Cat's in the Cradle

I've often joked that my oldest kid is Chris, but that's not technically true.  My oldest kid is an 80 year old grey and black tabby cat named Pan.*  Pan is the only roommate who made the cut having lived in every one of my four "grown-up" homes.**

About 14 years ago I fell in love with this little polydactyl kitten who had mittens for front paws.  The day I picked him up from the litter, on a whim, I decided that he should also have a friend.  The owner of the cat pointed at a little grey kitten and told me that he was smart: the first cat to be litter trained so I grabbed him too.  Try as I might my mittened cat, Monsieur Remy Dupompeneau,*** was never really my cat.  He was an independent wild child who bolted for the great outdoors when ever he could, running away four times, until 2006 when he ran away and didn't return.  Pan is not wild, he is smart, loyal and neurotic and has been by my side (literally) since the 1990s.  He generally acts more like a dog than a cat, so we've coined him a cog.

Me and Pan many, many moons ago....I can see by the clock that it's 2:30AM

My Cat During My Pregnancy:
Pan had always been the Panthor to my Skeletor and thought that aliens were invading my body and decided to fight back.  He hated everything to do with me, avoided me at all costs until night time when he would jump on me while I slept and pee all over my legs.  One of the first things that our nurse practitioner told me when I found out I was pregnant was to avoid cleaning the cat litter since cat urine isn't good for pregnant women****, so I started having some panic attacks when he decided that I was a human fire hydrant.  So we locked him out of the bedroom every night after the fifth offence.  Panthor got depressed about his banishment from the bedroom, started tearing out his own hair and spent all of his time sitting atop the fridge (Snake Mountain) glaring at us and tearing out more hair. We took him to the vet, ran a series of tests and got him some medication for his nerves and antibiotics for the giant bald spot/sore he'd created on his side.

The Third Trimester:
As we prepared for the arrival of Molly and Jack we set up the nursery months in advance, giving our sensitive creature a chance to adapt.  We filled the cribs and car seats with balloons and aluminium foil so he never got in the habit of sleeping in the minions cribs or car seats.  Unfortunately he was still spending a significant amount of time glaring at us from the top of the fridge.

Newborns & Pan:
Finally Molly and Jack arrived and it was as if our cat had returned, he was mildly curious about the babies, but generally chose to visit us when they were asleep.  As the minions got older they became more and more obsessed with the cat.  One of Jack's favourite games is to pet Pan or to push him around the house in a giant empty diaper box.  He barely meows when Jack's "Gentle Touch" is more like a round of Ultimate Fighter than acceptable cat affection.  He has never tried to climb into their cribs, bassinets or been aggressive in any way - even when he probably should.  Unfortunately from time to time he'd obsessively pick at one of his back paws, which we mistakenly took for neurosis rather than a purely medical issue.

Pan and Jack

Last month I was unable to treat his paw at home with rubbing alcohol and polysporen as the swelling on his hot spot had gotten out of control.  So we opened up our wallets, let out a big sigh and went to the vet thinking that we'd get some more antibiotics and stress medication.  It turns out this hot spot was not a result of low self esteem, it was a tumour. We completed a series of tests to see if the tumour had spread to lungs, impacted blood or kidney functions (it hadn't) and started saving up money like crazy while we tried steroids and a topical spray to keep the tumour from growing.  Over the next few weeks the spray and steroids appeared to work like tumour fertiliser and the growth doubled, maybe tripled in size.  We jokingly called Pan "Crang" because it looked like there was a giant brain on his foot, but silently worried if we'd be able to afford to get him in on time.

Yesterday Pan had a successful operation to remove his tumour and one of his toes.***** He's recovering well, despite being on a lot of pain medication, is confused as to why a 16 month old little boy keeps on squealing in delight while charging him and that he can't run away quite like he used to.

Thank you to everyone at Renforth Veterinary Clinic for your amazing services and helping keep the oldest member of our family with us.  Long live Pan(thor)!

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*14 year old - http://www.calculatorcat.com/cats/cat-years.phtml
**I don't know if the first two places where I lived from ages 21-25 technically count.  The amount of sugar cereal, popsicles, diet coke and vanilla vodka consumed in those apartments was neither healthy nor adult.
***Because he was Cajun - I told you already I was drinking a lot of vodka.
****To this day Chris still believes this was an excuse I used to get out of chores.
*****What is the opposite of a polydactyl cat? Antidactyl cat?  I think we'll just call him Hobbles.

Product Recall

I have one question for the designers who think it's a good idea to offer clothes for children who crawl in white or muted pastel colours: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?  Do you have a contract with a laundry detergent, floor cleaner, duster, vacuum or specialty mop company that no one outside of the industry knows about?  Every morning when I set the minions down on the floor to play it's like some sort of CSI test as to how dirty my floor is.  I have never spent so much time sweeping, Swiffering, vacuuming or mopping my floors yet have never been so very painfully aware exactly how disgusting they are.

It's like when you were a kid (in the 1980's) and an expert on dentistry came in to teach the benefits of brushing your teeth properly.  They took two volunteers and got one of them to half ass brush their teeth and the other one to do a really good job.  They then gave each kid this weird red tablet* that turns red where ever the kid missed and did a crummy job brushing their teeth.  My floors are like that poor kid who's stuck with red teeth all afternoon, only topped with the shame of an adult who must clean the disgusting off of their kids clothes at the end of the day.

This in combination with the fact that both babies treat the small plates where we put the cat's wet food down on the floor like props at a Greek wedding** and that my disgusting floor doubles as the cheapest and most dangerous all you can eat buffet in town is driving me insane.

However, I have developed two solutions for both of my problems.  Unfortunately Chris says that both of my solutions border on child abuse.***

Solution 1 - Baby Swiffer Suit- No patent pending
Sadly I wasn't the first one with this idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi69IShhMUc  However, I really think it's time that the minions stopped slacking and started contributing to our household with chores.  The Swiffer Suit would be especially helpful for Jack who drags his entire body along the floor like he's been injured by a grenade in a bad war movie.

Solution 2 - The Cone of Shame - patent pending...
We purchased "The Cone of Shame" (as named by the clerk at the pet store) after our cat had a nervous breakdown because I was pregnant.  Essentially it freaked him out and he started obsessively licking and tearing off his hair to the point of needing antibiotics and earned himself the nickname Rogaine.****  Thankfully the instant the minions arrived Pan went back to his normal self and has been fantastic with the kids, even though they try to rip off his tail daily.  Why let that cone go to waste when it can prevent my children from eating disgusting things on the floor?  I thought it was a good idea, although it probably is child abuse, probably....but it might save a life some day...I'm just saying.

 Mad Monkey, you wouldn't be in the cone of shame if you hadn't of pulled magnets off the fridge and tried to swallow them whole.

Valentine Bear, you unplugged the floor lamp and then tried to lick and bite the prongs on the plug...Cone of Shamed!

No children were harmed in the production of this blog entry.

*Like in The Matrix.
**OPA!  Seriously dude I have 4 side plates left and they never break the dollar store ones.  And my old cat refuses to jump up onto tables and counters to eat, unless it's your food, not his.
***He has also insisted that if I have to call him or any of our friends to ask if something is child abuse than it probably is and I should stop immediately, no matter how funny I think it is.  Almost 9 years and I still don't think he quite knows whether or not I'm joking about some of my diabolical plans.
****I wish I was joking about this, but sadly I am not.  We spent nearly $400 on medication for issues that had to do with high intelligence and low self esteem in a cat who kept on peeing on me in bed because he was so angry at me for being pregnant.  Cat urine is terrible for pregnant women, so we had to further isolate a cat who was already quite depressed.