The girls followed the maze in the snow all the way to the end!
Payton and the "other" Thumbelina.
Paton and her best friend Mikayla, who was Smurfette!
Haley loved these little pumpkins.
Pumpkin carving!
Getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating.
Cat update... 'cuz I know you're all wondering (tic)... Julian is still missing. In case you didn’t know, he bolted out the door as Hal was letting the dog in on Sept. 28, and we haven’t seen him since. And also in case you didn’t know… we adopted Julian from a shelter and had only had him for about 3 months.
So the meat of the update is that on Craigslist the other day I found an ad for a "found orange tabby cat" with a picture -- and I think it just might be him! Here's the catch... the woman who created the ad does not actually HAVE the cat in custody, she has just SEEN the cat. She posted the picture on Tuesday; it started snowing on Wednesday; I called on Thursday, and she hasn't seen him since the storm. Bummer. Still, it was very nice of her to post the ad. I put up some flyers in her neighborhood, which is about 6 to 8 miles (and two major roads) east of us.
Meanwhile, my neighbor Kris got a kitten for her daughter a couple of weeks ago. Turns out Kris s allergic to cats! So we offered to take the kitty. He is very sweet and we're enjoying having him in the family. Excepting one small incident… Payton, Haley and I were working on a project at the kitchen table. New kitty was playing on the chair behind Payton. Suddenly he starts screeching! He got his head caught between the rungs (spokes?) on the back of the chair! No idea how he managed that, but he was really stuck. I’m trying to hold him down, while Hal searches for his Sawzall. He can’t find it, so he appears with a circular saw! Needless to say it was very noisy, it hit and bounced off the chair, and I didn’t appreciate having a circular saw coming at my face or the additional scratches I incurred. I politely suggested Hal get the jigsaw. (Okay, maybe I wasn’t all that polite). The jigsaw was quick and effective, and the cat was free. One might think that he would run off and hide. Instead, about 30 seconds later, he was sauntering around as though nothing had happened. Goofball. During this incident Payton declared “I am going to hide!” and Haley clung to my leg crying. I think the girls were more traumatized than the cat.
I am still really sad about Julian, though. He was such a sweetie. He lay in the chair next to me on days that I worked from home. He let Payton give him a haircut on the third day we had him. He snuck out one other night, and in the morning when I opened the door and he ran in, I expected him to run to his food bowl. Instead, he ran upstairs to the girls’ room, as though he was checking on them. He got along with Keystone. He was clumsy and had a strange purr, odd yellow eyes and back legs that looked disproportionately big because they were white.
We waffled for a long time about getting another cat. It’s a big commitment. You expect to have this animal for the next 10 to 15 years! When we (or *I*, I’m not sure Hal was totally on board) decided to get another cat, we (or *I*) spent a lot of time looking for the right one. We picked Julian, and he fit in right away. Expecting him to be a part of the family for a long time, I gave him my heart.
I find I’m a little more reserved on giving my heart to Diamond (the name our new kitty came with). To tell the truth, I would not have chosen to get a kitten. They have a little bit TOO much energy, and those scratching kitten claws, those biting kitten teeth. He is amusing though.
After putting ads on web sites, and looking at cats on the web sites of the various humane societies and dumb friends leagues and cat rescues, I am amazed. So many cats go missing every day that I’m actually amazed that anyone actually HAS a cat. 90% of lost cats are never reunited with their owners, according to one statistic. I’d like to think that most of those end up with new families one way or another. Julian has a microchip, and that’s probably our best chance of getting him back.
Julian came into the Intermountain Humane Society as a stray. He must be able to fend for himself, if he was able to survive up in the mountains. Maybe he just has a wandering spirit. If it was indeed him that was spotted over in Highlands Ranch, he wandered far. And he picked a nice spot – lots of open space over in that area. Maybe he’s heading East with some destination in mind. Or maybe his spirit name is “Wants to Be Eaten by a Coyote.” I think I will try to remember him as I once saw him – pouncing on bugs in the back yard, as the sun went down and twilight came.
Hal and I often remark on how joyful the girls are. “They’re so joyful!” we say. There’s no other word for it. It seems to be their natural state, the one that they continually gravitate back to. They may be curious, or absorbed, or sad, or playful, or cranky. But the state they want to be in, that they always go back to, is joy.
It’s sad that we so seldom feel that sort of joy as adults. We laugh, we are amused, we are happy, sure… but brimming with joy? Hardly ever. I most often feel it when I look at the girls, when they have a delighted grin on their face, or they emit one of those crazy, cackling laughs that indicate that they are thrilled to the bone with something. It might be a tickle or a kiss on the cheek, or the dog sniffing their face, or the cat playing with a piece of string on the floor. Something simple, but whatever it is, it causes the joy within to bubble over, and I feel lucky that I get to witness it and share it.
The girls and I have all had a touch of the “sickies.” Summer colds for Mommy and Payton, a little virus for Haley. But I think (I hope) we’re all on the mend now.
We went to the
Some other tidbits…
The other day Payton said she wanted to tell me a secret, so she came over, put her mouth to my ear, and went “Pss pss pss psst.”
I told her I said I had a secret to tell her too. So I put my mouth to her ear and whispered “I love you.”
Payton laughed and said “Oh, Mommy! That’s not a secret! I KNOW that you love me!”
Awwww…
Haley’s newest word is “meow”. So when she sees a kitty she says “Kit-tee! Mao. Mao. Mao. Mao.”
Payton just got a new batch of hand-me-downs from her cousin. She said, “Mommy, Phoebe sure ungrows a lot of clothes!”
We had these pictures of the girls taken at the beginning of July. They had new dresses from Mimi, so it seemed like an auspicious time to do it! It was quite the ordeal… we were “walk-ins” at Sears Portrait Studio, and they couldn’t fit us in right away. By the time we started taking pictures, it was getting a little too close to Haley’s nap time and she was a basket case. We ended up leaving and coming back later that night when Haley was happier.
P: Mom, who made the world?
Me: That’s a good question. I don’t really know who made the world.
P: Just like I don’t know who made that sidewalk right there.
Me: Well, that’s true. Although, that sidewalk was made by a person, we just don’t know who. The world is pretty big – it probably wasn’t made by one person.
P: Maybe the World Guys made the world.
Me: The World Guys? Hmmm. That may be.
P: Yes, and maybe they’re over there in that car. Actually, they’re in two cars. Because it takes a lot of World Guys to make the world.
Paytonisms that I miss already:
Macaroni and cheese: Mac and aroni cheese
Hippopotamus: Hippomopotamus
The other day, we went to the park and they were setting up for a festival. Later, Payton told Mimi that we were going to a “vegetable.”
Payton was playing with a sticker book. She told me “I’m putting this beaver over by the river. That way he can beav.” Makes sense, right?
