October, All Over

Chan did the annual cosplay ball, the parents went out to do the ghost walk and to eat.

A few shots from the ghost walk:

This tree looks like something with one eyeball and 2 arms

AN ORB!

ANOTHER ORB!

Rho stayed the weekend.  It started off with Jake miserable, but I think even he got bored after a while.  They got along fine for a change.

We went to see Crimson Peak on Sunday before meeting up with Amanda.

On Monday, Jake went to an open house for law enforcement hopefuls.  He really liked it and hopefully he will be able to work it so he can go this next year until he's 21.  It's a great way to get his foot in the door.  His job is good for the schedule now, but I am not sure if it's the best job for him.  The hours are super early and short-he's leaves just after 3 a.m. and is back by 9.  He's struggling with the work load and takes what seem to be minor things such as falling behind a little as these huge events that color the rest of the day.  Then he has a good day and everything is great.  Then a bad day and it's doom and gloom again.  The whirlwind is stressful.  But if he goes to a 9-5 job, he can't do the police thing.  It's a lot for him to consider.  I am staying out of it, other than to try to cheer him some when the day goes badly in his mind.  He doesn't have anything to compare it to, so every time his boss mentions he needs to do this or change that, he takes it more personally than I think strictly necessary.  But, I don't know.  Maybe Jake is the worst employee ever.  They keep texting him to come back in the next day no matter how abysmally he feels he's done.  Maybe they are filming him for a new 'what not to do' video for new hires.  I don't know.  I try not to dwell, but that's not super easy.  I want things to go well for him, for him to be starting out on the adult phase of his life and not this merry go round of turmoil he seems to be in instead.

The chicken factories are done, so far as I can tell.

On Thursday, we went to see American Horror Story, which in this instance was the story of Lizzie Borden.  As a ballet.  Afterward, Chandler had to find the wiki as we had NO IDEA what happened in the middle 30 minutes, other than LOADS of dancing.  Turns out, she joined the church.  I never would have guessed that, ever.

I told Ben the primary ballerinas had wood blocks in their shoes and on the way to the van, he got REALLY irate that I told him about that.  I don't know if it freaked him out or what.

Chandler said they asked the art department, "Who wants to paint some non-oxidizing blood from no discernible source?" which made me laugh until I had hiccups.  It was true, though.  Blood isn't red for long.  And it's green if you bleed out in water deeper than 30 feet.  Just so you know.

On the way back, we stopped at Mulberry Fork and took a couple pictures.  The fall color this year is subdued, some trees are already bare, some have not turned yet and there are a few here and there that are painfully bright, but only a few.

Below, I have the DRAMATIC filter on to get the clouds.

And that's it.  Next week starts a whole new month, even though I don't feel like October even happened.  What a crazy fast month!  I thought so many changes would make it seem slower, but I don't know if anything can slow the rush of time, other than walking.  Seems like I manage to feel every minute when I am having to get back to the van.  hahaha.  

Backpacking, Hanging Out and Turning Forty. One.

First of all, school season is back sniffing around and I realized I am in this gig for 2.5 more years, 3 at the most.  Time to start weaning away from being a roamschooler and start doing my own thing as...me.  So, I have started up a second blog and have been doing all the 'just me' stuff over there. Though I do digress here plenty, this started as our family unschooling blog.  I don't want to be just a homeschooling mom any more, I need to start branching out and finding other ways to connect with people. So after a couple minutes of thought, hiking, camping, backpacking, nature study...yeah.  Those are my people.  And happily, I can still maintain a few current friendships that can carry over to post "our kids get along so well, let's do things together" era, as I have a few truly awesome friends.  :)

Speaking of awesome friends, Jacki and I have a birthday tomorrow!  She will be 40 and I will be 41.  I love that we share the day.  :)  This year, like last, I am going to the lake to swim.  Though this year-I can walk!  I will never, ever take that for granted again.  What a gift to be able to move freely and without pain.  I have been working so hard-hours each week-on getting stronger and having better balance and better core muscles.  It's showing!  I was able to do the 13 mile Fiery Gizzard Trail last weekend with a 25 pound pack in 9 hours of hiking.  

I hiked with Melissa, another mom I met who lives just over the TN line.

