Here, Kitty, Kitty!

it's twelve in the morning on September 25...and after some difficulty, we have liberated the cars from the garage we share with our in-laws. This is important, because the garage had decided to eat them, and staging a jailbreak during the morning exodus just wasn't going to work. Apparently, a long suffering bracket had finally drawn its last (may it rest in piece), and as a consequence the large garage door decided it didn't have to open up any more. Not only that, but it didn't WANT to open anymore. I thought the simplest thing to do was to tap on my young brother-in-law's window, get his attention, and hope that he would know to get the VERY PROTECTIVE chow-mix safely and quietly in another room, so that I could tell him what was going on...as my husband has just reminded me, it would have been quieter, and infinately more effective to just email Torey...but no, I have to do things the hard way. I succeeded in scaring the living bejeezus out of him, setting off the dog for the loudest five-minute barking spree I've ever heard, and so, of course, everyone came clattering and tumbling out. Sigh.



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I've been finding sleep more elusive of late...our big, old bed seems to shrink with the cold. At my feet, or in the crook of my knees lies our big white chunk of cat, Koda...who hunkers into whichever warm niche will restrict my movement the most. Above me a veritable bunker of blankets...(I'd like to see a nuke get through my fuzzy barricade!) that I put there, because I'm always colder than Jon is...and they bind me even further...and then there is my sweet, snuggly husband, who cuddles closer in his sleep...and usually ends up sleeping on my hair...If I do go to bed early, skipping a Moo-moment or whatever, I usually spend at least an hour and a half fighting my pillow into submission, without arousing that sleeping duo. It wouldn't affect Koda that much, he just doesn't move. As for Jon, I feel awful if my solitary wrestling matches wake him up, but I end up doing it anyway. In the morning, at the first cry of "my alarm clock", I feel like a painting by Picasso...with all of me at odd angles, and all of my parts decidedly in the wrong places.



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September 30, 2006:

I had hoped that we could somehow skip this phase, but Josh has officially entered into seperation anxiety. It doesn't matter who is in the room, or how many people adore him there, he must be in my arms or attached to my ankles. As a result, after another stint of Boiled-Bat-dom, I finally mastered the art of a ten minute bath while cooking dinner at the same time. I have found that I have just enough time before WWIII breaks out to gaze lovingly at steamy soapy water, splatter my head with shampoo...change "courses" in the microwave...rinse out my hair a couple of times...wave goodbye to the water that was JUST JUST at the most perfect temperature for soaking, and hurtle around the corner to halt the "abandoned banshee" wails coming from my otherwise adorable son. Jon will try to play with him, try to distract him, but his world is shattered and shuddering until he is back in my arms, with snot dripping down my neck, clinging with the desperation of one weathering a typhoon. Oh, Mom, Oh, Mom!...It was awful!...You were GONE! Oh, Mom! Dad tried to hold me, and he couldn't do it right! Oh, Mom!!!

I suppose I should be grateful...in four years, I'll be just this side of "EEEEWW, GIRLS, YUCK!!!"...because I don't count as a "real girl", I'm Mommy. Eight years after that will begin the phase where he won't want anything to do with me at all. (I mean, really, what do I know about boys? I used to call my brothers' Ape-Face One and Ape-Face Two...and out of pure spite they grew up to be reasonably decent, almost wonderful fellows with very few noticeable simian tendencies at all. Hmph!)

The thing that worries me the most is that nightmares have come with this phase...Some are mine...but mostly, Josh has been taking the brunt of them. I am afraid that he may have picked up an unintentional inheritance from us...Jon and I both dream in color and 3-D...we can taste, touch, feel everything in our dreams...This has always been lovely when we dream of, say, the Chocolate Room in the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka...but it plays merry hell, literally, when our dreams take the darker roads. Jon has occasionally suffered night terrors that had him thrashing himself awake...or just this side of awake. Sometimes it's taken me twenty minutes to calm him, and I can tell by looking at him that he isn't awake, but he thinks he has to fight something off. I think Josh has these abilities too. Around Midnight, he starts mewling like a kitten, then he clutches to the sides of the crib, then he gets into a crawl position, but doesn't move. This all occurs in a matter of minutes, and when I pick him up it's all shuddery-relief again...but he isn't awake. When Jon's bouts occur, it's during times of stress...bills, work...but usually, when I keep tabs on him, I have a good idea when to expect them, even if he doesn't. With Josh, the day can be normal...nothing out of the routine at all, he could be all sunshine and smiles and cuddles, and then suddenly, he scares himself in the middle of the night, and it takes about a half hour of soft whispers and nursing before he settles and begins to smile again in his sleep. I try very hard to get him to that point before I put him down again...it's what I would want done for me.

