Heat Trumps Chicken

Today marks the second anniversary of this blog, and over the last couple of days I was thinking about doing a kind of dewy-eyed post about how great it has been having this forum at my disposal and how important it is to take the time to really breathe in and celebrate all those little moments with your kids, because they grow and change so fast.

But we're shelving those plans, at least temporarily. The most notable thing happening in our house over the last 24 hours or so has been the onset of what can only be considered early heat in our little Olive. Early "estrus," for all those cat purists out there.

I guess the girls started noticing some differences in our kitten's behavior during the day on Thursday. By the time I got home from work and we moved through the typical bath/teeth-brushing/book-reading/fighting over degrees of "tired" routine, Olive was rolling around on the floor and making a wide-ranging array of sounds that would seem unnatural emanating from any living being not named Aretha Franklin.

We got Madison and Ava to bed and then went immediately to consult that omnipotent force technology has made available to people in distress everywhere - Google! After just a few moments spent throwing around search terms like cats... heat... symptoms... how soon... our situation was relatively clear. At four months and one week of age, our little Olive was gettin' jiggy with it. She was relatively calm watching TV with Gwen and I over the course of the night, even made it through the jarring and increasingly inscrutable distress of "Lost" without incident. Then Ava crawled into bed with us about 3 a.m. and threw off the group's equilibrium.

I tried to make a go of the middle for about an hour, then wound up taking refuge in Ava's room. She stayed with Gwen, and Olive wandered about, clearly having issues and perfectly happy to let us know about her situation through the darkness, mainly from the landing area at the top of the stairs, within convenient vocal range of all of us. Madison, who has had a terrible time with seasonal allergies this week, was zonked out on Children's Claritin and did not emerge from her comparatively tranquil slumber.

By yesterday morning, we were more convinced of our diagnosis than ever, as the odd sounds and movements continued. The girls kept asking what was going on, wanting to know what was wrong with our newest family member - a question that made Madison's "what's chicken made of?" query, which helped launch this little writing project, seem like, well, child's play.

We said Olive obviously wasn't feeling well, and that Gwen was going to take her to the vet to see what was wrong. At one point, during the morning ritual of warm milk and Noggin, Madison looked down from her chair and saw her cat laying with face and front half pressed against the floor, hindquarters raised.

"OK, that's a strange position," she said.

I agreed and tried to change the subject, but Maddie stuck with it. "It looks like she's wanting something," she continued, before observing that Olive had been unusually affectionate over the last day or so. We had several decades of life experience and an Internet search engine at our disposal but, as is typically the case, our 7-year-old quickly made up the ground.

We got the girls off to school and Gwen took Olive to the vet, who confirmed our untrained suspicions and offered to schedule a spaying for Monday. Gwen responded with some version of "um, that's just not going to work for us" - I don't ask for specific details anymore - and magically a slot for later that morning opened up.

She picked up our woozy little post-op patient about 3 p.m., and in response to the girls' questions delivered the basic messaging we'd discussed over the course of the day. Olive was trying to tell us that she was ready for a special shot that dogs and cats get at this age, to help keep them healthy, and it's such an important shot that they actually have to do a little cut to make sure it gets to the right place. We opted not to raise the specter of fertility and offspring at this moment, as part of this conversation. The approach seems to be working, and the questions have ceased as our pet, after a few uncharacteristic hisses while coming down off the anaesthesia, quietly recovers.

"I feel so bad for Olive," an emotional Madison said when everyone was back at home. "I would have my stomach opened if the doctor said it was between me and her."


[The patient, post-op, as bundled up by Ava]

Last night I brought home pizza and salads - an emerging Friday tradition - and we watched High School Musical to cap a fairly rough and hectic week. Gwen took our "baby" Ava to her kindergarten pre-screening on Tuesday, then cried off and on for two days. Our adorable and still tiny kitten rounded things out with her own coming-of-age issues, sort of a non-human but similarly unsettling variation on the theme. There's no escaping it, our girls are getting older.

And this blog is two. And although I sometimes wonder why I continue to post, what it means and who it's for, I have to admit... I'm still glad it's here.