Well it is the day after Thanksgiving and I am full from leftovers, I LOVE Thanksgiving leftovers. I need to brag for a second here, I may have set a personal record - 8 hours without leaving the kitchen. Even though I made the stuffing and got the turkey in the oven the night before it was a marathon on Turkey Day. I single handedly cooked the entire meal and cleaned up. That is quite a feat - of course I am not the first to do it, but I won't let that take away my feeling of accomplishment. What made it especially time consuming was the fact that Noah cannot eat wheat, garlic, or cranberries. This meant in order to make things I had to start from scratch, using wheat free flower. For the string bean dish I had to fry my own french crispy onions and make the cream of mushroom soup from scratch. For the apple pie I had to make a wheat free crust. I made a berry sauce without cranberries. The dinner turned out great, the Turkey was a bit dry but it is actually my least favorite part of the meal anyway. The stuffing was the only thing I did not try to make for Noah.
The reward for all the hard work was the appreciation Noah showed. He could have easily said he did not like it and complain about the meal I just worked so hard on - after all he would have liked a burrito more. But he was super sweet. He really got the whole Thanksgiving spirit, he said "I Love Thanksgiving" and told me how delicious the food was and even asked for seconds. He would have eaten the entire apple pie if I had let him. Hendrik did not eat a bite but both boys were very good all afternoon. While I cooked, Anke researched surf destinations in Spain for next summer and both boys spent most of the afternoon sitting at the table drawing. I was thankful to have such a smooth day with the boys. Today things are back to normal - much more stressful but at least they held it together yesterday.
I never followed up on my pet blog from months ago. It was by far the blog that I got the most responses to ever. It was super fun hearing from everyone their stories and suggestions. People suggested fish, hamsters, guinea pigs, reptiles, dogs, cats, and many had great stories to tell about their choice of a family pet.
We ended up getting fish, and most of them died pretty quickly but we have two that have now survived a long time. Noah likes the fish, as does Hendrik, but they are pretty boring. (When the fish died we started a little cemetery in the back yard for them. Noah wanted to turn it into a business and advertise that people without yards could bury their fish in our back yard - a dollar a fish.)
Anke has always wanted a cat and a couple months ago we decided that maybe we should just get one. We checked out books from the library and eventually went to the pound to see what options there are for adopting a cat. They had hundreds of cats that need adoption, kinda sad, but there was also a line of people adopting.
We mentioned our trip to the pound to friends who live two blocks away and they said they have a stray cat that is at their door crying all the time. They wanted to find it a home and suggested we adopt it. We discussed this possibility. There were a couple issues. One was that our friends' neighbors wanted the cat and was feeding it I guess, but not taking good care of it. They were not allowed to have cats in their apartment and they would leave town and think a hummingbird was going to take care of it (I guess their sister can talk to animals - we have some weirdos in California, yes) The cat was super skinny and unhealthy. Also there was apparently other owners of the cat, who also were clearly not taking care of it.
We talked about getting the cat and bringing it home over Thanksgiving weekend to test out having a cat. We could see how Hendrik was, see if we liked this grey 'stray' cat. Problems of course were the other people who claimed the cat but were not taking good care of it, we did not want to 'catnap' a cat belonging to someone else, what if we did not want the cat afterwards, would he leave?
Anke went to the house that supposedly owned the cat, they said it was not theirs. We were still debating if we should talk to the other adopters. Our friends thought we should take it, that their neighbors were not taking care of the cat. If we did not take it, they were considering finding another family or taking it to the SPCA.
The week before Thanksgiving we began looking for the cat at our friends' house, We checked a few times a day but never saw it. On Friday Anke bought cat stuff - food, a litter box, toys. When I saw all the stuff I made a comment "you sure bought a lot of stuff considering we don't even have a cat."
On Saturday it was pouring rain and for our morning adventure we geared up and walked in the rain to the house but there was no cat. We came home and I stayed outside to do some chores. While I was outside, Noah and Hendrik had cats on their mind. Noah wanted to pretend we had a cat so he took a basket and made a cat bed into which he put a stuffed cat. Hendrik copied his big brother and did the same with a smaller basket. While outside I heard a meow. I meowed back and I saw a grey cat across the street. One more meow and he ran right over and onto our front door steps. I opened the door and Noah and Hendrik appeared at the top of the stairs, each holding their basket with pretend cat. The grey cat ended up coming right into the house, he drank and ate like he had done neither in ages, and he has not left us since.
We could not have asked for a better cat. He (or she), I haven't checked yet, is super good with Hendrik and Noah, even lets them pick her up. She used the litter box no problem, and we let her outside but she comes right back. She even let me stick a de-worming pill down her throat, something the guy at the pet store said could be a challenge. And she timed her move perfectly - not only were we ready for her but the weather went from heat spell to our coldest weather of the year (this morning we had frost, which is rare here by the beach).
Noah named the cat cookie, Anke wanted the name Karma. I suggested Karma Cookie. Of course not to be outdone, Noah said OK, "Cookie Karma".
So Cookie seemed to know we were ready for her to move in. The way it went down I do not feel bad at all, the cat just moved in, she chose us, and she is free to leave anytime she wants. By the looks of it she is not going anywhere, in fact, she acts as if she has lived here all her life.
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