Tomorrow, we send him on another visit with Mom and the gang...and for the first time since he began spending a few nights a month elsewhere, I am wondering if I'm doing the right thing...


It's one now...he'll be up in less than five hours...More to come....


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It’s our first night without Josh in what feels like ages. We have not gone to see the latest blockbuster, we did not do a big romantic dinner on the town. Instead, we had a quiet sandwich and some soup and went directly home. Hibernation weather has set in, and we are just achy and tired. We curled up on the couch, turned out the lights, and very nearly fell completely asleep at 7:30, though we made it all the way to 8:30 before crawling into bed...As you well know, we live life on the edge. Koda, our chunk of white cat, was sick…of course, I didn’t pick up on this at a reasonable time, because where would be the fun in that? Nope…I had to realize this at one in the morning, when, after I kicked him off the bed (a normal and frequent occurrence), he dropped to the floor like a rock. Usually, he meows a mild, confused guilt trip in my direction before swaying off into the living room. Usually, you can hear the creak of each board as his not-so-delicate body goes traipsing across it. Not this time. Just THUMP! And then nothing. Mildly curious, I dragged myself out of the warm blankets and picked him up…this was my first true clue that something was wrong. Koda does NOT like to be picked up. I repeat, just so there can be no misunderstanding. Koda. Does. NOT. Like. To. Be. Picked. Up. I make a point of keeping a box of replacement jugulars on hand for the rare occasions when I do have to tote his shedding white carcass around, because he makes a point of ripping me apart at the seams. This time, he snuggled up and didn't fuss at all. That was odd. After looking him over, I hit the net to see what might be causing his distress, and came to the conclusion that he was in dire need of a plumber, because all of his sinks were clogged up. The website did not recommend Drano, so we took him into the vet the next day to commence a “Spa Experience” that will continue until Thursday at least. While it is not the All-Enemas-All-The-Time Channel, it’s fairly close. I want to feel sorry for him…I know it can’t be a fun experience…I know, too, that when they finished the first procedure he was TICKED. I mean, TICKED!!! I also know that the house has been strangely quiet without him…one might even venture to say “Calm”. I like calm…I’d forgotten what calm was like. Meanwhile, Jon took one look at the bill so far, and has decided to offer his spleen to the highest bidder. We hope we can find it a good home.

Do not fret, gentle readers…Koda will return. He will be a healthy chunk once again. He falls squarely into the Ed-the-Cat/Sandy-the-Lab category…not a brain in the bunch, but good-hearted, and blessed with a life-span that could put the Old Testament big-wigs to utter and abject shame. Sandy once got loose, and somehow got it into his head (and how lonely that little thought must have been in all of that great big space) to chase the neighbors cows. He chased the bull first (of course), the bull butted him into the electric fence - TWICE- and then a dazed and drooly Sandy wandered into the road, and got hit by the first truck that came by. He bit his tongue, and sustained no other injury…even if he HAD damaged his brain, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. He ended up outliving every other dog in his family. Then there was Ed. Ed is actually short for “Tread”…and he was so called because as a kitten, his head was run over by a Chevy nova. My Dad, who is all too familiar with Mom’s rescue routine, sighed, and picked up the squished cat to take it into the vet. This was during one of the peaks of the menagerie, but Dad didn’t see that this cat was going to make it…especially as the vet was having a rough day himself, and couldn’t see the kitten until about an hour and a half later. That said, when the “rare yellow tabby” was brought before the vet, he wiped its nose, checked its eyes, and said to my Dad, “Well, Gee…you’ve got a really healthy cat here.” So of course, Ed came to live at our house…and live…and live…and live, surviving generations of cats left and right, and if his eyes were crossed, and he walked like he was still trying to get his sea-legs well, we just counted him as the Keith Richards of Cat-dom. I think it caught us as much by surprise that he died of natural causes as it did him.