Then Tuesday I walked 12 miles on the Richard Martin Trail in 4 hours.  With a 12 pound pack.  Elevation change is a HUGE factor and RM only has about a 50 foot change.  I was tired after both hikes, but recovered and was ready to go again quickly.

SWAMP

Melissa picked up a friend!

What 97% of the trail looks like

Me,10 miles in!  Heat index was over 110, I drank 3 liters of water!

Back at the middle!  

I have been taking it a little easy to let my feet toughen back up.  Being wrapped and rubbed and coated in Stephanie's concoctions made my callouses soft!  Hit her up if you have an ailment, she is a little nuts about the miracle powers of her witchy oils, but some do help!  Her bug spray is the best all-natural repellant I have tried.  And I have tried at least a dozen.

Yesterday was an easy day, we went to Gina's to celebrate Phoenix's name change and their moving MUCH closer to us.  It's less than half an hour drive now!  They moved to nearly where we used to meet 'halfway' to swap kids.  STOKED.  We snacked all day and when it cooled off, played in the pool for an hour.  Perfect day!  Lots of yammering and catching up with the other moms and guacamole.  Yeah! Jake calls a group of moms a Squabble and a group of teens a Mope.  hahaha

Draft blocker.

All the kids?

Chicken House Horror!

I agreed to have one final party here, before the chicken houses get stocked.  There are 1.5 of the 4 houses ribbed in now.  The trenches they dug to put up the walls hold water, as does the bowl-like area between the house sites and the road.  So far, they have been just hauling in more gravel to cover the water.  I still think after 6-7 days of steady winter rains, it's going to be cold Chicken Soup over there.  Between the guy overseeing the construction being unable to dress for the weather and the total disregard for the simple fact that it's CLAY they are building on, I have stopped worrying so much about the impending smell and have started placing bets with myself about time until failure.  The last time their chicken houses fell into ruin, they let the bits of them blow over here for about 8 years before they decided to clean up any of it.  With fire, of course.  I threw away sheets of styrofoam after every breeze.  Crappy neighbors and worse farmers and even worse stewards of the land!  Triple Threat.

In other, better news, my first 2 trail guides came in today. OMG, those things are $$$.  I have my eye on a third long trail, but can't justify $24 for the guide and $20 for the maps plus shipping.  I will have to before I tackle it, $50 is nothing when compared to being lost or unable to find water.  But they really do have you over a barrel and with reroutes, you can't just buy a guide and be done, it has to be within a year of the trip. So if you miss your dates or want to go again later, you have to buy it again!  GARH.  I need to start writing trail guides.  But first, I need to get on the trail!  :)

Matt's on his way home and we are going to get groceries this evening because he has a Magic tournament tomorrow and a gig Saturday.  Being an adult is way cool.  I already got to pay the bills due before August 15th and scrub algae off the dog water pool and repaint part of the front porch today.  :)

Rites of Passage

I was talking to Jacki yesterday about the need for a continuation of rituals and acknowledgments for various milestones.  Yay, first steps and driving a car and first job.  But what about-first long ass chin hair from nowhere?  First gray pube?  Or what set the whole train of thought off for me-a long ass chin hair on my neck!  WHY?

There are many-first time your joints pop after sitting for more than 10 minutes, first time you realized you should have started using moisturizer sooner.  The first time you actually totally forget something and don't just say you did to get out of going. The first time you thought, "Eh, that's fine." when looking at your outfit that is more comfortable than fashionable.  Okay, well, that's been every day of my life so far, but for some-stretchy pants and a loose top are a revelation.  Or that day you look in the mirror and realize the stretch marks from having babies have faded to silver stripes all over your tummy and decide that it's fierce.  Like a tiger.  rawr.  A ghost tiger.  boorawr.  Practically a Marine.

When you first realized you will never be able to retire. When you looked at your child and they are the age you were when you were pregnant with them.  And they are so, so painfully young and mostly naive and you wonder how you both made it out alive.  Or wonder what the hell you were doing having sex at that age in the first place.

For Matt it's been the amazing crop of hair on his ears.  We named his first grey mustache hair after my mother, the second after an aunt and then there were too many.  He used to pull them out, but he'd look mangey at this point.

