Felines, meet The Toddler

When we were in Ohio, Elle was in heaven - every where she went, there were cats. She warmed up to each place by crooning "Kittykittykitty" as she chased cats from room to room in her new environments.

Some of the cats were more patient than others. Really, I'm shocked that any feline doesn't bolt the minute the Toddler Tornado excitedly approaches. She's well-intentioned, but I'd imagine her enthusiasm and disregard for personal space would be a little much for any animal.

Elle was giddy in Ohio as she tried to track down my sister's shy cat, Ginger,
and instead found Millie, who is full of attitude and disdain for small people.

Elle inflicts her reign of terror on our two cats on a daily basis. Mario and Sidney were our first babies - I adopted them in 2005. They moved from Pittsburgh to Florida with me, and frankly, I think Mario prefers Tim over me, while Sidney doesn't care who loves on him as long as someone is loving on him. They had quite a bit of adjusting to do as we reorganized the condo in preparation for Elle's arrival, including all of the new furniture that entered our home, but they had no idea what was coming.

When we brought Elle home from the hospital, the cats discussed their options.

For the first few months of Elle's life, the cats seemed OK with her presence. Sure, she sounded like some sort of tortured farm animal when she cried, but aside from raised ears, they were fine.

But then she got mobile, and it was a game changer. They watched her pull herself across the floor, roll, reach and scoot in new ways with alarming speed. When she started to walk, they could do nothing but watch her toddle and wobble toward them. As she became increasingly interactive with them, I noticed their black and white coats became heavily speckled with gray hairs.

Life has changed a lot for these cats - two animals that Elle absolutely adores. Mario, our slightly older cat, has responded pretty much the way we would have expected: He tries to avoid Elle, and if she's too overeager or overly affectionate, he'll tense up and sometimes swat at her. We try to redirect her when she's headed toward Mario, because he's definitely our more aggressive cat.

Fortunately for us, Mario usually tries to keep his distance from her:

Sidney is our shy guy. While Mario has always been the dominant cat and has reacted as expected,  Sidney has completely surprised us with his interactions with Elle. He lets her pet and poke him, sits patiently (although with a slightly terrified look in his eyes) as she tries to cuddle up with him, and he doesn't bolt when she tries to follow him from room to room. I figured Sid would be the one to hide under furniture the minute Elle walked in to a room, but he's great with her, and she absolutely loves him. Luckily, the attempts at tail-pulling have been pretty minimal, because I think that would be Sidney's last straw.

In the last few months, Elle has started up conversations with the cats or made funny comments to them. The chats crack me up, but she and the cats remain unfazed.

* Coming home after being at the sitter's house: "Hi Mario, what's up?"

Attempting to bond with Mario.

* Announcing Sidney's migration down the hall: "Here he comes!"

* Elle tried to push a popsicle on Sidney. She also tried to blow his nose with a tissue. She's tried to give him "a bottle" by offering him some Afrin.

Loving on Sid.

* Elle and I took Mario to the vet, and Elle was extremely concerned about Mario, so she started doing sympathy meows in the car.

* General battle cry: "I'm going to getchoo!"

* Talking to Sid as he moves from room to room: "Oh Sid, come here."

* Trying to give Sidney treats:

* Petting Sidney (who always seems to be desperately craving attention): "Sidney booooyyyyy ... Sidney Sidney Sidney."

* In the last week or two, poor Sidney has been renamed "Cindy." Elle now goes around looking for "Cindy" and saying "Cindy, those are MY toys!" She also put Sid in time out yesterday for not listening (this from the girl who has been in time out twice in her life). I fear Sid will experience an identity crisis if Elle continues the "Cindy boy!" calls.

Poooooor Cindy.

Random randomness, 7.7.11

A wild time: We're taking some vacation time soon and going to Ohio to see all of our family and a lot of our friends. It's always fun to see everyone, and this trip has a wedding, a baby shower and a Reds game among lots of letting the grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins play with the baby. But these trips are also exhausting - so much hanging out to cram in to a limited amount of time, and the packing/unpacking, the travel ... BUT! Here's the big thing about this trip: There's a mountain lion on the loose. And it's been sighted near my parents' house, which is situated in a fairly rural, wooded area. Tim has already ordered that the baby not be allowed to play outside as long as the mountain lion is on the lamb. (You know, because if there were no wild animals running around we'd let her play outside ALL. DAY. LONG. Right?)

Clearly, Mario is ready to hit the road.