So yes, the Koda will return…although, if the plumbing problems persist, I think Jon may grab a Do-It-Yourself guide and take a plunger to his fuzzy butt. Of course, Jon may have to hock his ulcer to get the plunger…

Diaper Changing is an Olympic Sport!!!

I cannot be the only person to take one look at Barney the Dinosaur and automatically think that someone has choked the snot out of Donny Osmond. -- Me, 9-12-06


SOMEONE has been getting stronger on a daily basis. SOMEONE is also THIS CLOSE to walking on his own. We taking bets now on when he will take that one small step for boy, one giant leap for boykind. Tim thinks we have a few months...I think he's a very, very funny man. If I haven't missed my guess, I think we have three weeks, tops. I have also decided that diaper changing should be an Olympic sport. Josh is now 20 lbs., 5 oz., and all 28.5 inches of him seem to be pure muscle. Getting him changed nowadays is like trying to land a marlin. He just flops and giggles all over the place (and rips my arms out of the sockets in the process). I have contemplated holding him down with my copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and a few encyclopedias, but Jon theorized that squishing him with large books could technically constitute bad form and that such an action is virtually guaranteed to bring the Greats and Grands crashing down about our heads. Jon's fairly certain that he can handle them all, but since Tim and Harry are being darn good sports and helping us rebuild our porch, Jon feels it would be impolitic to annoy them at this time.

Of late, Josh has learned that kiddie jail makes for some good times. His mornings begin with a mad crawl into his playpen, where he hauls himself up, grabs onto the top edge and side-steps around the inside until he's back where he started from. Then he laughs hysterically, and peeks out over the top edge. Then he flumps down, crawls out of the pen, and starts charging around the room.

Josh has taken to testing his two teeth against everything...and everyone. Josh got his happy hands on one of the puppy's rawhide chewies and chomped on it for a little while. Mom and I decided that as long as he didn't poke his eye out (and Grandma O. doesn't find out), that we'd let him chomp for a few minutes. He also likes to gnaw on the arms of our loveseat...(It should be noted that the vast majority of our furniture is post-collage style from the line of El Cheapo and Strong. You can't damage it...believe me, we've tried. So we don't have to be concerned about it. I am concerned about those two teeth, though...I can't quite convince myself that he won't hook his lower jaw like a fish on a line and start flopping arond frantically as he attempts to get free.) As my sister Carrie is fond of saying, "It builds immunities." He will gnaw on toes knees and loves making Jon jump and wiggle away from those tiny, dental stilettos. Since Jon has much bigger feet than I do, his toes make better targets. At this time, poor Jon still has a nasty habit of underestimating how ornery and fast his son really is. Very little gets by Josh, and just when Jon thinks he's safe and Josh is settled and cozy, Josh will rear up and latch onto Jon's nose and slobber all over it. I know that technically, I should not encourage such behavior, but it just gets funnier every time I see it. Even while Jon is trying not to laugh, he attempts to maintain an air of wounded dignity...it doesn't work. I just laugh harder. This makes Josh laugh harder, and Jon eventually gives up.



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I hate football. I have hated football since my mother scared me half-to-death years ago. I was in my room, reading with the stereo cranked up (par for the course back then), when I heard this God-awful, blood-curdling, somebody-was-getting-chain sawed scream. Thinking, as you would, that this cannot possibly be a GOOD thing, I hurled myself out of my room, crashed into the banister post, threw myself down fifteen, slick hardwood stairs IN MY SOCKS...and careened into the lower banister post. After skidding on yet another slick, harwood floor and nearly colliding with the dining room table, I made it around the corner and into the living room. My mother was not being severely murdered by a maniac. No, No....she was in fine health and fine voice, and was howling at some dumb guy on the television who had fumbled a ball at a crucial moment. I counted to ten...I counted my bruises...I counted my nearly twisted ankle...and I counted my mother a very lucky person that she didn 't realize just how close she had come to being throttled unceremoniously by her eldest child. So, it may have been a Pavlovian response, but I have not held football in the highest esteem since that day.