I dyed my hair (usually) back to it's natural field mouse brown until I was 40.  I did go off the rails a few times and hit red and in the summers it goes blonder by itself, but brown for the most part.  It's about 30% gray now and I can't decide which way to go.  I actually really like the silver, but silver and light brown are not pretty.  So I am adding the first time you decide to just leave it be for a while. Rest is healthy.

There are firsts for 20 and 30 year olds, too.  The first time you cleaned the whole house and it wasn't for company coming over.  The first time you got up early and got going on something for real instead of thinking about it.  The first time you saved up for a vacation and planned the whole thing. The first time you ended a relationship because it wasn't healthy any more.  The first time you realized no one really cares.

So, there are all kinds of rituals and traditions for all kinds of firsts.  But really-no one wants to see a pic of your scary eyebrow hair gone awry or anything else to do with aging because none of it is cute, at all.  We need some occasion markers!  I suggested rum and Coke and a nap for most events.  I am open for other suggestions, though there's little room for improvement there.  If it's early in the day, I guess vanilla syrup in Coke and a couple episodes of something not at all educational would suffice.  As long as the laundry is done.  I have yet to have my first, "Oh, that can wait" laundry moment.  The main thing is, plain Coke isn't enough.

Celebratory food suggestions: grilled cheese with pickled okra.  Tomatoes with goat cheese and arugula tossed in vinaigrette.  Brownies made with Red Stag in the place of water.  Corn chowder with rosemary crackers, chicken salad with grapes and spinach,  Baked fish and tater tots.  Okay, well, that's actually just my lunch menu for the week.  Though really, you can't go wrong with a grilled cheese and speaking of which, I met a friend for lunch last week in Athens and we ate at LuVicis and they grill their cheese in butter, it was ridiculously good.  Also, sweet potato fries. Afterward we went next door to the mercantile and I touched 500 things.  I don't have OCD (that way) I just like to touch stuff and they had a ton off it.

I will be thinking of ways to mark these uncelebrated firsts as I head out this afternoon for another 'first',  My very first set of bifocal glasses.

This Old House

Our house has been in Matt's mom's family all along, since it was built back in 1928 or possibly 1932 going by the county archives.  Before it was the family farm, it was part of a small town, it and the area to the east of here.  Now all that's left are the outlines of buildings in daffodils in the spring, the occasional bit of farm machinery that pops up from the soil, a couple of old buildings, a well and the remnants of the road that once was the main way to get through the area.

From what I can gather, there have been a few deaths in the house, but nothing violent.  There does not seem to be anything malicious lingering...except if there are no children in the house.  You'd think after 16 years, 9+ living IN this house, that whatever energy is in the house would at least be used to me by now.  I am a good mom.  There's not much conflict around here, no negative energy to speak of.

So, why do I only feel anything is off when the kids are not in the house?  I've spent...well, not much time at all thinking about it.  I am so rarely alone.  That used to bother me, mostly because I have so much fun out with the kids, why won't Matt take them places more often and give them memories of him?  Now I see the bright white tunnel opening so clearly ahead, I don't mind a bit spending all my time with the kids.  In another 4.5 years, they will all be adults.  Shit.  That's soon.  Ben's half birthday was yesterday.  Waa

I don't think there's any 'thing' here, a ghost or presence, but I do think the house likes kids and the house likes being clean.  I can't go anywhere without cleaning something, it's gone from compulsion to outright habit.  I change out laundry or wash the dishes, run out the trash, sweep, wipe down the counter or a sink, I even scrub the toilet a good time or two when all I was going to do was restock the towels.  The only thing I don't do regularly is mop.  I hate mopping.  No even a disembodied voice moaning, "maaaaahhhhhp!" would get me interested, I think we have reached a comprise.

All the way around the yard, it's dark.  In the height of summer growth, like now,
it can feel like there's no light anywhere else.

When we first moved in, before everything else in the house was boxed up or moved out, there was a stack of boxed games in the front closet.  Every time I went in that room, for days, the Ouija board game would have slid off the stack and be either on the floor or tipped over sideways with the top of the box showing.  I had grown up with the fear of God in me and not only could I not open it up to play around with it, I had to use a broom or an oven mitt to shove it back in place.  hahaha.  I have often wished I had taken a peek, seen if there was a message.  Though, it would probably be something like D-U-S-T M-O-R-E and not 'there's gold under the wood stove'.  *sigh*

I have had 2 'incidents' in the house that friends love to hear us retell, though Matt was not here for either, he jumps right in if I slow down at all.  hahaha.  I will record them now for posterity.

