Author: Veronica

I feel like I’m at my wits end.

And to be honest, I wasn’t even going to blog about it, because it’s more of a hunker down and deal with it type thing, than a whinge about it on the Internet type thing.

Amy has forgotten how to listen. I know that it’s all about her being TWO! and exerting her independence to either listen to me or not, but it is driving me mad. If I sit her down and make eye contact and make her listen, it immediately dissolves into a tantrum.

Her tantrums aren’t that hard to deal with honestly. They generally involve some stomping and some throwing of herself on the ground silently. Sometimes they involve crying, but we ignore tantrums so she knows that they don’t work.

Hence the silent throwing herself on the ground ones. I think they just her way of getting her shit back together again. 2 minutes of laying on the ground with her head hidden and BAM, she’s good to go again.

But the not listening. Oh my word, the not listening.

I feel like a broken record as I tell her not to do something 100 times and she still goes ahead and does it.

Like not jumping on me.

Or climbing onto the bench.

Or pulling the books out of the bookshelf.

Or emptying her entire toy box on the floor and then refusing to help pick them back up.

Or jumping/kicking/sitting on the dog.

Or any of the other hundreds of things that Toddlers just do to drive us mad.

I know that alot of it is simply me being out of energy and patience, but those things aren’t her fault (okay, they are a little bit her fault, but she can’t help that).

We’ve reinstated time outs for poor behaviour (she had stopped needing them because just the threat of time out worked).

I’ve cut almost all sugar out of her diet.

There is to be no more cordial or juice given as drinks, she can have water or nothing. She is allowed milk, but only from a regular cup and only 1cm at a time as I am sick of her sipping and spitting the milk all over the house.

No giving in to nagging, no matter how much easier it might be.

And the big thing, no more milk overnight. I’m sick of her waking every 2-3 hours to let me know her milk is empty and needs filling. I stopped breastfeeding overnight more than 12 months ago to stop night wakings, not to just replace them with a sippy cup.

We stopped milk overnight 2 nights ago and mostly she has been sleeping better. Ish. Really, with Amy better is a relative term.

So fingers crossed that some of these things start to pay off soon.

[It’s not all bad though, she is still cuddly and snuggly, gives kisses on demand and will talk about whatever is bothering her once prompted to ‘talk to me, tell me what’s wrong, don’t just cry/whine/yell’. Plus, she has the mother of all colds so she hasn’t exactly been feeling 100%. Funnily enough, I was sure her cold was getting better, but last night and today she has practically drowned me in snot. Not fun]

While we’re talking about behavioural issues, I should really mention Seven.

Seven was a difficult dog to toilet train, but recently she had been really good.

Recently, as in, up to 3 days ago.

3 days ago, Seven starting shitting inside again.

Now, my answer to that was simply ‘Fuck it, I cannot deal with this, dogs go OUTSIDE.’

However, that didn’t exactly work, because yesterday, as Nathan and I cleaned up the study, while we were IN THE ROOM, she shat inside 3 times. Within an hour.

I would have killed her. Nathan was much gentler than I would have been and I don’t know if that is a good thing or not.

This morning I woke up to find dog shit on the bathroom floor AND underneath the table in the dining room. This despite me putting her outside at midnight, 3am, 6am and 8am when we got up for the day.

Nathan reckons that it is because the cat and kitten have been sleeping inside. He seems to think that it’s territorial.

I don’t disagree. Not exactly.

But the cat and kitten have been inside for nearly 3 weeks now, if it was territorial, wouldn’t she have started it 3 weeks ago, not 3 days?

Sigh.

So here I am. Venting. I am out of energy and patience. I just want Seven to stop it and be good and stop the constant fucking whining already. I just want Amy to listen and talk and behave without me having to stand there and MAKE you behave.

I want it to be easy.

So remember last week I promised to tell you all about how I wound up with a kitten in my bathroom cupboard?

Well…

November 11th.

The morning of November 11th, my tabby cat (as yet unnamed) was pregnant. She had spent the last few nights yowling to get inside and nesting every time she was in here. Nathan didn’t believe she was nearly big enough to be ready to give birth, but I argued, saying that she wouldn’t be complaining quite so much if she wasn’t. I suspected that she was only pregnant with 1 kitten and REALLY just wanting to give birth under our bed.

So, in the morning she was pregnant still. You could tell, she was fat and swollen and grumpy. Not surprising really.

However, that afternoon when I went outside to feed them, she wasn’t fat anymore.

I went to get Nathan to confirm my suspicions.

‘Uhm, hun? You know the tabby cat? She’s not pregnant anymore’

‘What do you mean she isn’t pregnant anymore?’

‘I mean, she isn’t pregnant anymore. Come see and double check for me though’

‘You’re right, she isn’t pregnant anymore’

‘I TOLD you she was ready to give birth’

‘Well… maybe…. heh…’

We debated whether the kitten that she had birthed was still alive, as there was no sign of it and she was sitting on our kitchen doorstep asking to be fed. We figured it would either turn up, or it wouldn’t.

Yes I know, we’re not really the most optimistic couple.

Nathan did look at me strangely though as I wandered around the yard ‘just checking’ all the likely spots that a kitten may have been hidden.