Jon, LOVES football. I repeat, Jon LOVES football. After he realized how big and tall this boy will be, Jon began pondering plans for Josh's imminent future in the sport . My twin brothers, Jamie and Devon, took same look at Josh and have decided that he will be a killer soccer star. As soccer players and football players tend to be at odds regarding each other's sports, I fear this may not bode well...and feel that Josh and I may need to emigrate before a civil war breaks out. I know that Jon loves football, and I try to let him enjoy it sometimes....and then sometimes, I just have to poke him.

"Hey, Jon? Those are grown men, aren't they?" I'll ask.

"Yes."

"Wouldn't you think big, grown men like those would feel awfully silly chasing a teeny, tiny ball up and down a field all of the time?" I'll ask.

"Growl."

"But, Jon, what did that teeny, tiny ball ever do to them? What kind of men are they that they would hold a grudge against a teeny, tiny ball?"

At which point, Jon handed Josh to me, and marched me to the porch. He then turned around and slammed the door. I had been kicked out. Of my own house. By my own husband. It couldn't have worked out better if I had planned it...but then again, I had planned it, so nevermind.

So I went down to Mom's. Her puppy was beside itself. Everyone else was utterly enraptured with this durfy creature (imagine a dustbunny with a tongue...a dustbunny that just happens to weigh about as much as stick of butter), but Josh was unenthralled. The puppy tried to chew his toes, it tried to jump into his lap and lick his face. Josh just threw up his hand to block it, and it went rolling back three feet. A friend of ours once commented that a dog isn't a real dog if you could punt it through the goalposts, but you couldn't convince this little fluff that it was anything but the biggest, fiercest beastie of them all. It was like being attacked by milkweed. A milkweed with a tongue.

Josh sat in the grass and pulled it up in great clumps. It was the first time he's really gotten the chance to play in grass, and he was fascinated. He would look at the handfulls of grass and then throw it into the air or rub it against his belly and talk to it. It was very cute.


Even though trips home tend to recharge my mental batteries, Mom worries about me. I keep making the mistake of visiting when I'm tired, and I am quieter and more pensive at those times. I would like to stop doing that, as I don't like her to worry, but usually, the tired and pensive times are the times I need to come home the most.

"But you guys are doing great!" We hear this a lot. Josh is healthy, amazingly happy...and making great strides...and we want him to be that way, but I'll tell you the one thing that I've learned as a new parent...one thing that the "old-hand" Moms and Dads don't always pass on. So far, parenting seems to be like teaching someone to ride a bike. I feel like all I'm really doing is running along side Josh as he does all the real work, and all I really do is check his balance and hope he figures out how to shift gears and work the brakes before he hits a tree...or that ditch or that cat...or me. for that matter.

I can teach him bike-rideing...but Jon gets to teach him to drive.

Silly Creatures, One and All

"I find myself saying bad things about his ancestors... and I'm his ancestor!!!" -- Me, on the last "Teething Tuesday"




The good news is that Josh is back on his schedule...the bad news is that he's now waking up at five thirty every day. I have decided to curtail any attempts by my progeny to watch anything Steve McQueen related. He has already mastered the "Great Escape"... On one side of the living room is the Kiddie-Jail (Josh's playpen) and a box of his toys. On the other side is a loveseat, and three couch cushions piled high. All of these blockades are major obstacles for Jon and I, as we bounce from one foot to the other with less than the greatest of ease, attempting to leapfrog over them while valiantly hoping we won't land on the numerous little, rolly toys Josh has obtained in his travels.

Josh couldn't care less. He charges over the cushions like a drooling Hannibal, pausing just long enough to land on his head and twist his legs under him before crawling madly to the kitchen, totally unfazed. Even the Russian judges give him great scores.


