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Funny that I mentioned cat pee at the end of that last entry. And I mean funny-ironic, because believe me, this ain’t funny-haha.

So, I’m trying to get the last few things taken care of before the housekeepers come tomorrow. Yesterday I thought it’d be a good idea to wash the sheets on the guest bed, since I hadn’t bothered since my in-laws visited in December. (Why would I? No one ever sleeps in there.)

While I was stripping the sheets, I caught a whiff of cat pee. I wondered if maybe they had peed on the floor under the bed? Maybe that’s where it was coming from? Then I realized, no, they had, in fact, peed ALL OVER the bed. The comforter, sheets, pillows, mattress pad, and the mattress itself were all soaked. How I never smelled it before, I have no idea. For those of you familiar with cats, you know that cat pee has that awful ammonia smell that is almost impossible to remove.

All of the bed linens were promptly washed (with bleach), and pillows are cheap, so whatever, I can throw those away and get new ones, no big deal. But the mattress? I didn’t know what to do about that.

I did some Google-ing and found a couple of home remedies, and also got advice from Kris, who has more experience with pet-related disasters than anyone I know. So I’m using a combination of this stuff, and some water mixed with white vinegar to neutralize the ammonia smell. I’m hoping that’ll be enough.

So after my cleaning efforts have dried, we’re going to flip the mattress over (pee-side down), make the bed, and leave it alone until the house sells. But Dave and I unanimously agreed that when it’s time to move, we are not taking the cat pee-soaked bed with us. Even if we can’t smell the pee, chances are good that the cats can, so they’ll just keep going there. So forget it, we’ll just buy a new bed for the guest room after we move. It’s one less thing to have to load onto the truck, right?

I also realize that I really need to take Teenie to the vet. My suspicion is that it was her, since she’s the one who has more litter box issues than any of the other cats, and it seems to be getting worse now that she’s older (she’s almost 12). I don’t know what the vet can do about it if it turns out that she’s incontinent, but I figure it’s worth getting an expert opinion.

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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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