Update on the crazy kitty

Sara has now been a part of our family for two weeks and four days.

In that time, we have learned that:

1. I am terribly allergic to her. :-(  She makes my eyes all itchy and watery and my nose stuffy and my throat tight. It's really, really frustrating, because it makes me not want her around me. But it is really hard to keep her away because...

2. She is the sweetest, most affectionate, most playful, most social kitty I have ever known. She loves being petted, rubbed, stroked and played with. She wants to be in whatever room we're all in. She follows us around like a puppy. She wants to sleep in my room, on the end of my bed, and cries if I shut her out.  She acts like she is on a perpetual catnip high: She jumps, rolls, pounces, darts, bats at our feet from under the bed, hides around corners and attacks our legs when we walk by. She is hilariously cute and funny, but also a little bit irritating (just being honest) because she is ALWAYS under foot. We don't get a break from her! I'm like, seriously, can you occasionally hide under the sofa like all the other cats in the world? Sheesh.

She is especially cute when she hides in shopping bags or barricades herself in packing boxes. This box has the kids' Halloween costumes, which makes Dean very agitated: "Mommy! Mommy! Sara is on my Halloween!!"

3. Cary loves her, and always wants to play with her. She completely CRACKS him up! Especially when she is darting around, jumping, rolling, pouncing, chasing her tail or batting, swiping and nipping at him. (He doesn't always love being nipped and scratched, but he's fairly good-natured about it.) Sara is like a celebrity to him. When he comes home, he first looks for her. And when she comes in a room, he lights up and coos, "Hiiiiiii, Sarrrrrra! Hiiiiiiii!" He totally harasses that poor kitty, who likes the attention 99-percent of the time, except when she's trying to catnap on our living room arm chair.

4. Dean is sorta interested in her, but still mostly freaked out by all her darting around, jumping, rolling, pouncing, chasing her tail and batting, swiping and nipping at him. He mostly enjoys correcting and disciplining Sara. "No Sara! No. Don't get me! Stop it!" He also wants to know where she is at all times, but I think it is just so that he can know not to be wherever she might be lying in wait to pounce.

5. Clair adores Sara, but we're afraid Sara might think Clair is another kitty friend, especially since she crawls around on all fours, just like she does. She is constantly pouncing on poor unsuspecting Clair, and nipping at her little chubby fists. Clair, to her credit, has not yet cried, but she does look very confused and slightly put-out at being "attacked" by her kitty-love-interest. And I am desperately trying to teach Sara -- with a spray bottle at the ready -- that you do NOT, under any circumstances, bite the baby! Even if she is deliciously cute.

Weekend recap (Father of the Year and new member of the family!)

Highlights from this past weekend (which was packed, as usual):

1. The boys went to the zoo, to music class and to their twin cousins' birthday party. Fun, fun, fun!
2. Lester got deemed "Father of the Year" at the zoo.
3. The Davis family adopted a cat.

Here's the breakdown:

I had to go to a work session from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the charter school of which I'm on the board.
Saturday was the same day as the member picnic at the Maryland Zoo. I was sad that the kids wouldn't get to go because there was no way Lester was going to take all three kids by himself to the zoo, right? WRONG. Lester gamely wore Clair in an Ergo and pushed the boys in the double stroller, braving the heat and the crowds to make sure the kids got to go to the zoo.

So while I was doing this:

Writing policy on a beautiful day while my children are at the zoo without me.

The kids were getting to do this:

Giraffes!

Elephants!

Junk food! (Sidenote: Why doesn't Cary know how to eat a hot dog yet?)

I was very impressed with my can-do husband, let me tell you. But not half as impressed, apparently, as ALL THE PEOPLE at the zoo. Lester said he was like a local celebrity, walking around the zoo with twin toddlers and an infant in a carrier. No less than TWO DOZEN people stopped him to marvel at and compliment him, and ooooh and ahhhh over the sight of a man with all of his children! What a concept!

Listen, I was proud of him, too. Taking three small children out by yourself is no small feat. I don't take that lightly. But I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, if any woman in all of America took all three of her children out somewhere, she'd barely even register with most folks, save a couple people who might say, "Boy, you've sure got your hands full, don'tya?"

Lester thought the whole thing was incredibly funny. He said if ever he needs an ego-boost, he's going to take the kids to the zoo again. We both had a good laugh at that.

And in other news,  I went to the local shelter intending to select a cute, furry little kitten for us to adopt and instead developed the biggest soft spot for a 3-year-old, scruffy old cat who'd been dumped by her owners. Among her many flaws:

• She was pregnant when she came to the shelter, so they had to abort the pregnancy. She seemed a little sad to me.
• She had been recovering from surgery, so wasn't really eating much, making her quite thin. Little bony thing!
• She's sneezy (Poor thing caught a cold in the shelter).
• She's dishwater brown and scraggly. Basically, she looks like an alley cat.