[Old shed? Not that I could see. Under the house? Not that I could see. etc]

An hour later, I went to the toilet and completely freaked out because I could HEAR a kitten mewing. I finished in record time, assuming that Seven had found the kitten and was killing it.

I was wrong. Heh, all that wasted alone time, even if I was in the loo.

Once I had heard the mewing though, I knew for certain that she hadn’t had a dead kitten, or abandoned it. I raced around like an idiot trying to track down the mewing. I even got Nathan in on the act, huffy sighing and all.

After about 20 minutes of no luck finding anything, we gave up. The mother could look after it where ever she wanted too and we would just hope that Seven didn’t find the kitten while it was alone.

UNTIL…

I was on the phone to Mum and Amy was playing outside with the animals. Next thing I know I hear frantic mewing from a kitten, giggling from Amy and unimpressed meowing from the mother cat.

I dropped the phone and ran outside. Amy had hold of the newborn kitten and was hugging it. Seven was racing around her barking like mad, trying to steal it, the mother was freaking out and I was standing in the middle of it.

Needless to say, Amy was NOT impressed when I stole the kitten back from her and gave it to it’s mother. Tears, tantrums, snot – you name it, we had it.

The mother cat picked up the kitten and instead of taking it back to where ever she had birthed it, she brought it inside!

Where Amy promptly stole it again, while I locked Seven outside so she couldn’t play too.

For the second time in 2 minutes, I rescued the kitten and gave it back to it’s mother. While I held Amy and explained why she couldn’t have it, the mother cat [who really really needs a name] picked it back up and dragged it through my lounge room, finally settling on taking it underneath the recliner.

Obviously the recliner is the safest place in the house, seeing as how toddlers and puppies can’t wiggle under there.

Me though? I really didn’t want a kitten living under my chair. The logistics of that? Just ugh.

So while Amy screamed that it was ‘AMY’S KITTEN! MINE! AMY’S!!!’ I went and found a box and some scissors. I sat down with Amy and explained that no, it was the cat’s baby and Amy couldn’t have it. But that Amy could help me make a bed for the cat’s baby where it could sleep.

Luckily once Amy realised that she was helping me and the ‘Cat’s Baby!’ she calmed down pretty fast and helped me hack a box to pieces.

We lined the box with an old sheet and popped it into the empty bathroom cupboard. Amy patted everything down nicely and was very good about it.

Then I went and got the kitten from underneath the recliner and with it mewing it’s little head off, I convinced the mother cat to follow us to the box.

Where I quickly shut the door until she settled down to sleep and feed the baby.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I picked up the phone long enough to tell Mum I would call her back.

Funnily enough, everything I just wrote about happened within the space of about 7 minutes. Heh. It was…hectic.

What I gathered from what Amy had to say, was that the mother cat brought the kitten down out of the roof where Amy then stole it to ‘cuddle!’. Luckily she is mostly gentle.

Now I would love to say that the kitten has since spent all it’s time in the bathroom, being quiet and not disrupting our lives.

But I would be lying, because in the last 2 days, I have spent more time than I should tipping the recliner over, to find the kitten and convince the mother to move back to the damn bathroom already!

Somehow she isn’t that interested in staying in the bathroom. SOMEHOW living underneath my chair is much more appealing to her.

Sigh.

Damn cats.

Assvice of the day? Get your cats desexed.

So I don’t think I mentioned it, but last week one of my cats had a kitten. A tiny little ginger tomcat that Amy adores.

Eventually I will tell the story of how that kitten came to be living in my bathroom cabinet with it’s mother (funny story, no really) but not tonight.

Tonight, I am much to exhausted to talk about kittens.

Instead, I want to talk about death.

And destruction.

Namely, the death I intend to inflict on the father of said kitten.

We have 2 cats. They aren’t desexed because we didn’t have the money to get them done. Shuddup about the stupidity of not getting them spayed, because honestly? I’ve heard it all before, mostly from my subconscious at 2am.

So, 2 cats. One of which has had a kitten. So, that leaves ONE cat, not pregnant or lactating.

Unfortunately, that second cat? She wants babies. She wants them bad. She wants them SO bad that she sits underneath my bedroom window all night yowling for her boyfriend.

Who is only to happy to oblige her, seeing as how male cats and teenage boys are incredibly similar and spend a whole bunch of time thinking with their penis’s.

[Side note, should that be penis’s or penii?]

Unfortunately, in the obliging, he doesn’t seem to feel the need to be quiet.

This means that at 2am, I end up with cats screeching underneath my bedroom window while they get their freak on. Even the torrential rain last night didn’t put them off, they simply burrowed under the house and screeched and screamed UNDERNEATH MY PILLOW. Underneath the floor.

Which in turn, sets Seven off.

Seven isn’t a large dog, but man oh man, can she bark.

Nathan and Amy manage to normally sleep through all the cat sex and barking. Me however? I wake up if a fly buzzes near me.

The only way to shut ANY of the animals up is to let Seven out to chase the intruder cat away (no seriously, she is like a big brother. A big brother who might just kill the suitor if she catches him).

So for the last three or four nights, I have been kept awake by all the animals in my house.

I swear, if I get my hands on this ginger tom cat, I am going to squeeze his neck until his eyes pop. He’s lucky I don’t shoot.

Damn lucky.

Please, for the love of god, just ONE night where I sleep through? Please? Without animals waking me up shagging, or barking, or meowing? Please?