Dead Kittens & Eden's First Dance Class

This week has been full of ups and downs for my family. Friday we left to spend Labor Day weekend with Russ' sister's family and we had a nice time with them. It had been a year since we been to their house so our visit was well over due. Monday we came back to discover that our town had just been hit with a pretty big storm that had taken the electricity down all over town so Russ had to do some things for work before we even could come back to our house.

When we did finally get home, Russ went looking for our six kittens to make sure they weren't getting too wet & cold. He only found two of them and they both had open wounds on their butts...the one was barely alive. We didn't know what to do so we called our next door neighbor (who has been one of the BEST neighbors anyone could have!) and she came over right away. She had buried one of the other ones while we were gone. She said that it had had a sore on its back too that she had squeezed a big worm/maggot out of before it died. She took the two kitties to her house to die. It was soo sad. Eden couldn't quite grasp what happened. She was crying and asking why **** took the kitties and I tried to explain to her that the kitties died and she just would cry and ask why they died and would cry and say that she missed them...it was so hard. Anyone who knows me very well, will tell you that I am not an animal person at all. But I will tell you that this is part of the reason why I never wanted pets...if you have animals..they will inevitably die and you will have to feel sad. (And it's even harder with a mourning child.) The whole reason that I didn't write this blog sooner is because I hadn't gotten over seeing the once cute lively kittens in that horrid state of bleeding & dieing! Anyway, Tuesday morning we awoke with three kittens unaccounted for but with little hope of finding any of them alive.

Tuesday was Eden's 1st dance class so the sadness of the evening before was overshadowed by the excitement of her new activity. She has been anticipating dance class since we signed her up 6 weeks ago but when she figured out that I wouldn't be staying with her, she told me that she didn't want to go. I promised her that if she was good and wen to dance class that when I came to pick her up she could have a treat...that was enough to get her excitement up again. She put on her dance outfit and I put her hair in a ponytail and she got her dance bag and then.... she had to wait 2 hours. When it was finally time to go, I got my camera and took a photo of her smiling by the door.



Then we opened the front door to get in the van only to discover another dead bleeding kitten sitting in our driveway. Apparently our cat had found it and brought it to our front steps. I got a sick feeling and ran inside to find something to cover it with...(I really didn't want to deal with it just then!) Eden kept looking at it and asking questions. I covered it with a washcloth so I didn't have to look at it anymore and then loaded the girls up and took Eden to dance class.



There are only 5 little girls in her class and they all looked so cute putting on their little tap shoes. Eden got really shy when we got their but was fairly calm while we got her shoes on, only telling me that she didn't want to stay. But when I went to leave she flipped out...started crying hysterically like I've never seen her cry before...like she was really scared. The teacher came and held her while I left. I didn't like seeing her like that but it really wasn't hard for me to leave her like that. I knew it was easier for everyone for me to get out of the scene as quickly as possible. Jazz & I came home during the 45 min class...giving me time to dispose of the kitten, & call Russ and giving Jasmine just enough time to fall asleep before I had to wake her again to go pick Eden up.

The teacher said Eden did fine...she participated in everything they did. Eden told me that they danced with their dolls & hopped like frogs & rolled on the floor. She said she had fun and I was glad to hear it!

Later in the afternoon our neighbor came back over to check in with us on the kittens. I told her we found the one. But still didn't know what happened to the other two. She said she ended up cutting the one kitten open (she used to work for a vet) and found it had 42 maggots inside! She said sh had called a vet and asked him about it and he said the kitten's probably got them through the mother's milk and that we should de-worm her.

Yesterday she came over with some de-wormer she had bought for us at Wal-Mart and helped us feed it to her. (Didn't I tell you she is a fabulous neighbor?) She said that our other neighbor had found the other two cats, so now all 6 were dead & accounted for. At least the upside is that now we no longer have to worry about finding owners for all of them and both of our neighbors have offered to split with us the cost of getting our cat fixed come October.

In conclusion, I hate pets...I hate blood...I hate death. And God bless good neighbors!