I'm not one of those people who goes around rescuing strays off the street. But being introduced to this poor, sad kitty made me want to bring her home and love on her and fatten her up.

And so now we have a new member of the family, Sara.

Doesn't she look so sad??? 

Originally, we thought we'd try to let the boys name the cat we chose, but I decided not to rename her, since she'd been through enough change.

Since she's been home, she's mostly been hiding in the basement. Everyone at the shelter says we got the sweetest cat ever, and so far, she does seem quite sweet, if a bit shy. Cary is fascinated by her; Dean is a little afraid of her. Every time Sara ventures upstairs, she gets freaked out by the boys' 2-year-old noise level, and runs away. So I'd say we have a ways to go before we're all one big, happy family.

But I hope she likes it at our little house. Yes it's loud. Yes, it's chaotic. No, we have no idea what we're doing. But we are very good at loving, little Sara, so I think, soon enough, you'll feel right at home.

Packed weekend yet again (vegtivals, trees, music, friends and meltdowns)

Saturday, we went to a festival in my neighborhood, with live music and popcorn and slushies and hula hoops and tons of kids. One little girl recognized C & D from school. She's in the 3s class, and came right up to them, saying, "I know you! You go to my school!!" Cary and Dean looked puzzled and a little bit nervous, but the girl was delightfully cute. Turns out I'd met her mother more than a year ago at Mother Goose on the Loose at our local library. We'd even exchanged phone numbers back then, but never called one another. Isn't that funny? I told her we definitely should link up.

The boys loved the Fall Festival! They still keep asking me about going back to the "vegtival."

 After the festival, we went to a park and climbed a tree.

I still remember when we came to this park when the boys were newish walkers, and they had trouble navigating the ground because of all the roots and sticks strewn about. And now they are attempting to climb the biggest tree at the park!  Wow. This blows my mind.

This was August 2011 at the same park. They could barely walk! I remember being nervous that they were going to trip and kill themselves.

On Sunday, we went to their first music class, and saw a couple with twin girls, Abby and Maya, who we met the day before at the vegtival!!  What a coincidence! Turns out their girls are a month younger than C & D, and they live just a few streets over. So perhaps we'll link up.

(That's two couples I'd like to get to know better. Will I ever link up with them? I don't know. We shall see. Making friends at this age is so...bizarrely hard. It just seems weird to call up people we don't know and say 'Hey! Let's be friends!' But I do want to know more people in my neighborhood. So I'm going to try to get over my reticence. I'll let you know how it goes.)


We also went out to lunch before going to visit my friend Stephanie. This was one of those lunches that goes down in the annals of "Worst Outings Ever."

It started off wonderfully. It was a beautiful day; we sat outside. We ordered food we thought we could eat the bulk of, but keep the boys happy with, too. Turns out, Cary and Dean don't really like fancy grilled cheese sandwiches with apple slices cooked in. Or fancy chicken salad sandwiches with golden raisins. Or butternut squash soup with crabmeat and shrimp. Turns out, they get really mad when it's lunchtime and there's really nothing for them to eat. So that started the shift in the day's happy mood toward Grumpville.

Then, I gave Clair a piece of bread to suck on. She loved, loved LOVED it!

When it was getting close to time to go, I took the soggy chunk of grossness from her to clean her up. She LOST HER EVER-LOVING MIND. We're talking bucking, kicking, screaming, crocodile tears streaming. And it was LOUD. I was shocked!

Then I went to pay for the food at the counter and saw that, as it was a day before Rosh Hashanah, they had samples of kugel. I brought one back to the table for Cary and one for Dean. As we packed up our things, Cary asked for more "macaroni." We told him there was no more and it was time to go. He LOST HIS EVER-LOVING MIND! We're talking screaming, kicking, falling on the ground, crocodile tears streaming. And it was LOUD. I was shocked!

People were giving us the serious stink eye so we tried to hustle on out of there, with Clair in her stroller screaming and Cary in Lester's arms, kicking and screaming. To keep Dean from joining in the meltdown ('cause believe me, he was looking a little left out), I asked him to help me push the stroller. Zealot that he is, Hercules Davis rammed the stroller into the table in front of us. I actually started laughing, because it was just like, "Are you kidding me?"

The people trying to eat at the table were. not. amused. We could not get out of there fast enough.

In other news, Clair has decided that she can't sleep without her pacifier. She wakes up three to four times a night for it. I am exhausted.

And we decided to get a cat. I cannot deal with the mice in Baltimore. And nothing else has worked.

Neither one of us really wants the responsibility of a cat. And I have a bit of an allergy. But I seriously can NOT deal with the mice anymore. Have I said that already? I CANNOT deal.

I'll let you know how it goes.