So, our Christmas tree is now on its way to decomposing in the woods beyond our back yard, and I have my living room back to normal. It’s quite nice. And just in time, too! Yesterday afternoon, Alyssa came to me in tears, and informed me that I had to take her to the doctor. “Why?” I asked her.
“Cwismas tree… in my mouth, down in my belly. A Cwismas tree growed in my belly”, she sobbed. Apparently, while playing with her toys and with Ryan, she swallowed one of the thousands of pine needles that our tree was dropping on a daily basis. Once I informed her that the tiny little pine needle would not grow up into a big Christmas tree, and that the needle would come out the next time she went to the bathroom, she calmed down and went back to chattering my ear off about The Life of Alyssa.
Blueboy… ironically enough, not too long after my last blog entry he found a new place to let loose on: Dan’s desk chair. I discovered the mess after going around in the living room for about half an hour, swearing I kept getting whiffs of cat urine but never finding it. Then I found it, freaked (not at the cat, but in my head), and scrubbed Dan’s beloved six month old suede desk chair as best as I could. Today Blueboy did it again, and pooped as well, while I was running around getting myself and Alyssa ready for errands and Dan was in the process of dragging the Christmas tree outside. Dan is ready to kill him. He said as much himself.
Right now Blueboy is in the secondary bathroom with the litter box, food, water, a few cat toys and a fluffy blanket to sleep on. Locking him away from the rest of the household isn’t my first choice, but it’s that or soiled furniture and a dead cat. My mom is coming by later tonight to drop off Alyssa (she wanted to spend the afternoon and evening at my mom’s), and I asked her to pick up some more cat litter and whatever recommended anti-anxiety meds she can find at the pet store. My first goal is to re-train him to use the litter box, like Shasta mentioned doing. After that is accomplished, hopefully he can be re-socialized with Kirin. They got along so well before all of this. I know that Kirin is pretty dumbfounded by Blue’s complete 180° attitude!
Do you remember your dreams? I remember a lot of mine. Dan claims that you’re not supposed to remember your dreams, as they’re nothing more than your mind defragmenting while your body rests. Well, if that’s the case, I suppose I’m defective, and my mind is malfunctioning.
I have been having a recurrent dream that pops in for a visit every once in a while over the last five or six months. In this particular dream I somehow run into my ex, Theo. I always have a kid or both in tow, and it’s always a really awkward moment when I introduce them. Would it be awkward in real life? I suppose so. “Hi, remember me? We had that relationship where we thought we were the “one” for the other, enjoyed various sexual pleasures with one another and even discussed marriage? Well, yeah, hi, it’s me, that same girl! And look, here is the obvious proof of what I’ve been up to since we parted ways! Introducing my kid(s) – kind of like the ones you and I talked about having once or twice!”
In the dream the awkwardness of the moment is very realistic and very apparent. It’s not shame or embarrassment, just awkwardness. It always goes away, and there’s no hard feelings or uncomfortable silences, but it’s definitely odd. Then we usually move on to whatever we’re planning to do with each other and the group of people we’re always meeting up with. There’s never any talk of rekindling anything or going off for an after lunch romp in a motel. Just… socializing. With other people, and one another.
Like I said, odd. Though I guess my subconsciousness is in sync with my conscious knowledge of being in love with my husband, and only my husband.
I really hope you can get things worked out with Blueboy. I’m so attached to my pets and can’t imagine having to part ways with one who has been in the family so long. I honestly hope you guys can get his behavior figured out, Jenn!
I don’t dream very much but I’m noticing lately that if I’ve been drinking the night before I will have some crazy whacked out dream the morning after. It is guaranteed!! I haven’t experienced a reoccurring dream in a long long time, however the one that I have is deeply deeply psychological and I’m glad I don’t have it anymore.
lmao @ an after lunch romp an a motel. You silly.
Good luck hon! I really hope re-training works! Poor cat.
Alyssa sounds so cute! She’s got a christmas tree in her belly! HEHE. I remember telling my mom i was gonna grow a Watermelon cause I ate one of the seeds.
No one really knows the exact purpose of dreams, but its definitely not proven that we “are” or “are not” supposed to remember them. I have always had constant, extremely vivid dreams. I love them and I treat them all as if they could mean something regarding my life or someone I know’s life. I dont think all of them are insignificant.
I always remember my dreams. Always. I make it a point to run them back through my mine after I wake up and that doing that helps me remember them later.
Hello. I found this website: http://www.catsinternational.org/articles/aggression_to_cats/sharing_turf_scent.html
I’m not sure if it will help you out or not with your situation with Blueboy… but I hope it does!
Sometimes I remember my dreams and other times I don’t. I think Dan doesn’t remember his dreams because he is a man :). Whenever I try to tell one of my brothers or my dad my dreams they sigh and roll their eyes.
And that is soo cute, a christmas tree growing in Alyssa’s belly! Haha, it made me smile.
-Jessy
Most often dreams *are* rather relevent to your life, simply because it’s the process of your mind sorting and organizing though the astounding amount of information you’ve gained during the day. A lot of it has to do with transferring information into more long-term areas of memory. Along with important highlights of the day are some of the thoughts, hopes, fears, what-have-you that have been occupying your mind all day. As far as we know so far, dreams are just a kind of ‘overflow’ of all this processing that occurs while we’re asleep; perhaps the consious mind trying to make sense of a jumbled mess of thoughts.
