A Visit From The Stork

The family reunion was this weekend, and it actually went very well. No major issues and everyone put on a happy face and avoided ripping heads off.

So on Friday I was packing my things to get ready for the weekend. We were scheduled to leave my house when Hillary got here from work (a 2 hour drive for her) and then be on our way, taking separate cars because there wasn't enough room in one car for everything. I get a phone call from Hillary half-way through the day saying that one of the feral cats at school (Hillary works at our college now) had kittens and the maintenance staff was giving them away. So I called my mother to see if we could bring one home, if and only if she could look after the kitten until January and we would bring the kitten to the apartment with us when I got back from London. The madre agreed, so Hillary went and got a kitten.

Possibly the worst mistake of our lives, though also the cutest investment ever. This was the tiniest kitten I had ever held. She is a calico, who loves to run around like a banshee and things fingers and toes are the coolest chew toys ever. We took her to the vet on Monday and they determined that she was between 6-8 weeks old, so the bottle we had been feeding her every 2-4 hours since Friday evening was unnecessary (she seemed to really enjoy the bottle though).

We didn't get very much sleep at all the first few nights with her in her pink rubbermade bin complete with blanket and catnip mouse. She wanted to be fed, then she wanted to play, then she wanted to go to the bathroom and then she wanted to sleep, but she wanted to sleep on our chests. So we took her to the vet and they determined her age and told us what we should be feeding her, so we started her on a wet food/formula combo in a bowl and she took to it pretty much right away. I put her in a litterbox that same day and she did her business in the litterbox immediately, she's so damn smart.

Little did we know that when the vets gave her the de-wormer (fearing that, since her mom was a feral cat, she would have worms and fleas and earmites) she would have explosive diarreah for two days straight. She actually didn't have worms, she was just bloated with a big baby belly, and she didn't have fleas or ear mites either. She got a clean bill of health and she is a perfectly healthy and happy little kitten.

At this point, she is eating dry food and loving it, drinking water by itself (finally!) and going in the litterbox to do her business instead of all over the cat carrier where she sleeps. Right now she is attacking my laptop. It'll be sad to leave her in September, just like it will be sad to leave my cat and my dog and my rabbits. Hopefully she will quickly be able to defend herself against my five cats, the dog loves cats and will probably just lick her and annoy the hell out of her.

In January, she can move into the apartment with Hillary and I and we can be a happy little family. The kitten, whose name is Julie Andrews (as my six year old niece exclaimed when I explained who Julie Andrews is: "Fraulein Maria!") will be spayed probably sometime in midwinter, she'll be an indoor cat and she'll never be declawed as long as I have a say in the matter because small animals need a way to defend themselves. Hopefully she'll be a good pest-hunter in the new apartment.

I (Don't) Wanna Be Sedated

So I went to the oral surgeon yesterday and we discussed my options:

Option 1: No surgery, but I have to have a full head X-ray every 2 years to make sure that nothing is infected and the tooth on the bottom left isn't hitting a major nerve.

Option 2: Have surgery, take a xanex prior to surgery (to "put me in a good place" as the Dr. put it), no food or non-clear liquids past midnight the night before, have nitrus oxide and novacane during surgery and intense pain killers after.

Option 3: Have surgery, have an IV, nitrus oxide and novacane.

Option 4: Have surgery, go to hospital and go completely under, monitored by an anesthesiologist.

I want option one, but after discussing it with mum and the oral surgeon we decided upon option 2. I told her I'm a psychology major and I am morally opposed to drugs like xanex (if I weren't I would be pre-med right now going into psychiatry) and she said she'd be more than willing to do the surgery with just novacane, but my mother seemed to think that was insane (and I'm inclined to think it is too) so we're getting the insurance quote with all of the bells and whistles.

My surgery date is December 22 at 9 am, two days after my return from London, two days before Christmas, and a week and two days before I move into the new apartment with Hillary. Hopefully I'll be able to con some of my friends in to helping us move into the new place because I have a feeling that, although I am going to put on a brave (albeit swollen) face, I am going to be borderline useless in moving heavy furniture or doing much besides complaining. Good times will surely be had by all this coming Christmas and New Years.


This is me holding my new baby niece for the first time *heart swells with joy.* I like to call it "Safe in Auntie Rachel's Pasty White Arms in the Dead of Summer," it has a real ring to it.


This is Hill holding the new baby for the first time :) loveee the gay shirt Hill. Should get a onesie for the new kid "I <3 my two Aunties" next time we're in P-Town.

And to give any of you who don't reside in New England (more specifically Connecticut and Massachusetts because I'm relatively unfamiliar with the weather patterns in the other N.E. states) an indication of what we've been dealing with lately in terms of weather, this is what mother nature was giving us while it was raining, right after it had stopped torentially downpouring, right after it had been a foggy evening, right after it had been a beautiful sunny skied afternoon right after it had been a misty overcast morning:


Let's hope for warmth and sun so Auntie Rachel can go swimming and start working on that farmer's tan. That sunset is very deceptive, though. Almost makes you want to like the place :P

Baby Numero Tres

I know I haven't posted in a little bit, but...

I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNTIE AGAIN SUPER IMMENENTLY!!

I am sooooo so so excited. I freakin love kids and I freakin love my niece and nephew so baby number three will most definitely have a very special place in my heart.

This might rearrange some of my plans for the weekend:

Going to the Utica Zoo on Friday, going hiking at Gillette Castle (Connecticut people will know) on Saturday or Sunday, bumming around whichever day we're not hiking, and sleeping in on Monday.

But Hillary loves my niece and nephew and she's pretty excited about being an auntie vicariously through me and potentially rearranging our weekend so we can maximize our time with the baby.

So excited. I'll post pictures of my beautiful niece (who will no doubt be beautiful because she is sprung from some pretty good looking genes if I don't say so myself) at some point in the near future.