Other cats that vex me: Mario and Sidney are seriously driving me bananas. Our sitter is mildly allergic to cats, so we have to keep them in our bedroom for the 30ish hours a week that she's there. But since we started that a few months ago, they've acted like we pen them up in solitary confinement for weeks on end. They have a large room, large closet, food, water and litter box. Yet they scratch at the bedroom door and yeowl when we put them in there (usually, of course, during Elle's afternoon nap - DON'T WAKE HER UP!) and then when we let them out at night, they yeowl and scratch at *her* door (again, DON'T WAKE HER UP!). I've actually proposed taking the cats to Ohio. Tim asked if I wanted them to play with my mom's cat. I said no, I wanted them to "play" with the mountain lion. (And I'm joking. They won't be coming to Ohio with us. And therefore I won't feed them to a playful mountain lion. Cat lovers can be at peace again.)

I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number: Among the search terms that people have used recently to find the blog are "sea cow milk" and "old wives tale 'itchy armpits.'"

Longest meal-prep EVER: I made pizza for our dinner a few weeks ago. On the bag for the dough, it said "Remove from refrigerator. Rest one hour." I would never claim to be in the best shape of my life, but I certainly doubt I'd need 60 minutes of recovery time just because I took a bag of dough out of the fridge. The rest of the instructions were pretty basic, but I fear that the rest of the night could have gone on like this: "Spread sauce. Take a nap. Distribute desired toppings. Meditate for two hours. Sprinkle cheese on top. Go to bed. Have a cup of coffee before resuming. Bake for 20-30 minutes. Lie down for half an hour. Eat pizza. Take a siesta."

Ummmm: Most weeks, I pack a salad for lunch four days a week. Luckily, the bagged lettuce is on sale pretty much every week, and lately, I've been able to nom on my favorite, the Spring Mix from Fresh Express. But when I was making my lunch this week, I read the bag: A "Seasonal blend of mixed greens." I don't understand how I can get the same seasonal mixed greens year-round. But I'm not going to ask how that works, because I heart my salad.

"... and I said, 'Compared to what?'": Tim and I have been quoting this video for more than a year now:

We even got my sister in on the action. It is hilarious. Tim read about it in Entertainment Weekly (it's the brain child of former SNL cast member Jenny Slate), and we've pretty much memorized it. Hilarious.

Delish: My new favorite thing is two low-fat whole grain waffles with a bit of Nutella (OMGsogood) and raspberries. It tastes like a dessert, has a lot of fiber and protein and is pretty much amazeballs.

Bad math: Tim has three days off this week. I have one. NOT. FAIR.

Wordless Wednesday: Juxtaposition

Mario takes a stand - literally - on Elle's favorite book.

Wordless Wednesday: The aftermath

Mario gave me the cold shoulder for most of the day
after the morning included a trip to a new vet,
where they welcomed him with pokes, prods and shots.

Sigh.

As of last night, there is officially one piece of baby gear that the cats have not claimed as their own. (So far, they haven't gotten in the swing - at least, not as far as we know.) I was getting ready for bed and turned to see Sidney in the bouncy seat. It was only a matter of time, but I guess I assumed they were just scared of the chair-like items that move. I even turned the seat on, thinking the vibration would force Sid from his cozy home, but he just snuggled in.

Um, no.

The cats have been adjusting to the baby that we brought home - it screams, it takes up space on the couch (and on Tim's lap, a favorite spot of Mario's), and it keeps them from sleeping in our bedroom, where Elle sleeps in her Pack-N-Play. But apparently they are coping by finding uses for all of the "new toys" in the house ...

Mario makes use of Elle's play mat.

Sidney checks out Elle's new quilt, made by my mom, in the crib.

The Boppy is a cat's best friend ...?

A weekend in pictures

There will undoubtedly be much followup to this post, as there were three major components of the nursery constructed this weekend, but for now, until the nursery is more "set," I leave you with a weekend in photos, starring my lovely helpers, Sidney and Mario ...

On Saturday, I went to my monthly craft gathering. One of the girls had a baby girl in December and has generously given me TONS of hand-me-downs. On Saturday, I got two huge bags of stuff, and Sidney decided that a torn bag full of baby clothes and blankets was where he wanted to sleep for the better part of two days.

When he wasn't sleeping, Sidney was scaling the crib box. Tim picked the crib up on Friday, and I had kept the cats out of the disastrous nursery until Monday, when I needed to start constructing. Earlier, Sidney slid down the crib box face-first in to a crate of clothes.

Despite Sidney's "help," I put the dresser together on Monday.
Tim helped construct the drawers and lift pieces when I needed help. He also made dinner that night so I could continue working.

On Tuesday, we had a doctor's appointment.
Then I came home, took a short nap and built this shelf.
Once again, Sidney thought he was a crucial part
of the building process.

After running a few errands and hitting the gym on Tuesday afternoon, I came home to tackle the last project: The crib. Mario was exhausted by my efforts but also annoyed by the styrofoam pieces that kept hitting him. (Oops.) Sidney, meanwhile, cuddled up in awkward positions on top of my breast pump.