When Jake was 2, Matt's mom bought him a Blue's Clues ice cream cake and we had cake up here to celebrate.  This was when Matt and I lived in a single wide down the road and his parents were still marriedish or had just divorced.  I know I was pregnant with Chan for the house incident and the divorce because after Matt's dad told him they were divorcing, Matt climbed into the tub where I was lounging and reading as Jake napped, still wearing all his clothes.  I held him and he cried until the water went cold and then some.

So a couple of days later, Jake wanted more 'eye-keen' cake, so I came up here to get it out of the freezer.  No one was here, and I came in through the back door, parking my little car right behind the house and leaving Jake in the backseat while I ran in through the back porch and got it from the freezer just inside the kitchen.  It was later afternoon, maybe 3ish (mid-November).  The kitchen had plenty of light, but the doorway going in to the rest of the house was pitch black, I thought there was actually a black blanket hanging there. 

I heard something...I'd like to be scary and say it was a voice saying 'get...out...' but it wasn't that organized.  But it did scare the crap out of me.  Now keep in mind, I was 6 months pregnant and up there to get a cake that I had full permission to take.  I was thinking about eating nummies with the boy and not feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable or thinking anything was even remotely wrong until I saw the doorway. 

I slammed the freezer door and ran across the back porch, which is maybe 3 steps, but I swear, I must have run 20, the whole time feeling like I was about to be grabbed.  I slammed the back door and turned the key and flew into the car, tossing the cake in the front seat and cranking the engine.  Jake was standing in the backseat (mom of the year!) and he turned around and looked out the back window as we drove.  I made a circle out into the pasture and went back out the access road to the gravel road and and Jake said, "Go faster, Mommy, FASTER!"  I hit our driveway (in the photo with the mailbox, it's the road going off to the left, I did not have him unbuckled on a main road) going 20 MPH, which is about 18 MPH more than I should have.  We zipped down the drive and Jake screamed, "It sees us!  GO FASTER!"

I flew into the house and locked the door (nothing says ghost-proof like a trailer lock!) and ran for my room and we hid out in there until Matt came home.  I was too scared to go to the bathroom, convinced I would see its face peering down from the skylight. 

Now, also keep in mind that when I jumped in the car, I did not say anything to my 2-year old child about something chasing me.  I am pretty open and share most things with the kids and always have, but scaring a toddler is not my thing.  Any other little kid would think I was playing a game, like I did not want the cake to melt and was hurrying to be silly or that maybe I was angry or maybe I had to use the bathroom or otherwise wanted to get home as fast as possible.  He loved Barney and Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny.  Nowhere in his life had he come across anything scarier than Oscar the Grouch or maybe me.  I mean, I was pregnant-the hormones made me psychotic at times. I did not start watching scary movies with him until he was much older, we did not even have a TV at that point-or a computer.  So his reaction made it about 100% worse.

The other time was, well, actually before that one.  Matt was at work, he worked nights, and I stayed here alone with Jake one time.  It was the first time I had spent more than a couple hours over here, I was going to sleep in his room, I think we were going somewhere the next morning, I can't really remember why I was here.  Jake was about 15 months old.  I was on the phone with Matt, it was around 2 in the morning and we both heard a scream, I mean a blood-curdling scream that I could not tell if it came from inside or outside or WHAT it was.  It sounded like a panther or a woman being ripped in half, it was LOUD and totally out of nowhere.  It woke Jake up.  Matt worked 45 minutes away, but he pulled up 20 minutes later.  He had not even clocked out.  Neither of us slept.  I have not heard it, or anything even close to it, again.

And that's it.  Stuff happens in here all the time.  Things go missing and pop up where they have no business being.  It's not like thinking the keys are hanging by the door and finding them in yesterday's jeans pocket instead, it's thinking the keys are hanging by the door and finding them-after MUCH searching-under the hood sitting neatly on the engine block.

