I am a horrible mother

I am back in Midland, returning the dadmobile and getting some more things, most importantly, the cats, Loki and Lola.

At present I am in the basement on a supremely uncomfortable loveseat supervising the kittens play with one of Larry's discarded mousies that Loki fetched from under the lazyboy. Larry is also down here, hissing and growling at any kitten who gets too close.

I just cleaned out their litter box. Since they've been snatching mouthfuls of Larry's wet food and his adult dry food, their poop has been less than solid. Nasty nasty. And there are poopy pawprints on the sheet I put on the bed to protect it.

I feel like such a failure.

Maybe some more backstory?

Cats make me happy. My favorite creature in perhaps the entire world is my cat Larry, who we adopted when I was 12 and he was 1.  To say that he literally saved my life would not be an exaggeration. He is a mouthy, extremely affectionate cat whom I (and lots of other people) love deeply.

However, Larry (being almost 14) can not exactly give up three floors of rich carpeting and expensive food and many sunbeams to go live in my small graduate school apartment. And frankly the thought of him getting lost is enough to trigger an anxiety attack, even as I write this.

But cats make me happy, and since I am heading off to the stressful world of grad school I decided I want to take a cat with me. The first question I asked my potential roommate was "do you like cats?"

I fell in love with Loki via his picture on petfinder.com, but when I went to meet him I was not only presented with him  but also three other cats. He was the lovable cat I thought him to be, but he basically ignored me after the first introduction in favor of playing with his sister. This other cat, a tortie, came up and let me love her and was super affectionate. When it came time to choose, I had bonded better with her, but what about the Loki I fell in love with?

So I asked my roommate and signed the papers for two. That tortie was Lola

A day or so later I asked my dad if he thought I had made a good decision. He said they were very nice cats and that I had picked well but why on earth did I get two? Considering that he had been with me when I picked them out and I had asked his opinion then I found it strange that he hadn't said anything before. His response? He will support me in anything I do, even if he thinks it's stupid. Maybe he sowed seeds of doubt? I don't know.

Then Loki and Lola came home and I set up a super sweet kitty suite in my parent's bathroom/bedroom (hey they were on vacation) and they were adorable and kittenish and then I noticed that after fie or so minutes of heavy play Lola would pant. Now as a rule cats don't pant unless of situations of emergency so I contacted the person (a vet tech) that I adopted her from and told her and the response was "well she's never done that for me and the vet I worked for checked her out several times and found nothing so it's probably nothing."

I took her to my vet anyway, and the diagnosis-ish I got was that Lola most likely has a heart problem (not a murmur) and she will be fine until, of course, she's not.

My dad suggested that I call the adoption place and maybe take her back. But cats are kind of like children, in that you don't adopt a child and take it back because it seems to have a health problem. It's a commitment.

Since coming back from vacation and meeting the kittens, my mum has declared Loki to be a pretty good cat and has mentioned several times that Lola is a bad cat who gets into mischief. Which she does. I'm told that torties as a color type tend to be extremely sassy. She's also asked me several times "why did you get two?". Today Lola scratched her when my mum tried to pick her up (most likely she scooped around the waist, which Lola dislikes). So Lola is on her shit list and the kittens were banished to their basement room for most of the evening.

So here I am, full of doubts. Why did I get two cats? Larry hates them both, and I'm afraid this is causing him undue stress. One kitten is sassy and not completely healthy. Both are a bit stressed after spending so long cooped up away from humans. I'm hoping things improve once they have run of an apartment and are away from Larry and with people more often. But what if they don't?

I don't know. Maybe I'm making too much out of this because I'm stressed and a bit depressed from the move/grad school. Time will tell.

 

In other news, my job is mind numbingly boring, I assembled a dresser today, and I am allergic to Ann Arbor.