Andy & Jessica

It worked out and Toffee found a new home tonight. The lady is a total cat lover. She has 2 other older cats and 2 kids, ages 5 and 10. I think she’ll give Toffee an even better home than us. She’s even going to have Toffee sleep with her tonight and keep her away from the other cats and kids for a couple days. I will miss watching the boys chase and pet the cats. Asher always looked so proud and happy anytime he patted the cats and got some sort of reaction out of them. In 6 months, the cat dander should be mostly out of our house and Jude will start feeling better.

While we found a new home for Elli the cat on Saturday, we’ve been struggling to find a home for Toffee. I was so desperate yesterday that I called 3 shelters. 2 of the 3 said they weren’t accepting cats. I just left a message with the other one (Humane Society), where ironically we adopted Toffee as a kitten 7 years ago, never expecting we’d think about returning her. But, we’ve had a nice turn of events. Andy had re-posted to Facebook about needing to find a home for the cats and a friend of his on Facebook re-posted on her wall and one of her friends (i.e., a friend of Andy’s high school friend) who lives in the Twin Cities is very interested in Toffee. She lives with her children (including a cancer survivor) and 2 other cats. This lady loves Tortoiseshells and was thrilled to see Toffee’s picture. She’s coming by tonight with a cat carrier. We’ll have to pack up Toffee’s favorite toys, etc. and hope Toffee and this potential new owner hit it off. I hope it works out so that Jude can start feeling better.

Jude:  “Did you know that I’m half pigeon and half human?”

Me:  “No.  Why?”

Jude:  “Because pigeons poop when they are scared and sometimes when I’m scared, I fart.”

Today was a pretty crazy day. This morning I took Elli to meet her new owner with Asher and Levi in tow while Andy took Jude to karate. It was sad to see Elli go since I’ve had her for 14 years. After that, all 5 of us met up for a movie at the theater. We enjoyed the movie Wreck it Ralph. Our hot air balloon ride was cancelled, which was a bummer. But, my mom had already nearly made it to our house for babysitting duty when we got the news, so she stayed for awhile and read books with the boys and helped me fold clothes and sweep the floor. Then tonight we all headed to the Mall of America. We had some free tickets to use at the amusement park. They boys had lots of fun. My goal is to train up 3 little boys who will go on any type of ride with me since Andy won’t (always will be crazy to me that he’ll fly an airplane and not go on a roller coaster). I think it’s looking promising with Jude and it’s too early to tell with Levi and Asher.  But, given that the 2 little ones are generally dare devils, I think they will have inherited my affinity for all amusement park rides.

Tomorrow is the day we have to say good-bye to Elli the cat. It’s going to be hard. I’m sending with her favorite things. Jude wrote Elli the following note:

To: Elli

I know you are sad that you can’t see Toffee and us. You are going to be ok.

Your friend,

Jude

We’ve got a full agenda planned for the weekend, including a hot air balloon ride (and not the kind of ride where the balloon is tethered to the ground). It’s the real thing and it’s going to be awsome. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but really didn’t think I’d ever get the chance. But, Andy bought us this trip on groupon at half price for my birthday. The kids will stay behind with Grandma Forbes. The only one I’d trust on the balloon is Jude anyway since the other kids would insist on being held and then I’d be worried that they would fall overboard.

Jude also has karate and then we all are going to a movie that starts 30 minutes after karate ends and it’s a 30 minute drive away.

At some point during the weekend we are also surrendering our cats due to Jude’s severe allergies. I have a home lined up for Elli (the 14 year old, who was my best friend during college and law school, but who I don’t have time to give any attention to anymore). I am going to handle the transfer of Elli sometime on Saturday. We’re still working on a home for Toffee and if we can’t find one, we’ll have to drop her off at a shelter. Tough.

Little Levi got to go to Sam’s Club with us last night while Jude was at bible memory club. So, Levi got to pick out the cereal. He yelled out, “bug cereal!” I wasn’t sure what he meant until I saw him pointing at the Honey Nut Cheerios with a little bee on the front. So, I bought a jumbo box of Honey Nut Cheerios, only to get home and find we already had a jumbo unopened box of the same bug cereal. Levi has some bug cereal eating to do.

Tonight I took Jude with me to vote. It was a nice, educational experience for him. He pulled up a chair to stand on so he could help me fill out the ballot. The first vote we cast was for President. I asked him his opinion and I think he was confused when he saw the long list — much longer than the 2 names he was expecting. He was a flip-flopper. He thought he liked the sound of a Constitution party candidate and then a libertarian and then the Green Party, etc. Finally he settled on one of the candidates from a major party. On the 2 constitutional amendment issues, Jude was very decisive. I just read him the questions and he was adamant that Minnesota’s constitution should define marriage as between a man and women and he also liked the idea that people should have to show identification to vote.  He asked, “Do you think we’ll get everything that we want?”  He went to bed talking about how he would like to be President someday.

For the first time ever, our 14 month old Asher slept through the night. He normally gets up at least 2 times a night and I have to feed him and put him back to sleep. Last night, he finally went to sleep at 11:35 p.m. and slept until almost 6 a.m. When he woke up early this morning, I was able to feed him and get him back to sleep, but I asn’t able to fall back to sleep myself. We’re obviously not the model in how to sleep train kids. I’ve never felt right about letting any of my kids cry themselves to sleep. So, they are pampered and catered to and I walk around like a full-time zombie. But, this is big progress or just a fluke. Probably the latter, but exciting nonetheless.

The Presidential race is neck and neck, even among grade schoolers.  Jude’s online class voted for their favorite Presidential candidate yesterday and it was split down the middle.  I look forward to taking Jude to vote with me tonight.