I still don't think there's a ghost of anyone in particular.  I don't think the house is evil or that there's 'something' out there or in here.  I think it's an 80+ year old house that has seen a LOT of one family through those years and has absorbed some of that history into the walls and floors.  It likes being lived in, I think it was throwing a pout when it was empty, it acted up to get some attention.  It likes having the energy of kids, the thud of feet and the warmth of people in every room, it likes to be useful.  I think when the kids are grown and Matt and I end up elsewhere and the house is empty again, it will fall in on itself in less than a decade.  It wants family.

I have always thought of it as the 'homeless house', people who needed a place to stay were always showing up here, even now, as small and shabby as it is compared to houses of friends that have been built much more recently, the kids friends prefer to come here to hang out.  I host the gatherings, when I took a break this year, no one else picked it up.  They are all waiting for me to send out the next invitation, I reckon.  Every family (and many of our friends) milestone has been celebrated under this sometimes leaky roof.  So many candle-lit cakes, so many laughing women and excited kids, so many meals with friends and hundreds of ordinary days spent curled up somewhere reading or watching a movie, being together. 

I don't think of it as the homeless house anymore, it's just home.  I don't mind that it worries and frets and acts up at times, I love this house.  I think it loves me back.  And even if it doesn't, I will still do my best to keep it happy and keep it humming and tidy while we are here.  And I hope it will still forgive my lack of regular mopping or the fact that the front porch has been a different color for nearly 3 years now.

At Every Age

Matt's Aunt Judy once told me that she had enjoyed her kids at every age and still enjoyed them as adults.  She also told me that once you do some chore when you are married, that chore is yours from then on. 

That last one turned out to be too true until I figured out Matt is not very intuitive, but he takes orders pretty well.  He'll do anything I ask, but I have to ask.  He has never taken it upon himself to tackle anything from taking out the trash to mowing all on his own.  Jake is the exact same way.  The boy will work his arms off on some task I set forth and do so cheerfully, but something like just moving his shoes out of the walkway never even makes a blip on his radar.  He does, however, come in and ASK-every single day-if there's anything I need him to take care of for me.  Ben...well, the baby of THIS family is my personal pet monkey.  I will make an effort to get him in better shape for marriage or just life on his own.  Eventually.  I have to say that's the only living vicariously I have done with my kids-I was the baby and I was not babied enough.  My whole childhood was crappy and abbreviated. (Why is abbreviated such a long word?)  Theirs is as long as I can make it and pretty cushy, Ben the most.  They still play the better part of every day.

But that first one...that honestly had never occurred to me before, I must have thought there was some great phase and the rest was awful.  I heard 'they grow up so fast' and 'two is a horrible age' and 'puberty is the worst' and heard dire warnings about pre-teen girls, bossy little girls, muddy boys, 'boys will be boys' which, honest to God is the BIGGEST load of crap, EVER.  I hate that saying nearly as much as I hate 'put on your big girl panties'.  I am a size 16 and that's AFTER losing 40 pounds.  What the hell else kind of panties would I have?? 

Gah. 

I have enjoyed the kids at every age and it has gone too fast and I think ahead a year-Jake graduates next May.  Chan will be heading into the 11th grade and Ben will be starting high school. 

I was in the tub (surprise!) yesterday and Nia went tappy tappy through the little hallway and Chan went in to talk to Ben and the front door opened and shut 5 times, I heard the boys thunder past the window yelling with the dogs making just as much racket running in their mini pack and I have to wonder-how much longer will I have noise around all day?  At what point will it be just the fan and the fridge and the heat pump kicking off and on?  The crunch of gravel as the mail is delivered, the occasional windy day making the eaves whistle.


*sigh*

I guess I want to prove to myself that I AM paying attention, that time passing is being noted, that every day is one day closer to the next stage.  I am sad at times that while I am well aware of nearly every 'first' for each kid, I don't remember many of the 'lasts'.  The last time I tied their shoe for them or walked them across the street, ran the bath, did the seat belt buckle or poured their drink.  Don't get me wrong, growing up and becoming independent is absolutely the goal of the whole operation, but dang.  It's hard. I hope Judy is right.

