It's A Small, Cute World After All

Proof positive that even other people find Milo ridiculously cute.

Things took a dark turn yesterday when our normally mild-mannered cat got into a fight with something - we think it was another cat, but it could have been a chicken. We were then faced with the dilemma of who to care for: take the cat to the vet or let Milo continue his nap? Or just ignore the cat because we're kind of tired and who wants to go to the vet anyway? In the end we took the cat to the vet and our kind houseguest volunteered to stay with the baby. None of which prevented me from imagining all the assorted horrible things that could happen to Milo while we were en route to the vet. And then I would spend the rest of my life saying, "If only I hadn't taken the cat to the vet ... who cares about the stupid cat."

Of course, Oscar the cat was our pseudo-child before there was Milo. The first time we left him at a kennel I called the kennel every day to check in on him. The first time I took him to the vet I had a thousand questions about whether his ears were supposed to look like that and sometimes he makes this funny noise and how much time per day should I spend playing with him and how much should he be sleeping?

These days it's more like, "We have a cat? Is he here?"

Yesterday I spent time mashing up pills for Oscar and tending to his wounds and even Steven, who has zero patience for the cat these days, was extra nice to him. And then we played with Milo and it felt like I spent most of the day caring for small cute things, worrying about small cute things, telling small cute things to stop picking up pieces of fuzz from the carpet and putting them in their small cute mouths.

Oscar seems better today, and Milo woke up beaming as usual. The heat has broken and the morning was cool and bright and green. I pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and cuddled on a blanket with all my small cute things, which burbled and purred accordingly.