The cats must go…for now

This is going to be a very hard post to write because I have to make some serious decisions about our beloved cats. I don’t know quite how it happened but I have started to seriously dislike my cats which previously were / are like my children! I know having a baby changes a lot of things but I didn’t quite expect it to change my feelings towards my fur babies. I know deep down inside I do love them still very much (hence the reason I haven’t got rid of them yet) but it has got to a point where my sanity is at stake.

I admittedly do not give them as much attention as before Leah arrived (but a baby does take up a lot time and energy) so they get up to all sorts of naughty mischief which drives me nuts! The other big factor is that we live in a flat with no garden for them to roam and shed their HAIR that accumulates in our house in an hour (I am forever cleaning hair off my clothes, furniture, floor etc) and on top of that Leah seems to be affected by the hair, if the cats are close by or were in a spot just before Leah is, she will sneeze. I spoke to the Paed about it and he said the only thing would be to get rid of the cats, but even that wouldn’t help in the long run because the hair will remain. The next most irritating thing they do is that they insist on being in Leah’s room, rub their hair all over her carpet and even try and climb into her cot (well Kaiya tried but I caught her in time). We can’t leave anything of Leah’s on the floor (like playgym) or on the couch because they love lying all over her stuff (this morning I forgot to pick up the playgym and found Kaiya sleeping on it!) I have also had to chase Mugen and Kaiya out of the beautiful moses basket that Cindy and Seth lent to us because they think its their bed… that I am too scared to leave Leah in it (unless I am sitting right next to her) because I am scared the cats will join in on her snooze time. Mugen has always loved to use our couch as a scratching post (eventhough he has the state of the art scratch post that cost us almost more than our couch!) however now he is even more determined to wreck our furniture, Leah’s curtain, our mattress and material cupboard thing we have. Mugen cries to be let out (which he is not allowed – the rules of our flat) and wakes up Leah when he manages to sneak into Leah’s room and scratch at the window. They never use to sleep in our bed but now have managed to sneak in when I get up in the early hours of the morning to feed Leah and shed all their hair and germs all over our bed. I am then woken up not only by a baby crying but also by two cats licking each other in the wee hours of the morning. Thank goodness they don’t have fleas… it would surely be the end of them then!

So my problem is that although I love these cats ..I really do, I love my child more and my sanity too! I really don’t want to get rid of them but I don’t know how much more of stinky litter trays, hair in our child’s mouth and dodging cats I can take on top of having a growing baby in the flat! We are planning on moving but it is a question of time and the next place will hopefully be suitable to have the cats too (as in there will be a garden and space) but what do we do now? Corne is not keen to get rid of them for good so my suggestion is to ask someone / people to temporarily look after them. Then I think that maybe that is also cruel …. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.