Awww… I remember when I was younger and I swallowed a seed from an apple and my older sister told me that it was going to grow and grow and just sprout out of me one day and I completely freaked out and started bawling for my mom. (Needless to say, my sister got in trouble and I probably got a treat of some kind, I just don’t remember what it was.)
I hope the retraining of your cat works out… It has to be just so frustrating to have your cat use your entire house as a bathroom…
I hope the meds and re-training help Blueboy. I’ve never had a cat, so I have no advice to offer…It’s weird though, how the vet says he’s completely healthy, yet he’s acting so strange.
I remember a lot of my dreams too…Well fragments of them. My dreams have different “scenes”…One minute, this is going on, then it’s like it skips to something totally unrelated…
Good luck with Blueboy! I hope you can figure out what’s going on and get him retrained.
Poor dream recall is usually just related to a deficiency in the body. I can’t remember it off the top of my head but I think it might be Vit B6, but I could be wrong.
aww.. I hope blueboy gets better!! He might just be stressed out with the new cats and marking his territory. You should really take him to the vet and find out if there is anything wrong. Hopefully nothing wrong!
We put our tree away (artificial), the day after Christmas. LOL. I was ready to have everything cleaned up, too.
Yuck about the cat. I had a dog that was never completely house trained (we adopted her as an adult dog and she had been an orphan and abused, etc. So she had issues.) – Anyway, she caused a lot of stress with her destruction of furniture and carpet, etc. My husband used to threaten to take her on a drive and boot her out somewhere. LOL. (He wasn’t serious… I think.)
As for our dreams – I never heard of them being compared to defragmenting. That is a rather cool analogy… I remember my dreams about 50% of the time. I’ve always felt that while some of the dreams are just rubbish based on things I saw or experienced, etc – some of them have provided insight into problems and glimpses into the future. Not to sound like a weirdo, but I have dreamed things that have later happened. Have you ever experienced Deja vu? It’s like that, but I realize when it’s happening that I had dreamed about it.
Well, good luck with your cat!
Dan,
Im going to safely assume youve never tried any sort of legal or illegal hallucinogen. But, maybe you have. With that said…most hallucinogens are filtered through the pineal gland…in the brain. Its located right between the eyes. It literally is our third eye. When you are in REM sleep..your pineal gland pumps out a chemical natural to our bodies, but you can also find this (rarely) being sold at street level, its probably the most intense hallucinogen and produces the most profound results…dimethyltryptamine…DMT. Its like everytime we enter REM sleep we are having an intense “trip.” The only other time DMT is secreted in mass amounts from the pineal gland is when we die. You also experience a very intense “trip” as youre dying/when you die. Ive done my share of hallucinogens and I know that the experiences that I have on them are not coming from anything outside of me, they arent coming from any outside source. It doesnt make them any less powerful and in fact it makes them more powerful. I view dreams the same way because they are coming from the same place. It would be naive to discount dreams as nothing when in fact they are power visions coming from a very powerful place inside of us. I have had prophetic dreams..about people I dont even know. I dont think that every dream is something super profound, but to deny this sort of self divininational process…its almost selling yourself short.
I normally remember my dreams…it’s generally unusual if I don’t remember them. My dreams are pretty vivid too, like in full color and sometimes very realistic…I can sometimes even remember exactly what has been done or said in a dream. I don’t really think most of my dreams are significant though. I have also had dreams like the one you described, running into my ex, actually feeling the embarrassment – other times in my dreams I have done horrible things to my ex (plotting to hurt him or something) which I would never do in real life, hah. Even though I’m in a happy relationship right now, and I don’t really even think about my ex anymore, I sometimes still have those dreams every once in a while. Maybe it’s some subconscious aggression I’m working through in my dreams, who knows!
And I hope that problem with your cat gets fixed.
Ha, Alyssa is so adorable! I remember worrying about things like that when I was little.
That’s so sad about Blueboy though. Sounds like that time he spent outside was pretty stressful. Hopefully his retraining will work and that will be the end of the problems.
Ah, I hope everything works out with your cat!
I always remember my dreams. I have had a recurring dream as well over the past few years… Its rather weird!!
Alyssa is such a cutie!!! I love that you post all the things she says, it makes me smile
I hope things get sorted with Blueboy!
Awwwwwww @ Alyssa’s comment.
My niece (5 this summer) is dubious about swallowing watermelon seeds because she swears she’ll get a huge watermelon growing in her tummy if she does… 
As for Blueboy… I’m not very knowledgeable about cats, really, so I can’t really suggest anything, but I truly hope the situation is sorted. Perhaps he just needs time?
And as for dreams, I very, very rarely remember mine, because my sleep is brought to me by Sleeping Pills(tm) which means I don’t even dream most of the time.
How old is Blueboy? Cats can also suffer from alzheimer’s and forget where it is they’re supposed to urinate and defecate.
I love looking at your pictures. Did you get a mac? I seen the lepoard op system on ur flickr.
THREE DAYS! NO POSTS!
*checks Jenn’s pulse*
Nothing wrong with remembering dreams. In fact, sometimes the symbolism in them can explain to you how you’re doing in life at that moment/show hidden feelings and the such. To say that we’re never ever supposed to remember our dreams is cutting it a bit short, I for one love remembering my dreams and my life actually feels empty when I can’t remember them for a while.
Have you had blue-boy checked for a urinary tract infection? Also, they sell these air-freshener type thingys that spray a scent that’s calming to cats (or dogs) that are having anxiety issues. Maybe one of those would help him.
Good luck!
Your kids are adorable and I love your photographs of them — wish I cold take such good ones — your love for them shows through in your photos.
Hugs,
Maggie