Birthday Day Two

 Totally unrelated to birthday, but here are the kids and Dae at the park after bowling last week.  We are following through with our plan to meet some new people!
Not that we don't love the old people!

Chan, the moment of turning 15!  And some other kid.

Chan, unsure what to think as everyone who sang to her used a different version of her name or their favorite nickname.  She got a Chan, Chandler, Chanopolis and Channa Poo thrown at her.

Eep!  I hope it comes true!

The day before her birthday, we still had Emily from the night before, but Britney had play practice, so we kept Emily and picked Britney up and then we all went for lunch, to see Wreck-It Ralph, which is surprisingly good, then had frozen yogurt with toppings on the way back to drop Emily off.  

On Friday, I had gone in to get my carefully budgeted 2 new tires on the front of the van.  On Saturday night leaving Emily's, one of the BACK tires went flat.  So Monday, I got surprise 2 new back tires.  Then Tuesday I went to get a budgeted alignment to try to prevent as much damage as possible on the new set and my brake pads were paper thin!  So on Thursday, I went and got surprise new brakes and budgeted oil change.  My careful budget was hacked to bits like so much confetti.  I have spent some time piecing it back together, we WILL be debt free by April 15 even if we have to eat ramen for the next 60 days.  3.5 years of toeing the line to get out of debt isn't going up in flames the last 2 payments!  (insert maniacal laughing here)

Last of January

And so the new year goes, I am still not 100% on the whole '2013' issue, as I seem to have only recently caught up to 2011, which is why when we cleaned out the pantry last week, Chandler was in charge of expired items, I probably would have killed us all with botulism. 'October 2012, that's MONTHS AWAY!'

I have been in a bit of a fugue, not a funk, just feeling a little removed from it all.  It could be any number of things-allergies from the early blooming flowers, the weather being all over the place, the new puppy needing to go potty at all hours, Matt being out of town, meeting new people and doing new things.  I tend to back away from myself and observe at times, particularly when I feel overwhelmed.

Puppy update-it's been 6 days since she's peed inside, she goes right out and to the same spot.  Since her vet visit last Friday, I have been scooping poop and putting it in the trash can, because the vet wormed her again, though she's still as pot-bellied as ever.

When she got to the pound on the 4th, she was 11 pounds.  The vet said she was under 10 when they did her spay on the 17th and this past Friday she was 14 pounds.  They were a little freaked that she had gained 4 pounds in 8 days.  I am not surprised at all, pound puppies are the worst for gobbling because they have had to fight for all their food their whole lives.  It takes a little while to realize there will be more food and until she's sure of that, she will fatten herself up.  Now that her stitches are gone and that belly is really healing, her energy levels are increasing daily.  She will burn it off.  Though I have had to expand her collar twice because her neck is so fat.  eep!

I did our taxes and THAT was awful.  I did them 4 times to be sure, but the days of a fat refund are over, it will be exactly enough to cover half of Ben's braces down payment.  I had planned several upcoming expenses like new tires on the front of the van to be covered by the refund as well as a little boost to the savings account.  So, I had to go back and spend a couple of hours re-working the budget for the year, which stinks.  I am not sure we will be able to get to Disney this fall as planned, but I am sure going to try.  We will still be out of debt-other than Ben's braces-by the end of April, so that will help.  It's just that the house needs some repairs-mainly its needed a new roof for a while.  And only the porch is painted.  I stopped painting when it was apparent we had to replace the fascia boards all the way around and now that's done and they are all painted, so I need to get back on my house painting plan.  At least I picked a good color, we all still like it. 

We came through the weather just fine.  I, of course, had to fret about it.  I had the kids wear socks to bed and keep their shoes and flashlights (with new batteries) right by the bed and pack a change of clothes and their favorite items, I got our toiletries and important papers packed, Matt's glasses and mine, the external hard drive, my Nook, a pair of good tweezers because they really are hard to find.  Then I looked around.  There wasn't anything else I wanted to save.  I am not sure what that means, I guess that everything can be replaced and photos re-printed.  It's just stuff.  I did kind of wish a tree would fall in such a way as to need new roofing without damaging anything else so insurance would help out on the cost.  I guess that was too much to hope for, though the wind managed to take a few more shingles.  I am going with metal roofs from here on out, I am tired of playing shingle shuffle.  Ooo, or a flat roof.  So useful!   Live in a big cube...our underground. 


