Grooming the Cat

I love a morning that I can sleep a little later and not have to wake up to an alarm. Now that the boys are older and a bit more autonomous, they can take care of themselves and help the girls with their breakfast, which allows me a little extra sleep. Usually, I become quasi-conscious after #2 wakes up. He has full conversations with the wall and walks like an angry giant. All of the boys don't have the ability to self regulate their volume yet. We are constantly asking them to speak less loud.  I heard them talking and I turned over and tried to sleep just a little more. I was enjoying my moment.

That is, until I woke up to a twin standing over me, covered in something, yet to be determined, pointing erratically toward the hall and with that, the screaming registered in my foggy head, and I realized that some shit went down while I were sleeping. After I rubbed my eyes while singing a verse of Theory of a Dead Man's, "I hate my life" I got up and discovered that someone opened a box of granola inefficiently and the contents and what used to be the box were laying on the floor next to the toddler scissors. There was a trail of milk from the refrigerator to the pile of granola on the floor. At that moment, I wished I had a dog, contemplated the probability of borrowing someones dog, and then looked for the secondary mess. 

When you have more than one child, there is always a secondary mess which is usually more gross, damaging, and infuriating than the first. And then I noticed something else, all the kids had vanished. Where could they have gone? They knew that the second I found the secondary mess, I was going to pop a gasket and that is why they disappeared.  But, no, I wrote in my parental pledge book that I would not lose my temper and yell at the kids. Well, I guess that was an unrealistic expectation. I am yelling at their asses when I find them.  I was on a quest: to find the secondary mess and the five offspring, I fondly call my genetic mutations. Where were they hiding?

And then I felt something rub against my legs, it was our cat, Psycho. She felt different. Her fur felt different against my legs. Weird. And then I looked down. The cat was covered in sticky tape. Upon closer examination, I discovered two things: there was an awful lot of tape and the tape seems to be holding something. I looked around the room and found the evidence: a pair of toddler scissors, an empty box of cookies and a little pile of cat hair. I then looked at Psycho and started to peel the tape off her. They had cut off some of her fur and tried to tape it back on. Oh, I'm loving my life and the person who thought of putting vodka in breakfast drinks. Where were those little vandals?

I found the twins and they told me who the perpetrator was. Gotta love little chatty four years old who are happy to please.  #2 the Aspy, confessed that he had read some article about the importance of pet grooming and decided to give it a try. I then had a talk about not doing things they read or saw on YouTube  without permission. That is, unless it involves cleaning.

All parents know, that when the kids are quiet, trouble is imminent. But sometimes, I am willing to turn a blind eye to probable chaos in exchange for a few more minutes of sleep. After all, it was just a kitty haircut and not surgery. Thanks George Jessel for inventing the Bloody Mary, it is the only way to start the day at Casa de Crazy.