carpeting and I kind of laughed thinking how silly she was. Until I realized she hadn’t chosen to lay down, she had lost consciousness. I quickly lifted her, arms and legs hanging limp, and handed her to my husband. We kept trying to talk to her and rub her face as I called 911. That day was my first ambulance ride. By the time the paramedics arrived she was breathing again and was in and out of consciousness. They assessed her and we decided it was best to take her by ambulance to the hospital. Mind you, this was 2020. Covid was rampant, and hospitals were full. My anxiety was through the roof and I wondered if we would be exposed as we sat on a portable gurney in the hallway- no rooms or beds available. There were sick people all around us, in other portable beds, and being wheeled past us, too. This entire situation was the most scared I’ve ever been, from the moment she slumped over, to a few days later, when we followed up with the pediatrician. All we deduced was that she had had a febrile seizure, and we were told that this “just happens” and can likely happen again. We’ve been so lucky that she hasn’t had more seizures. But that has been from no lack of effort. Any time I would see that look in her eyes, my stomach would turn, and I’d reach for the Tylenol. Every 4 hours. And Motrin every 6. All day. And all night. My poor girl. Now that she’s 3, she seems to have outgrown it, which the doctors told us would probably happen. But that doesn’t stop me from flashing back to that panic, and being extra cautious, just in case. I’m sitting here on the couch, which I’ve barely left today, watching Puffin Rock with my almost 2 year old on my lap. He also has barely left this spot today.
This morning he finally had surgery, that has been delayed and rescheduled multiple times, to put tubes in his ears. The procedure went perfectly and we were home shortly after 8AM. The whole rest of the day has been spent here on the couch: baby on my lap, dog on my left, cat on my right. Kind of a dream. While eating his snack he started laughing and I asked him what was so funny. He responded “It’s so loud! In my ears!” So it seems that the procedure was a success! My favorite thing when picking up my 2 older kids from their preschool is when they’re playing outside at pickup time.
I love going through the side gate and getting a peek at the kids playing with their friends or running around in circles. Today I went around the corner to see my daughter standing by one of her favorite teachers- the one she talks about missing every weekend and how she wants to tell her everything that she does. She saw me and ran to me, thrusting the object in her hand toward me saying “Look!” She showed me the old keyboard she had been playing with in the sand. My son was running with a friend whose mom was there to pick him up already. I said hi to the other parents and to the teachers and tried to get my kids gathered up. My daughter ran up onto the porch of the yard, needing to hug each of her friends before leaving. They were playing with old house phones, pretending they were talking to their parents. I love this school. This will be our last school year there, before the kids venture off to the next thing. This place gave us the ultimate foundation for the last 3 years and it will always be a place full of growth and magic in my heart. When we were brand new parents to only 1 baby, we read bedtime books every night. Yes, to our newborn baby.
For a long stretch of time we read a series that was handed down to us from my husband’s mom. They were books he used to read when he was a kid called Sweet Pickles. The whole series is about animals that each have a specific trait- for example Vain Vulture, who loves to dress up fancy and get lots of attention- that they sometime deal with during their book. They’re definitely outdated and the characters sometimes do and say things us new-age gentle parents don’t really love, so we alter some lines slightly. As our baby has gotten older, we’ve worked our way through the series a few times. One of the times his favorite thing was to look at the inside cover where the map of the town is, and locate where each character lived. He could do this for ever and ever, especially when it was supposed to be bed time. So eventually we had to limit to 2 or 3 characters. In an effort to stall he started to point to several at a time and ask “Where do all these live?” And we would laugh and laugh at his cleverness. Now he thinks he is the funniest kid ever saying, “Remember when I was a baby and I’d say ‘Where do all these live?’” These silly, sometimes not so sensitive, old books are such a staple in my memories of my first baby as an only child. Because my husband and I both have somewhat eclectic music taste, our kids have inherited quite the interest in a wide range of music, too.
When we were in the car the other day and my son requested Depeche Mode “Enjoy the Silence” I paused a moment before going for it. While having snacks in our kitchen today, the kids had a little dance party to everything from Lumineers to Willie Nelson and Depeche Mode to LaBouche. I am a dog person. The end.
I grew up with dogs, I have fostered dogs, volunteered with dogs at shelters and rescues, trained dogs, been a dog mom- forever. Somehow, of the 3 little people I created, one of them is a cat person. My 5 year old is a cat person. It feels good to get that confession out there into the world. Based on his love of cats, we fostered a cat last summer. He loved her, took responsibility to help take care of her, and talked about her all the time. This cat, Petunia, came to us FeLV+ which at the time I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact I knew absolutely nothing about cat care in general. And once we learned more about feline leukemia virus, we just kinda figured she’d live out her days with us. When we got a message that she had an approved adopter, we were all kind of shocked. And then we were excited for her. And then we were sad for us. Petunia is loved and happy and we get sent pictures and updates often! Since she was adopted, months ago, my son still talks about her all the time. He actually cried when we told the kids we decided to adopt our dog, who we were fostering at the time, because he thought that meant we could never have a cat. We assured him that wasn’t necessarily true, and he recovered. So today we welcomed our second ever foster cat, Edith, or E-Diff as the kids have been saying. He set up her bed and bowls and created a cozy nook just for her. I am a dog person, but I am also a my-kids’-happiness person, and this fills my heart! After our shortened school day today, many of the staff from our school went out and celebrated a new baby on the way!
Our school is such a tight knit community that I am endlessly thankful for. We laughed and ate and drank and watched the new big-sister-to-be help open little gifts for baby. It’s not often some of these people can be together outside of work with everyone’s different home responsibilities. With a garland of blush onesies lining the dessert table, I got to catch up with some of my favorite people. Simple and sweet, we’re all looking forward to a new “eagle” joining our crew this summer! We no longer have any babies in cribs at our house. It was almost 6 years of cribs (sometimes 1, sometimes 2) in our family with 3 babies so close together, and it has officially come to an end.
A couple weeks ago I disassembled the side rail and replaced it with the toddler plank on my (almost) 2 year old’s bed. I laid out the screws and little metal pieces on the carpet, and gathered the stupid Ikea hex wrench and screw drivers I’d need. Then I sat and stared at it for a few minutes. It’s a strange feeling, watching babies grow up. There’s an excitement and also an emptiness that has come, for me, in giving away bags of baby clothes we held on to for a while, just in case. The day I took apart that crib though, I did the entire job through a flood of tears. Thinking of the “never agains” that come with a last baby twists my stomach. When I put the bed back together the same stillness came over me and I just sat in the middle of the floor and looked at it for a long time. I thought back to the late nights trying to sneak a sleepy baby from my arms onto the mattress. The middle of the night sheet changes after a leaky diaper. The endless shhhhhhhing and rocking trying to follow our “sleep plan.” The staring at a perfect sleeping face with pouty lips. The opening the swaddle for THE big stretch in the morning. I’m just under a month my littlest baby will turn 2, and that’s it, baby days are done here. There’s so much to look forward to, but, still, so much that I ache to go back to. |
Author5th grade teacher, wife, mama to my 3 magical babies, ally, advocate, doggy foster mom... just stumbling on. Archives
March 2022
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