comedy of cats and dogs

I have a couple of new post ideas circulating, but haven't got time to write them this morning!  So here's an "oldie but goodie", originally published on my now-defunct Kwilting with Katie blog midwinter last year.  Enjoy!

It's been a wild weekend.... Just to set the stage leading up to Sunday night, our eighth-grader brought home her health class assignment, an electronic baby, on Friday. Friday night, the electronic baby was up every hour and a half. I was up every hour and a half with *my* baby who was panicking, afraid she was going to fail health class. Saturday morning, Addie, a very cute but exciteable dog that we are pet-sitting arrived. The afternoon was spent bowling with the acolytes then attempting to watch a concert that our oldest daughter was in. The electronic baby had other ideas.... Sunday, we rushed off late to church. Have I mentioned the electronic baby schedule? After church, Claire (the 8th-grader) had a friend over. Add one *more* electronic baby. Shannon (our youngest) lost a loose tooth Sunday afternoon; always a traumatic ordeal for her as she cries because the tooth is dangling by a thread but she doesn't want anyones fingers in her mouth. Our dog-on-loan spent the afternoon Sunday wedging herself between my knees and barking at every noise. Unless there was a glimpse of a cat. Then there would be a romping chase complete with barking, hissing, and spitting.

Sunday night arrives. The cats take shelter in the girls bedrooms far under the beds. The friend and extra baby go home. Claire's baby goes into a quiet schedule for a while. Addie and our dog sack out watching football with Don. And ice starts falling from the sky. Ahhhh! The perfect excuse to curl up with the girls and watch a movie we've been trying to find time to see.

All goes deceptively well until the girls go upstairs for bed. "Mom! One of the cats peed on my bed!" Right through two quilts. So... eleven-o-clock finds quilts churning in the washer and Don and I taking turns babysitting two cats and a dog in the bathroom enforcing a "get-used-to-each-other" approach. On one of my trips out of the bathroom, I discover that the tooth is *not* under the pillow. I also realize that with about a week's worth of work to go on the book proposal and a cat ignoring litterbox ettiquette, I need to remove all the quilts for the book from the house. When the enforced "time-in" for the animals ends, a big, hairy tooth fairy with a five-o-clock-shadow and a flashlight heads into the 10-year-old's room to look for a tooth while I start skating repeatedly across the driveway carrying armloads of quilts.

Just another quiet night at the Brown house....