Kitty in crib jail! The crib is complete, and now that the mattress is on it, I have kept the kitties out of the nursery.

The debris from my busy weekend of building.

While I was building things, the washer and dryer were kept quite busy. Now that we have a room and furniture for the baby and we're only 10 weeks away from the due date, I felt it was time to start washing, folding and sorting. Here are just some of Elle's towels and blankets.

And here is a basket full of her clothes, waiting to be
folded, sorted and put away in the dresser.

A lot of Tuesday was spent here, at the hospital. We had our appointment in the morning, then Tim went to work while I played "Bob the Builder," then we dashed back to the hospital for our first childbirth education class. There are only seven couples in our class, which apparently is quite small, but there is another couple due with a girl on August 3.

And because of all of the time spent on my feet/a rather hot, humid week in Florida, it appears that I have some swelling in my feet. (Stellar Blackberry photo taken at work.)

And there you have it, folks - a busy but very productive weekend!

Cat confusion

Our cats seem to be aware of the fact that *something* is going on. I'm getting fatter, we go to the doctor early in the morning every four Tuesdays, we're bringing a lot of new things in to the condo and the spare room/office/soon-to-be-office is a battle zone. Mario is usually the first one to the bathroom when I've been sick - not like he's offering help or holding my hair back, but he knows something isn't right.

So far, they've pretty much avoided the pile of baby stuff we've been accumulating. Sometimes Sidney will start to chew on the corner of a gift bag, or Mario will poke around and decide there is nothing of interest to him there.

But two weeks ago, when I celebrated the end of my class+the nearing expiration of a Babies 'R Us coupon by doing a little shopping, and the "baby corner" became the feline hot spot. My main mission for the shopping trip was to buy our changing pad. I brought it home and put it on top of the pile of stuff that has been handed down to us or gifted at the shower. (A pile I am very much looking forward to disassembling upon new carpet installation/building of the dresser, thankyouverymuch.)

And Mario promptly climbed the pile and settled in on the changing pad. Apparently Babies 'R Us sells cat beds in the form of 3-sided changing pads.

Where have we gone?

Oh, three loyal blog readers, we have been busy. Today I took some photos right before I locked my Florida apartment for the last time. In the middle of working 6-day weeks (thanks, Rays and World Series), trying to keep up with and getting ahead in my Web design class and finish planning the wedding, I've been moving to Tim's condo (I have some photos of the disaster area I've left there, too, to be shared later). I started slowly moving stuff down about a month ago. Today was the deadline to get out completely. On Tuesday, Tim and I loaded up a small U-Haul with my big furniture to take to his place and to our new storage unit. I spent the rest of the night unpacking some of my stuff. This morning, Tim came to get the cats and my precious essential electronics (microwave, computer, TV, printer, etc.). I spent the rest of the day before work (stupid idea, working on the day I needed to be moved out, but I had no choice) cleaning and throwing little odds and ends (plunger, step stool, printer cord) in to my car.

The biggest challenges proved to be throwing away my couch (I wanted to donate it, but the thrift store was unable to come when I'd be around) and temporarily keeping a lot of the stuff we'd like to sell instead of store. I've had some interest from people on craigslist, and I sold some stuff to people at work, but we're still the owners of some furniture and electronics we don't need. I caved yesterday and took some stuff to Goodwill, but merging the two households - and having Tim claim that everything he owns has special meaning and has been around longer than me - has proven to be a challenge.

Tim reports that the cats are curiously getting used to their new digs. They've never lived on a ground floor before - in Pittsburgh, we were on the first floor, but there was a porch and it was all elevated. This is a straight shot out the door and to freedom for the escape-artist Mario. It's also less protected from the outside world for shy, not-so-smart Sidney. I have a feeling they'll both sleep very well this weekend after tearing around the empty apartment for the last few days. Sidney often instigated the fast-paced chases - and then quickly regretted it when Mario cornered him, attacked him and Sidney realized there was nothing left to hide behind.

Oh, the joys.

When we moved the couch, I discovered a lost playground of cat toys. Sid got over his moving shock to explore them.

Hopefully now that my biggest priorities are school, work and the wedding, I'll have more time to keep up with the blog ... but don't be surprised if I fall off the blog-wagon until after the wedding. It's been a busy year!

Ohio trip: Tim's photos

This is just a sample of Tim's photos ...

Here, his cousin Travis at the Reds game:


Cousin Jeff:


Cousin Ryan with Ryan's girlfriend Holly:


Tim's dad golfing the next morning:

Tim's mom golfing:

Tim's nephew Cal golfing:


Tim with Marti's cats (this is noteable because Ginger is the most skittish, anti-social cat EVER and came up and slept next to Tim):