We have had a lot of big topics to talk about with Belén this week and I found myself feeling a bit underprepared. What is the best approach to bringing up big heavy topics she does not yet understand? As with most things in parenting, we just winged it and did the best we could and tried not to scar her for life.

On Monday, Andy and I were chatting back and forth on Office Communicator trying to figure out what we should say to Belén about Sassy dying later that afternoon. While we could have just told her Sassy went away and was not coming back I thought it was important to introduce the word death to her vocabulary and use this as a learning opportunity, albeit a hard one.

Andy had already told her on the way home from school that Sassy was going to the doctor in a few minutes and wouldn’t come back. I kind of freaked out when he told me this as I thought it was a really bad idea to take the risk of her associating the doctor with not coming back and her new word, death.

So when I talked to her l I told her Sassy was going to die which meant she was going away and would not come back. Her response in her adorable little two-year-old voice was, “Sassy go to the doctor?”

When I looked out the window Sunday morning, I saw it in her eyes. She looked at me like, “It’s over mom.” I hoped I was wrong but when Andy mentioned later that day that Sassy hadn’t eaten the food in her dish, I knew we had come to the end of the road. And I cried. But I held out hope.

Then Monday morning arrived and there was still a dish full of food. Andy came inside and said it was time. We had talked about this before, no more extraordinary efforts to save our geriatric pets. And yet it hurt so bad. I still had so many tears to shed all day long until she passed quietly in an injection-induced sleep.

She was with me my entire adult life. Days after graduating from college and moving to Boise we met and became instant friends. Back then she had remnants of puppy breath and an appetite for water heater knobs and jacuzzi covers. With a swagger in her step, she went everywhere with us. Whether it was running the trails in the Boise foothills, camping, going for walks, visiting friends or simply going to the store, she was game. Her favorite activity was always swimming, which she could do all day long if we let her.

Ozzie the Cat and Sassy the Dog. Each joined the family before it even existed as the companion and roommate of younger versions of each half of the couple when we still had apartments of our own. Ozzie, adopted from the pound by Andy and Sassy purchased from an ad in the paper by me.

I still remember the first night Andy had Ozzie (Andy and I were dating at the time) and the poor kitty sneezed all night long from some nasty bug he had picked up at the pound. Sassy caused immediate drama on her first day as well by eating the base of the water heater in my apartment. I also vividly recall when Andy and I moved in together and we put the two of them in a room together and closed the doors until they worked it out and figured out how to get along. The horrible noise that Ozzie made when backed into the corner combined with a few scratches to the face promptly showed Sassy who was ultimately boss and they have more-or-less gotten along ever since.

In the years to come, they mellowed, created and responded to other drama, had more trips to the vet than I could possibly recall, welcomed and said good bye to other pets and adapted to our no (okay little) nonsense approach to owning animals.

I am happy to report Ozzie, our cat…you know the one we waited an entire day to take to the vet to avoid the costs of the emergency vet, is doing quite well. He has made a full recovery from his head trauma and teeth pulling. He even shared scraps of the most amazing Ribeye steak Andy has ever made with Sassy tonight. We still don’t know if his “high calcium levels” means he has cancer or what, but he appears to be a normal, healthy, old cat who now lives in the backyard with Sassy dog. They seem quite content with one another in their geriatric club med.

This post should come as no surprise since practically every blog I read as of late has gruesome tales of days on end of sickness. Also because, well, when we walk into the doctor’s office with our daughter they say, “Hi Belén” without referencing her chart or looking her name up in the computer.

I recently wondered out loud in front of a friend if perhaps we are those parents who take their kid to the doctor way more than necessary and she kindly replied, “No I think all of your visits have been warranted.” (Thanks Laura!) And actually even though I am a bit self conscious how much our daughter has been to the doctor, I cannot recall a single time where they looked at us and said, “Uh, there’s nothing wrong with her.” Although they would probably say it in some prescriptive doctor lingo like, “Despite her mucus output and change in behavior, your child is safe to resume all of her normal activities without the need for prescriptive intervention.” Nope, they have never told us that. It’s usually like, “Uh, weren’t not sure, but…” or “It’s not normally like this in kids her age, but we think she has…”

Anyway, I know you don’t want to read gory details about our nearly 21-month-old peetree dish’s latest science projects so I will keep it brief…or as brief as my sometimes prolix tendencies will allow.

A couple of weeks ago, actually the day before Andy came home from China, Belén’s behavior started to really suck and she was pulling on her ear and had a fever so with the help of my mom, I took her to the doctor. It was a Saturday, so we went to one of the Urgent Care places open on Saturdays. The PA quickly determined Belén did indeed have an ear infection and prescribed some antibiotics and we were on our way.

“How much does our budget have for cosemetics?”

“I think $50.”

