Rough

That's what this past week has been.

We had a wonderful time in Aspen for Rob and Anne's wedding, but ever since returning late Sunday night, it has been a rough few days.

The worst of it is that we will be giving Kitters up to the shelter tonight and I am beside myself with guilt, sadness and a sense of loss / failure.

To preface, Kitters has been quite aggressive for the past 6 months or so since a) starting to go outside and b) me being pregnant and slowly adding things to our house (meaning, the nursery). He has not been the same sweet buddy that we were used to for several years and it has been wearing on us. His constant need for attention, meowing, scratching on furniture, laying on any baby item he can find, nipping when I try to pet him and not wanting to be touched in general has been problematic. Although all of it is annoying, we never thought that we would give him away. I really had high hopes that once the baby actually got here, he would calm down. Until Sunday night.

We arrived home from our 3-day weekend at about 10:30pm only to find a pungent smell in our basement. Kitters had sprayed (aka peed) in each corner of the basement including the stairs and some of my clothes. It's probably one of the most awful smells imaginable. Mix that with an 80 degree house with no air conditioning, you may as well find yourself in a type of hell. Oh, and he vomited.

While disgusting, I couldn't help but think, "Poor guy". He really is THAT mad at us. He has never acted in such a way before, but I suppose with his recent behavior, I could see this coming. Spraying is a tall tale sign of feeling stressed, threatened and needing attention. Anyways, we are going on vacation tomorrow and had to make some quick (although, I hope not rash) decisions, as our previous plan of leaving him alone for 7 days with someone checking in on him simply would not work.

After calling the vet and a cat behaviorist to discuss, it sounds like these problems just take time and patience to correct and even at that, there are no guarantees - especially when the baby arrives. I know in the long run it will be the right decision, but right now, it's just plain hard. The thing I hate the most is how much I feel like he hates me. Honestly, we used to be best buddies and Chris joked at how he was the odd man out in the house. I know he knows that something is coming that will take priority.

To make matters worse, we found traces of mice in our basement the same night. We have since been sleeping upstairs and have set traps. We have caught one and are just hoping that it's the last. Between the Kitters mess and the mice, I feel like we are living in a trailer park (and not a nice one at that). At 8+ months pregnant.

Tuesday we found out that we have had credit card fraud occurring and I also have an onset of very painful carpel tunnel syndrome that makes it impossible to sleep. Think extreme numbness mixed with sharp shooting pains down your whole arm into your fingers....that will not go away no matter what you do. It's awful. And the cure? Delivery. ha.

So, there you have it. While things can always be worse, in my world, it's been rough couple of days.

Wish Chris luck when he drops Kitters off this evening - I know it will be hard on him too. Here is how I'd like to remember our buddy: