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I got a couple of emails when I mentioned selling my car here, so I figured this would be worth a shot too: Does anyone out there want to adopt two of our cats? Or know someone who might?

The thing is, the idea of trying to move four cats across the U.S. is sort of overwhelming, to say the least. I think Cleo and Greta would do better to find a new home, and here’s why:
* Greta is a total outdoor cat. She’s a mouser and a hunter, she wants to be outside most of the time, and I’m worried that if we move to the suburbs, she’s going to get hit by a car the first week.
* Cleo, on the other hand, is not really an outdoor cat - she likes to be inside unless it’s really warm out - but she and Greta are totally bonded to each other. They sleep on top of each other most of the time, and I can’t stand the idea of separating them.

The decision to keep Beaumont and Teenie is easy. Beaumont is Cate’s buddy, so I don’t want to take him away from her. And Teenie is, well, mine. She’s 12 years old, I’ve had her since I was in college, and she’s not going anywhere. Plus, she’s so neurotic, I don’t think anyone else could handle her. The other perk is that Beaumont and Teenie are generally ok with each other. Teenie hisses at him, he ignores her, and they each go about their business.

By contrast, Teenie fights with both Cleo & Greta. It’s gotten to the point where they never come upstairs, and Teenie never goes downstairs. Beaumont and Cleo don’t really get along either, which is weird since they’re littermates.

The problem, of course, is trying to find a home for two adult cats with such totally different personalities. Greta is not super-friendly at first. She’s really scared of people (we have no idea what happened to her during the first year of her life, before Dave adopted her, but it was probably pretty bad), but she desperately wants affection once she finally warms up to you. Cleo, on the other hand, is a total love bug who climbs on pretty much anyone who comes in the house and purrs in their face.

It’s possible that if someone was really patient, they could train Greta to be an indoor cat. I just can’t stand the sound of her constant meowing at the back door to go out. Cleo basically already is an indoor cat, so that’s no problem.

Anyway, this is Greta:

And this is Cleo:

So if you or someone you know might have a loving home for our girls, drop me an email and let me know, ok?

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Cate had a really rough day yesterday. She’s getting another cold - I’m not sure if this one is related to teething or not, because it’s not just a snotty nose, she also has a really nasty-sounding cough (which sounds remarkably like the cough I’ve had myself for the past couple of weeks). The last cold didn’t seem to bother her all that much, but this time it’s totally messed with her normal sleep patterns, so she’s been pretty miserable.

As if the cold weren’t enough, she also:
1. Fell off the couch and bonked her head. That was totally our fault, we should’ve been watching her more closely.
2. Had a MAJOR barfing incident. That was just my fault - I made the mistake of giving her a dose of Baby Motrin after she’d just had a big meal, and apparently it was just enough to trigger her gag reflex.
3. Had to endure a Daddy Bath. I don’t know why it upsets her so much when Dave bathes her, I guess it’s because he doesn’t do it very often, and he doesn’t do the bath routine the exact same way that I do. It’s funny, there are some things that she is totally chill about, and others that she will freak the hell out if it isn’t done the exact same way every time. But I had to clean up the barf-a-thon downstairs, so Dave was the one who gave her a bath, and she howled the entire. damn. time.

After all of that, we lay down on the couch so I could get her to sleep. Or rather, I sat on the couch and lay her down next to me. That was when Beaumont decided to come over and try to comfort her himself.

It was so funny, he lay in front of her so she could spoon him, and the two of them almost fell asleep like that. (She eventually decided that she wanted a bottle before she’d go to sleep, and that was fine, but it meant the end of snuggle time with the cat.) It just cracks me up to see the way they interact with each other. Total buddies.

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My dad had requested some more baby videos, so I filmed this for him last night.

Cate loves her little stacking ring toy, and she can get them in the right order most of the time. This video also features a Special Guest Appearance from Beaumont, so if you have a thing for babies and pets (hi, Angie!), this is for you.

It’s funny, you’ll see him walk right in front of her and wait for her to sit up and pound on him. Which she always does. He loves it, and purrs like a maniac the whole time. Such a bizarre kitty. I have a theory that when she’s a little older and sleeping in a big-girl bed, Beaumont is probably going to be her sleeping companion. The two of them are totally buddies.

Side note: the audio is totally crap, because I filmed this with my regular camera instead of my camcorder. I think that’s probably my fault. I don’t know where the microphone is located on the camera, so it’s entirely likely that I had my finger over it the whole time.

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I’m sorting through your suggestions about what to do with childproofing a house with cats, and here’s what I’ve got so far:

1. Buy a different type of non-toxic cat litter.
Likelihood that this will happen: Possible. It’s a lot more expensive than the stuff I use, and would require a trip to a whole other store, which is very tedious with a baby in tow. I’m putting it on the list of things I could do if I absolutely had to.

2. Switch them to twice-daily feedings and not leave cat food out any other time.
Likelihood: Probably not. A couple of our kitties are pretty food-aggressive, and I could see that turning into a source of unnecessary fighting.

3. Buy new baby gates with pet doors in them.
Likelihood: God, no. The gates we have were such a huge pain to install, the last thing I want to do is start over from scratch. And at least one of our cats (read: Beaumont) is not that bright, so I have a feeling that Cate would figure it out before he does.

4: Buy a house with a basement, so I can put the litter boxes down there.
Likelihood: Duly noted for next time, since we’re planning to move in 2008.

Since we have four cats, we have three litter boxes. Here’s how it breaks down:
* The first litter box is in the laundry room. I’m not worried about Cate getting into that one, since she’d have to crawl through Dave’s office in order to get there. And she isn’t allowed in Dave’s office unless she’s being closely supervised. There are too many computer cables and other potential sources of electric shock in there. If Dave or I aren’t with her, the door stays shut and she can’t go in.

* The second litter box is upstairs, in my office (technically an extra bedroom that’s been converted into an office). I don’t know why, but a long time ago, one of the cats decided to start peeing in there, and then the rest of the cats got a whiff of it and were like, “oh hey! Is this where we pee now? Whee!” That’s reason #1 on the list of why the carpet has to be replaced before we can sell this house, because man, you can NOT get rid of that smell completely. I finally gave in and decided that you know what? You guys want to pee here, then here’s a box. Go nuts. I put one of those room divider screens around it, so it’s sort of hidden, and I don’t really worry about Cate getting into it. I don’t leave her alone in my office (she likes to turn my pc on and off - fun buttons!), and even if I took my eyes off of her for a minute (because after all, that does happen), I don’t think she could crawl back there without bumping the screen and making me aware of where she was. So I’m not too worried about that one.

* The third and final litter box is in our bedroom. I realize that this is not ideal, but when I first moved in with Dave, Teenie hid in the master bedroom for weeks (months? I forget). So to prevent any little accidents brought on by her stubborn refusal to leave the room, we put a box in there for her. She still doesn’t go far - she might occasionally explore the rest of the upstairs, but she never comes downstairs. She and the other cats don’t get along, and since she’s 11 years old now, I think that’s just the way it’s going to be. I’ve lived with this cat long enough to know that if I move the litter box, she’ll just keep going in the spot on the carpet where she thinks the box should be, so there’s really no point in trying to wean her off of it and make her use the litter box in my office instead.

So that’s really the only litter box I worry about. It isn’t hidden at all, and I don’t know how I can put up a gate to keep Cate out of our bedroom, since she’s in there all the time. The box is in a far corner, and so far she hasn’t shown any interest in crawling in that direction. I’m just worried that she will as she gets older, and I don’t really know what to do about it.

Fortunately, she’s now old enough that she understands “no” and “uh-uh,” so hopefully if I see her heading toward a litter box, I can stop her before she gets there and reinforce that that’s one of those things we don’t touch, sort of like Daddy’s computers and the oven. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that’ll be all it takes.

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I’m sure that some people who read this site must have dealt with this issue before, so help me out here: how on earth do you have pets and babies in the same house?

Since Cate has started crawling, I have had to swipe cat food out of her mouth on at least three occasions. (I only successfully retrieved it two of those times, the other time it went down the hatch too fast. Oh well, a little extra protein in her diet won’t hurt, right?) And twice in the past week, she’s overturned the cats’ water dish onto the floor and all over herself. She hasn’t yet discovered the litter boxes, but I know it’s only a matter of time before they become her own personal sandbox. And oh my god, eww. I don’t know if there’s enough soap in the world.