Today is the end of the month, Ben goes for his final fitting before getting his braces in 2 weeks, it's my half-birthday, I am directly between 38 and 39.  I have decided that for my 50th birthday, I don't want to have a huge travel vacation or the usual.  I just want to not have any cats.  Between the near-constant yowls, the DAYS of work each time getting foster dogs to not chase them, the piles of dead thing guts in the yard, the piles of dead-thing pukes on the steps and welcome mat if they can't actually make to to one of the beds to throw up, the waft of loose hairs that get on EVERYTHING, the peeing in the sink and bathtub, the way they run JUST ahead and then LAY DOWN IN THE PATH while you try to walk, the way they follow us and cry and cry as we walk or bike on the driveway, the way I have to drive AROUND them or stop and wait as they dust bathe in the road, how when I bend over to pick something up, they leap on my shoulders and dig in.  I am just...done with cats.  I won't get rid of the 4 we have, I just don't want to replace them, either.  We will be a dog family.  Of course in 10.5 years, the kids will be well into their 20's and likely we will just be a dog couple.  *sigh*  Good thing I am still crazy about Matt, he's not going anywhere.

I can never see a chickadee without hearing Ben's little voice saying, "Mommy!  Tickadees!"
I still think of them as such.

Second Childhood vs Insanity

I give you my single case-study, Katherine the Cat.  She and another of our cats, Cleo, have both recently hit 10 years old.  Cleo is just as crazy now as she always has been, she was starved for so long that she was little more than a skeletal model of a cat when we brought her home.  During that time, something happened to her mind.

Kat, on the other hand, appeared sane, if a little eccentric at times.  She did things like drop maimed-but-moving mice into the house via an open window and then leave.  She used to sit in a tree directly over the kids while they played and yowl if they moved out of her watch zone.  She would try to pull me out of the tub by my arm if she was able to bust down the bathroom door.  If she could not open it, she'd mash her face under the crack and meow like she was on fire.  She did other things, she'd wait until someone was asleep and either bite their feet or push her way under your hand, like a self-petting device.  Or else she'd check your breathing by jamming a muzzle into your mouth.

Over the years, she's wavered in her levels off annoying.  She routinely disappeared for days at a time, we'd see her on the barn roof or on top of the house, or way up in a tree.  Then, she'd be back at the door, demanding entry.  I have probably called for her 9,000 times and she's actually come twice.

For the past year or two, she's been nearly out of our lives.  Setting up in one of the crates I keep dry bedding in out in the shed, she opted for a life of solitude.  She and Muta have some kind of cat truce going on in which they will clean one another's ears and then stalk off afterward like it was the most disgusting thing ever.  Other than that, she does not interact with anyone.

Starting about 6 months ago, she started coming back inside again.  She has to be let out every so often as she will not use the litter box since The Spider Incident of 2006 during which, a spider got in the litter box.

Since then, I have changed her name from Lady Katherine Tallahassee Berryhill to Katherine Anne McGillicutty because she is NOT the same cat.  Now, her evenings are spent sitting in front of the closed bedroom door doing fierce battle with her tail, which makes the door rattle like a crazed killer is outside and when we open it, she stares blithely off in the middle distance, as though nothing was going on.  I only discovered the source of the rattling one night when Matt went to bed early and I stayed up to watch a movie with the kids.

She has a toy mouse she plays with, she has become addicted to cat treats, which we call Kitty Crack because she will climb your body to get to them.  She will also carry on like she's dying if her food bowl is not filled with them.  She has started needing someone to bless her food before she will touch it.  It was okay for a while to bump the bowl and make it rattle, then you had to actually poke a toe in it, now nothing short of bending over to stir it with your finger will shut her up. 

She wants toys hung on yarn so she can lay on her back and bat at them.  She demands sacrifice of a towel from the dryer to lay upon and shed her sheddy bits.  Not just a CLEAN towel, it must be warm as well.  And be from a load that has fabric softener in it.

I can't tell if she's reset and become a kitten again or if she's gone over the edge and is borderline psycho.  And I can't tell how she's managed to train us so specifically, the tiny dictator.