With Heavy Heart

The holidays are a wonderful time of year. And this year more so because of the little goober being around. Yes, he’s a complete goober just like his daddy. He makes us laugh and smile everyday. Whether it’s by doing his version of “singing” or simply grabbing onto my finger while he falls asleep.

This year there’s been something that weighs heavily on my heart. A decision/action that I need to take that is ripping me up inside.

One of our cats has anxiety issues. We’ve known about it but were hoping it was just a one time thing and made constant excuses for how it wouldn’t really come back. After having baby Z, we realized we can no longer deny her problem. Her problem has to do with peeing outside the litter box when she’s stressed out. We basically had to redo the whole house in hardwood floor because of how badly she ruined our living/dining room/stair case carpet. I won’t even talk about how much that cost us. It seemed though, that she stopped after that.

Then the baby was born. We also had my parents stay with us for a month. Then we had constant visitors that wanted to come see the baby. The downstairs den smells so bad it’s unhygienic to just be in that room at this point.

We sat and talked about our plans in life. How the baby would soon be crawling and then walking. How it’s never going to really be “quiet” in our home ever again. Then there’s the fact that we might be moving soon. Not just to a new home but potentially a different city (more on this life altering event later) and may need to be in temporary housing for a while. Frankly, we can’t afford to pay for the thousands of dollars to replace carpet much less want to live in an unhygienic environment (or have our baby walk and crawl in one).

So we decided to give Mia, our kitty cat, up. I tried to find a good home for her but no one was biting. Then I called a whole bunch of no kill shelters and they’re all full. Yesterday, I felt like my heart was going to break. Then J did something wonderful. He found the contract when we first adopted them and pointed out that one of the terms was that we HAD to return cats to the same organization from which we adopted them if we can no longer talk care of them. I looked them up and the facility is a very nice one with a beautiful screened in porch for the kitty cats to play in.

Don’t get me wrong, this whole thing is still breaking my heart. I’ve had her for 5 years and this decision is one that will haunt me for a while. But at the same time, I think it’s best for everyone involved that this decision be made.

Anyway, if you’re ever interested in making a contribution to a volunteer cat adoption organization, please consider Advocats. I know they’ll be on my yearly donation list from now on.