So what do you do? I thought about baby gates, but the problem is, our cats haven’t figured out that they can jump over the gates, they just stand at them and yowl for us to come open them. (I now prop the gate at the top of the stairs open at night because I got so sick of Beaumont’s four a.m. wake-up calls.) I have no idea what the next step is, short of keeping Cate on a leash. And I have a suspicion that most parenting books would frown on that. Help?

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Today was Cate’s first day at daycare, which I have to say was far less traumatic than I was expecting. For me, anyway. According to Patsy, Cate had a few meltdowns during the day, but she also took a couple of naps while she was there, she enjoyed playing with the other kids, and she loved Patsy’s cats (which I kind of figured, since she loves ours). So it all went much smoother than I anticipated.

As for me, it was kind of amazing to have a few hours to myself in the house to do nothing but clean. You can get so much done when there isn’t a tiny person shrieking for you to pick them up every five minutes! The entire upstairs is cleaned and pretty much child-proofed. (Is there a way to child-proof a litter box? Anyone? Help?) The first floor still needs some work, but I’m saving that for when Cate goes back to daycare next week. But as nice as it was to get so much work done, I missed my little munchkin like crazy, which is bizarre since we were only apart for six hours.

When we got home, I made a video of Cate crawling. I know it might seem kind of weird to film her in the bathroom, but it has some of the best lighting in the whole house, plus she crawls better on the linoleum (I guess it’s easier to slide on than carpet?), and for a little extra motivation, Teenie was there and just hanging out as a big beacon of furriness for her to crawl toward. Worked like a charm.

(Warning to Angie: this video combines babies and animals. Your head may explode.)

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Two things that are totally unrelated to each other…

1.) Spring has officially arrived here, which means the cats are back into Hunting Mode. Normally this is fine, as long as they do their business outside. Not having mice in the house is a-ok with me, I just don’t want to know about the Great Outdoor Killing Spree. Unfortunately, Beaumont hasn’t quite figured that out. A couple of days ago, I found him with a tiny little bird in our foyer. I chased him off and screamed for Dave. The bird was cowering in the corner making this really horrible little squeaking noise. I thought for sure he was a goner. Dave told me to go upstairs - I don’t know what he was going to do with it, I’m honestly afraid to ask - but he said that as soon as he took the bird outside, it flew away. So I guess it wasn’t injured too badly. Or at least I hope not.

The other incident happened this morning. I was heading upstairs to get dressed, and I spotted Beaumont in my office, halfway behind my desk. That’s not a place where any of the cats hang out, so I thought it might be smart to go investigate. Sure enough, he had caught himself a teeny-tiny baby bunny rabbit. Again, I screamed for Dave, because I am totally useless in these situations. I honestly thought the rabbit was dead because it was frozen stiff when I saw it, but apparently he was just terrified. After Dave chased the cat out of the room and closed the door, the bunny started hopping around all over the place and it took Dave a while to catch him. It seems that he was totally uninjured. And he was so cute, I really wanted to keep him, but I know that isn’t very practical in a house with four cats and a baby. Dave set him loose in the woods behind our house, where he will hopefully be reunited with his little bunny family and live a long, happy life.

2.) Cate and I have a little morning ritual that I call Naked Time. Apparently a good cure for diaper rash is to let your baby go diaper-free for 10 minutes a day. She doesn’t have diaper rash, but I figure this is a good way to make sure she doesn’t get it. So, every morning, when I change her out of her pajamas, I lay a waterproof mat on the floor (you know, just in case), toss a blanket over it, and strip her down to her birthday suit. She really seems to enjoy it, she laughs and kicks her little legs in the air. It’s pretty funny.

This morning, we were playing with this little stuffed giraffe that plays different children’s songs when you squeeze his tummy (”Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “London Bridge,” etc.). Dave came in the room to play with us for a while. He squeezed the giraffe and it started playing “Three Blind Mice.”

Me: You know, I’m realizing that I’ve forgotten most of the words to these songs. Like this one. All I remember is something about the farmer’s wife, and she cut off their tails with a garden knife.
Dave: It’s a carving knife.
Me: Oh, right. Whatever.
Dave (to Cate, in baby-talk): Isn’t your mommy dumb? She thinks the song talks about a garden knife, but there’s no such thing. She’s so silly. And wrong.
Me (to Cate, in baby-talk): Your daddy’s kind of a jackass, isn’t he?

We do this whole “making snide remarks to each other through the baby” thing all the time now. I know we’ll have to cut it out when she gets older, but it’s so much fun.

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