The house is slowly coming together. Jon finally got his much anticipated television, and we've been rearranging nearly every room in our tiny abode to make room for the new arrival. He figures that I got "my baby", he should have "his". (Remember, the milkman/mailman still seems to be getting half-cred for Josh). I have been finding clothing I didn't know we had...ok, I have been finding clothing I didn't know I had. Jon contends that if I would just go through and clear some of it out, we wouldn't have move
ANYTHING to make room for his television. I glared at him, but he wasn't impressed. So much for a Mommy's authority.







( <--Josh helping me fold our clothes)






The first night was the worst, after a valiant effort to dig our way out from under all of my books, everything was more or less where it was going to be, but we were shot...Josh was fussy, and apparently he was getting all set to pop two more teeth. Once again, I was slow on the uptake and had no sense of humor about a small, energetic creature wanting to be up and rolling from twelve a.m. to three a.m. -- and so I did not win any congeniality awards that night. (In fact, I growled and groused so much that night that I probably took myself out of the running for the next several award attempts.) Finally, blessedly, after several false starts and raised hopes, the boy was really and truly down for the count. I crawled into bed, ceased my snarly behavior, and waited for sleep. It came....until five-thirty in the morning, when I was awakened by the sudden insistant beep of our carbon monoxide detector as its batteries prepared to breathe their last. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I got up, stomped to the alarm, stomped to the kitchen, shoved in new batteries with brute force, and stomped back to bed, but not before stomping and connecting the toes of my right foot with a table leg. Poor Jon was on the losing end of all of this. From eleven-thirty on, I had been making many stompy trips back and forth from our bedroom. He not only got to hear my verbal impression of a merchant marine, which was getting louder and more imaginative with each trip, but we have a wooden floor with two boards that go off like a gunshot if you hit them right. For months, I could bounce on that spot without so much as a squeak, but wouldn't you know it, that night, every time I stomped, I hit that spot and it sounded like a cannon in the night. He officially had to drag his boiled-bat self out and off to work at six-thirty. Josh "slept in" until seven...and then Tim and Rhonda offered to take him for an hour or two, and I nearly kissed their feet. By the time Jon came home, I had a real bath, and a lovely nap...and I was human again...but after that night, Jon had to be scraped out of the car just to get his exhausted body into the house. He looked horrible, and he felt horrible, and I felt like my head should be turning into one of those "HEEL" symbols from the old cartoons.

You would think that a much needed jaunt into town (and OUT OF the house) would help matters, but no. Heidi M. threw Josh and I into her car and we buzzed out for lunch. Josh ate the applesauce, but he really wanted some of the calamari and broccoli that we were munching on. I unhooked my car keys from my purse and handed them over to the Roo, who jangled them delightedly...we had a pleasant meal and headed home again. Two days later, I was ticked at myself. I remembered placing my brand new cellphone "somewhere stupid and odd...and between two things." Yes, this is actually how I remembered it, and how I phrased it to a rather flustered Jon. Only after we completely tore apart the very recently settled-house in an effort to find the dippy phone did I think that I would try to retrace my steps. Heidi didn't have the phone. Ok. So I tried the restaurant, all the while thinking that I had left the phone on one of our many bookshelves, wedged under a couple of paperbacks. Yes, by golly, the restaurant had my phone. Apparently, I forgot that to unhook my keys from my purse, I also had to unhook my phone from my keys. It had indeed been left somewhere "stupid and odd" ...on the table, in between the salt and the pepper shakers. Jon stood in the midst of the newly created chaos and just looked at me. "Um, they have my phone." Still looking at me. "Um, I should go get it now." Still looking at me, but you could tell he was wanted to throw heavy things at my head. Many, many heavy things. At. My. Head. I beat a hasty retreat...

The good news is that I have my phone back, and gosh, doesn't the house look swell now!


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If you were to ask anyone else how they knew that the person they chose to marry was THE ONE, you'll come back with answers like, "I just knew." or "There was just this amazing connection." (or "Her daddy let me drive his wallet..." etc.) Speaking only for myself, I did "just
know", and "there was an amazing connection"...but more than that, I can honestly say that the one thing that gave me the courage to take on this relationship was that my cat told me to. That's right. My cat told me to go for it, and it was the best advice I ever could have taken.

