Rough Weekend...

Really, I guess it wasn't the whole weekend, maybe just Sunday. In fact, the first part of the weekend was pretty good. My son lost his second top front tooth on Friday (had lost the first one last Friday). He looks pretty cute with that great big gap in the front of his smile. He had his first baseball game of the season and did really well. We watched Yogi Bear on Saturday evening as a family, complete with popcorn and soda (a real treat for the kids).

Sunday started out as any other Sunday would. The kids got up way before they should have, just like normal. They tried to play nicely, but for as slow as I feel when I first wake up, they are full of energy. They were of course running around in the bedroom and my son fell (or wash pushed?) into the wall (thankfully just the wall, considering all of the sharp corners in a bedroom - the dresser, the bed, the bookshelf, the toy shelf). So, I got up to see what was going on and thus started my day.

We all had breakfast together. We headed to church. The kids wanted to get donuts, but I asked if we could stop at home to get everything I needed for the grocery store so that we could take care of it all while we were out.

Then, we decided to eat lunch before going, so we were all busy doing our thing until lunch time. My husband was doing his annual spring clean of the garage. Sweeping away the leaves and the salt and such from the garage. The kids had been out back swinging and came in for a snack of celery and carrots (their request, not my suggestion).

While we were hanging out in the kitchen snacking, we heard the cat get sick. Not anything unusual, as he always seemed to have a hairball. I went to see about cleaning up the mess and I knew something was wrong - it was green. His food's not that color, his fur is not that color. We decided that with the other changes we had been seeing lately, not eating much (even his "yummy" food), not being as playful as he normally is, and such, that we really needed to take him to the vet.

I think we knew what the outcome would be even before we left. Before going, we spent some time (in the garage of all places) holding him, petting him and we even took pictures with him. We told the kids that he was sick and we weren't sure if the doctors would have a medicine that would make him better. They were sad and said good-bye to the cat and then we went to the vet.

He weighed just over 10# when we checked in. This, my same cat who two years ago weighed in at 22#. We knew he had lost weight, but at first it was gradual. At a check up this time last year, he was 16#. The doctor also said that he was very dehydrated. They did the physical exam and the bloodwork. Based on the results, we had to make the very difficult decision to allow him to not suffer any longer.

It was very hard. Telling the kids that the cat wasn't coming home, that was even harder. They were sad. They cried. From their perspective, we had always had a cat. From our perspective, our cat was our first joint venture. We adopted him 13 years ago (last Wednesday was that anniversary to be exact) as a kitten.

It's amazing how a part of your routine a pet can be. This morning, when my alarm went off, there was no cat to sit next to my bed and cry to remind me to get up and feed him. When he was younger, I almost didn't even need an alarm clock - he would come in and wake me up. Walk on my face if he had to, to remind me to feed him. I still listen for the sound of him "hopping" down the stairs. I see empty spots where I used to find him, like next to the dining room window, where he had the best view on the outside world.

If that wasn't enough stress for one day, my husband headed upstairs to change for a meeting that he was planning to attend and heard a drip in our bathroom. After checking all the faucets, and even the float in the tank, he realized it was the tank that was leaking. And, really, not just leaking - cracked. Yes, another toilet tank in our house has cracked from top to bottom. In all my life, I never remember having a toilet tank crack and yet, I have had two occurrences in this one house (thinking it was a bad lot of pottery used for those tanks?). We headed out to Lowes at 7 pm last night, in hopes of replacing it - no luck. Called Home Depot. Checked Walmart. Turns out that no one stocks tanks for the brand that we have. So, needless to say, I will be calling the manufacturer, like I did four years ago when this happened to our other tank and hope that I can get one at a Plumber's Supply like I did then. (think I should be worried about the third one?) So, right now, we are without a toilet in our master bath. We have a wet spot on the ceiling in our kitchen. It appears to be drying. I find myself thankful that it wasn't any worse, that we caught it when we did. If my husband, hadn't have gone up to change, when would we have found it? My guess is either we would have noticed the wet spot in the evening or I would have found it when I went up to bed.

The bad part about the toilet tank cracking and the leak showing through on the wet ceiling is that my son is very concerned about this. He was very stressed last night, between the cat and the leak. I'm not sure what it is, but he was also very stressed when our basement flooded a few months ago. He fell asleep in bed, but when he woke up, he came downstairs to hang out with me and sleep on the couch. Hopefully, seeing that the ceiling is drying today will help him feel better about that. Then, he will only have the loss of the cat to manage through.

I sure hope that you all had a much better weekend.