Kid Prep

"Someone vomited all over the bedroom and I just stepped in it" Brian bellows across the house. By someone he means one of the cats, and by one of the cats he means one of MY cats. I immediately grab a roll of paper towels and some floor disinfectant as I have a pretty decent idea of what I'm going to encounter in the bedroom. I peer around the corner to find Brian staring at the piles of cat vomit that he just slid through. Fortunately for him, he was wearing slippers at the time. Fortunately for me and I was able to easily rinse the bottoms off.

"It's smells like vomit in here."

"No Brian, it smells like cat food in here, because that's what the cat vomited up, chill out."

At this point, I am unsure WHICH cat did the vomiting.

"I just want to go to bed," he says, "I don't feel like dealing with vomit tonight."

I usher Brian off to the kitchen so that I can clean up the piles of vomit. Cat vomit is such a norm in this house that it doesn't even phase me anymore. I carefully inspect each pile in order to determine which kitty was responsible for the heaping piles of puke. Upon inspection I come across a hairball. An orange hairball. The culprit:


Mia. She almost seems too pretty to be the producer of such large piles of cat puke, but alas, the fire orange furball is a dead giveaway.

"Relax," I tell Brian, "I will clean it up, and then you can go to bed."

I hear him mumbling and grumbling down the hallway and only catch the phrases, "gross, ridiculous, exhausted, stupid cats....."

I'm secretly laughing to myself as I'm knelt over a heaping pile of vomit which doesn't bother me in the least, but is driving Brian absolutely BANANAS.

Anywho, so I finish cleaning up the floor and I make sure everything is spickity span.

"Ok. All done. You can go to bed now."

We pass each other in the hallway, say goodnight, and Brian goes off to bed. I return to the kitchen to replace the paper towels and disinfectant to their homes in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink.

"WHAT THEEEEEEEE??!? THERE IS VOMIT ALL OVER THE BED!!!!"

This stops me in my tracks. Now, the cats usually vomit on the floor. The most creative vomiting locations are usually rugs, or bath mats, or UNDER the bed - but never on any furniture.

"WHAT? IN THE BED?" I go running down the hall to find Brian and his hand covered in kitty puke. Apparently, he grabbed a pile of it as he attempted to turn down the duvet and instead plunked his hand directly into the vomit.

More mumbling and grumbling down the hallway as he went to wash his hands. In addition to two large heaping piles of vomit on the floor, Mia also managed to vomit two additional large piles of undigested cat food on my duvet and on my sheets. Luckily, the vomit on the sheets did not seep through to stain the mattress cover. My down comforter wasn't so lucky.

So Brian's bedtime is now further delayed as we strip the bed of sheets and blankets, and pillows and duvet covers.

Now to recap the last few months of wild kingdom behavior that has been exhibited in my home - Ebenezer urinated on practically every piece of furniture we own (minus our bed thank goodness) when he was sick. After his surgery, he left small specs of blood throughout the house that originated from his healing surgical wound. Mia has managed to get poo stuck in that pretty coat of hers and track it all over the house including onto my pillow. Mia has also vomited multiple times on the one and only rug we have throughout the whole house and has now successfully vomited on the bed. In addition to vomiting, Mia urinated on the door mat when I accidentally closed the door to our spare bedroom overnight. The spare bedroom houses the kitty boxes so she resorted to relieving herself on the door mat. This move on her part was actually surprising since whenever she gets angry with us, she will urinate in the upstairs tub. Simon has lifted his leg and urinated on a laundry basket of clean clothes, and when he shakes his head he sends slobber to 4 corners of the room. He also experiences nights of restless sleep when he is convinced that someone or something is outside the house which sends him into a frenzy of deep throated howls and barks followed by whimpering and crying. Simon WILL NOT go back to sleep unless I get up, join him on the floor, calm him down by petting his nose all the while telling him he is a "good boy" and to "Shhhhh, go back to sleep."

In my defense I keep a very tidy house, so guests would NEVER know that I spend a small fortune on rug cleaning, disinfectants, paper towels and other cleaning agents to remove any and all traces of inappropriate behavior of my animals.

It's a given that my life would be much easier and less messy if I didn't have the animals, but Brian and I remind ourselves that this is GREAT practice for having children. Sleepless nights and bodily fluids in random places will not be as much of a shock due to the practice we are getting from the little petting farm we are currently operating out of our home. I know it won't be nearly the same but at least we have an idea of what to expect. And I'm thinking that cat vomit is way more gross than cute baby vomit.