Fancy was a ball of fluff with sea green eyes, and a history as a rescued cat that had left her badly battered, older than her years, and deeply, deeply fearful of all things male. Nicknamed the "Ghost Cat" because I was the only one who could see her, she became my constant companion. No one else could even get close. I do not know why she picked me, I only know that she was unswerving in her loyalty, and had no interest in anyone else. It took many years for her to get used to the other members in my family, and even then she was reluctant to come out of the woodwork to be social with them. I learned that she was an excellant judge of character, and her reactions to my dates tended to jibe exceptionally well with what I knew or learned in my contact with guys over the years. When one guy came to our house, Fancy was nowhere to be seen...in fact, it took me three weeks to coax her out of the attic. He turned out to be a complete @$$. Everyone, even my cat, figured this out before I did.

When another fellow came over, one that I was thinking of getting serious about, she grudgingly came down and checked him over. She even, eventually, submitted to some petting and ear scratching...but you could tell her heart wasn't in it...This one was a nice guy, and certainly a much better guy...but not the guy. He was just "Ok" on the Fancy-rating-scale.

For almost nine years, she was my cat...my constant companion...the one who licked my popcorn of all its butter and salt and left the sad, soggy, drippy remains on my blankets for me to finish. For almost nine years, I was her "Only Person", and she would help me read my books by chewing on the corners of the pages, or hurling herself outright into the center of the book if I hadn't caught on to her subtle hints. For almost nine years, she was mine alone. And then, one night, Jon came to visit me at my parents' house for the very first time, and that little grey heathen ditched me like I was last week's garbage. She not only came down to see Jon within the first fifteen minutes of his visit, she leapt into his lap, hurled herself against his chest and began purring so loudly that you could hear her two rooms away. The stars had aligned. All was right with her world. She had finally found "Her Boy" and it was love at fuzzy-cat-first-drool. My mother, as a joke, had once registered Fancy with the name "Silken Hussy"...and from the moment she met Jon, she lived up to that particular moniker with a zest that was just this side of embarassing. If Jon had only had whiskers and a tail, there would have been no stopping her, but I was left with a very simple truth. If I ever wanted to see my cat again, I was just going to have to marry Jonathan Stickrath...because from that moment on, keeping the two of them apart was not going to be an option.

Fancy spent the next six years living in our little home, morphing overnight from Ghost cat to the reigning Diva who kept the rest of us in line, and who graciously allowed us all to live in our own house. When I feared that Koda, a younger cat in our household, would pose a problem, she solved it by watching him walk past her, and smacking him in the head with her claw-less paws. Koda gave her a confused look (he's very good at confused looks) and an odd sibling-relationship was formed. For the first time in her life, Fancy had come into her own.

When Josh came home from the hospital, Fancy viewed him as a deformed kitten, and adored him with a passion that could even rival that of the Greats and Grands...she couldn't have been more proud of him if he had been her own, and she was very careful to be near at hand when I nursed or bathed (or really, had any kind of interaction with) him...so that I knew I had to do it properly. If he cried or fussed, she would glare at me for causing problems. Sometimes when he slept, she nuzzled close and licked his hair.

She was the heart of our household for six years, and if her little body had only been as strong as her spirit, she would have been keeping us in line for the next twenty.

There will be those who will not understand the depth of our sorrow for what can only be termed a silly cat. She certainly was that...but she was so much more to us. For Jon, it was the first time he had fallen in love with an animal, and the first time an animal had fallen in love with him...it was another opportunity for him to bloom under the love of another creature, and it was wonderful to watch it happen. For me, she was like a little, fuzzy angel...who offered approval and honesty...and who had allowed me the greatest gift...that of earning and rebuilding her trust. She was only a little cat...but for us, she was our matchmaker, our confidant, and our greatest friend. She believed in us before we believed in ourselves...and that has made all of the difference.

In Loving Memory of Fancy,
born March 13, 1992...died September 2, 2006 ... 8:30 P.M.