Do not throw the cat!!!

I need help people!

My dear, darling son Eli who professes to love our kitty keeps hurting him instead.

As I was getting Adah cleaned up in the bathroom last night, (don't ask) I spied Eli holding smudge in the air one handed & throwing him like he was competing for the shot put medal or something.

This kid holds my cat sweetly (at times) and tells me how cute smudge is & what a good kitty he is & "oh I love our smudgie" & then pulls a stunt like this.

We are forever at all the kids to not harass the cat - they dearly love to scoop him up from a nap saying 'he wants me to hold him mommy" while smudge meows pitifully, plainly asking me to rescue him from being mauled. They want him to play when he's napping & snuggle when he's on the prowl, yada yada yada.

But Eli takes the cake. I've seen him hold smudge hanging in the air from his front legs, drop him hard on the floor, push him forcefully off the couch & now this.

I did not react well last night. I threw the washcloth onto the counter & blasted into the living room at him, yelling at the top of my lungs "what the HELL are you doing to my cat?" Then I grabbed him by the arm, yanked him over to my recliner & smacked that lil booty (in anger) several times. I know it didn't hurt that much, he's used to getting a spoon but I know I scared the dickens out of him & I know I was not spanking him in the right frame of mind.

Then I sent him to his room while I finished getting the others ready for bed. I made him stay in his room while I read a story to Sam & Adah - he cried at that - but I called him in for prayer time.

I talked to him at length afterwards, I apologised for flying off the handle & tried to get him to understand what he did. I asked him if some huge guy threw him like that how would he feel. Eli said he would be sad, scared & cry & that would be a very bad guy & he would go to jail. I asked him if he felt sad about what he did to smudge & he said "no mom, I feel good."

Wha???

I know he's little & he doesn't get it but he just can't do this to an animal! He's stomped on our dog's feet & tail before, just cos he wanted to. I'm at my wits end & don't know what to do.

Got any ideas?

Adah on wildlife, bike savings & my kitty blogs in his sleep.

I had a funny conversation with Adah this morning while we were lounging around in bed.

"Dragonfly is going to come in & get us. They fly, they’re birds."
"But they don’t have feathers, only birds have feathers."
"Yes they do!"
"No, birds have feathers but not dragonflies. God made them with wings but no feathers."
"Well, we will have to take the feathers from the birds & give them to the dragonflies."

Isn't she sweet? Poor naked birdies!

~~~

It’s a great start to your day when you have to wring out a load of laundry by hand to put into the dryer. Our WM has been on the fritz for awhile & it’s starting to drive me nuts. Sometimes the spin cycle does not work all the way. I open the thing & the clothes are just sitting in the bottom, not all stuck to the walls like they normally are. It’s especially great when there are towels in the load, most especially, bath towels. Then it takes 2 cycles in the dryer to get them dry. Fun!

~~~

I got to thinking about the bike today. (BTW, my pal over at Organized Doodles asked a few particulars about this gem. It's a Suzuki SV1000 2003, 996cc's, top speed of 177) Seems like every time Chris gets home I ask him how his ride was & he says "my butt hurts."

I so want to smack him for that, he's the one who wanted the dang thing in the first place! I go through moments when I'm ok with it but most of the time I resent the dagnabbed thing.

So I thought I'd figure out how much we've spent on the thing so far. (Cos' I needed to fuel this fire, right?) These are all approx figures but I think a lot of them are on the low side.

Down 300

Insurance 30

Jacket 100

Helmet 80

Backpack 50

Rear tire 300 (!)

Front tire (2 weeks later) 150

Total 1010

Hmmm, what was it we spent on his gas pre-bike? 800 if I remember correctly, and the above list does not count gas for the bike so far. I didn't feel like looking all that up so I left it off the list. Yes most of these expenses are a one time deal. (I don't know how long tires last on this baby but I hope it's a looong time!) And we must remember that he will only be able to ride until mid to late October here. I'm NOT letting him ride once the frosts hit. So all winter we will be paying insurance & payments (about 190 total) for something sitting in the garage. Kind of like we're doing for his car right now.

So as of now we are over 200 in the hole for this thing plus gas.

Ha-rumph!

~~~

My sweet lil smudgie was watching me blog & fell asleep - I keep the laptop propped up. In my head it won't get quite as hot that way :)

Isn't he cute? He's grown a lot since we got him, it will be fun to see how much he weighs at his next vet visit.

Then Sam came over asking if he was awake & 'had' to pet him. Woke him up just enough to switch positions.

And he ended up like this.

All in all, not a bad blogging companion. He sure doesn't interrupt like the kids do!!

~~~

Have a wonderful weekend y'all!

If I were Catholic I'd say like 900 hail Mary's.

Bless me bloggers for I have sinned. It's been one entire week since my last blog entry.
Yes I totally know that's lame, lame, LAME!
Forgive me?

K. This week it was determined by the hubby's boss that they will start work an hour earlier to 'beat the heat.' Let us remember this particular job is 2 hours away from home & hubby already gets up at 3:30 to make it there on time. Getting up at 2:30 is not going to work for him so now I'm back to where I began, a pseudo-single mom with a weekender hubby. I'm headed for a white shirt with some reeeeeealy long sleeves if this goes on very long...last time this happened I was very close to a nervous breakdown. NOT a good thing y'all.
Hubby says the job will be over soon so I'm praying the next job is a scosh closer to home. Care to join me? Please??

On a lighter note...

We have a new family member & not of the mechanical variety this time (phew!)
He is the cutest thing ever & I'm completely in love with this lil bit o fluff-n-bones.

I present to you smudge,


















the cutest puddy-tat on 4 paws in my extremely humble (a'hem) opinion.

The only problem is that smudge is driving this guy


















and these guys


















crazy with the desire to chase, control & squish play hold & cuddle 24/7. Smudge has other ideas...he'd rather explore & attack innocent pieces of paper & clothing he finds on his (very few) unmolested jaunts around the house. The result of this is that I'm hearing an unprecedented amount of whining/crying from them and honestly, I can't decide who is worse, the kids or the dog!
So the excuse for my bloggy deficiencies is that my household companions have required more policing of late & thus, more time. Well, that and my addiction to watching season 9 of Big Brother online. But I only allow myself to watch 10 2 episodes a day. Yeah.