Groan…

“Are you serious?”

“Actually, I think it is $100.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I need to go to the mall and replenish some creams and make-up that I am almost out of.”

“Is that not going to be enough?”

“Well, I can just get a couple of things this month and hold out until next month to get the other things.”

“If $100 is consistently not going to be enough, tell me what you need and lets work that into the budget.”

“No, $100 will be enough, I just need to do things differently.”

At which time I pulled open my laptop to investigate the cost of my eye cream, eye liner, creamy concealer, cream eye shadow, damage remedy hair serum and body butter with stretch mark preventing qualities. Apparently I use a lot of cream. Correction, expensive cream.

With some basic arithmetic and evaluation of what was most needed immediately, my shopping list was reduced to eye cream, cream eye shadow and body butter. The bummer of it is that I despise going to the mall and following this budget is going to force me to go back when the budget reset at the month boundary. Nobody said there wouldn’t be sacrifices.

But these sacrifices turned out to be nothing compared to what was about to happen.

I walked out the front door only a few moments after Andy and Belén who were headed to Babies R Us with Andy’s mom to help her pick out a car seat for Belén for her car. Our cat, Ozzie, was perched on the stucco cutout of our front porch. I looked at him and something didn’t seem quite right. A portion of the fur on his head was wet. At closer examination, I could see that our poor exiled cat had a head wound near his left ear with an open sore. I called to Andy who was fastening Belén into her car seat.

“Come here, you’ve gotta see this.”

“What, Ozzie’s head?”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Ya, I noticed it yesterday.”

“What?!”

“We need to take him to the vet.”

“I will take him tomorrow, I think he’s fine.”

“While he seems fine with it, he does, in fact, have an open head wound. He must have gotten into a fight.”

“It will be way too expensive if we take him to the emergency vet on a Sunday. It can wait til tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? He could develop an infection…I really think we should take him in today.”

“He will be fine.”

My entire drive to the mall I was replaying the situation and trying to determine the right thing to do. We have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on our pets at normal vets, emergency vets, traveling vets and naturopathic vets. Sassy’s chest has been impaled. She has had an open chest wound. We’ve given her doggie acupuncture and countless different remedies to her chronic arthritis have been administered. She has had her chocolate-filled stomach pumped on Thanksgiving. She has not been a cheap dog. But we love her and she has been worth it!

Ozzie hasn’t been as troublesome from a vet-bill perspective, but he has given us countless headaches and cost us a small fortune in cat spray, urine and feces removal from various homes as well as scratching our brand new leather couch. This is why he is in exile. On top of that, he would rather have his tail pinched in the door than visit the vet. It is nearly impossible to get him into the travel crate and once inside, he shits himself every time and makes noises appropriate for horror movies the entire trip to the vet.

So the fact that our two remaining animals are old, arthritic and lazy suits us just fine at this stage in our life, especially with a toddler with an attitude spinning up. Unfortunately, we, in turn have become lazy pet owners and both animals are overdue for shots and check-ups and really do deserve more attention than we give them. I constantly feel guilty.

My conversation with Andy replays over and over in my head. I call my sister for advice. I call Andy at Babies R Us and ask him if we should at least call the vet and see what they say. He says what I am thinking, that they will just tell us to bring him in. He reminds me that we have agreed that our pets are animals and that we are no longer going to spend a fortune to try and save their geriatric lives. I agonize over what to do a little longer and then ultimately decide that since Ozzie was Andy’s cat that he brought to our relationship, I will let him make the call. It just seems ridiculous that we are potentially risking his well-being because of our budget.

Going without creams and serums, more trips to the mall than necessary, not treating our sick cat immediately…if this it’s like being on a budget, I don’t think I like it. The only consolation is that the money we are saving as a result will one day be put to really good use…and we will look back and realize it was all worth it.

For now, I’ll just worry about if the cat is going to make it to morning…

Belén is a little less selective about who she leaves her baby with than we are. But Sassy was up for the challenge and took good care of Baby Sailor….actually better care than Baby Sailor may have received from her mommy considering her face was drawn on earlier in the day.

When Belén and I arrive home from work/school each day, the first order of business is always to pet the kitty.

Now that the mercury is not consistently dipping below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, our cat, Ozzie is once again banished to the front step. The outside exile started after he sprayed in the computer room and then peed in Belén’s room while I was still on maternity leave. Our hearts turned cold towards our long-time feline friend when he acted out in such a fragrant manner.

Because I desperately needed a stress-relieving, feel-better-about-myself run and because we were kicking off our 50K training schedule, Anna and I decided to brave the snow and head out on a Saturday afternoon run. To show how motivated we were, we initially planned to run at the YMCA at 9:30. I nearly choked my daughter by shooting Vitamin D liquid too quickly down her throat which traumatized both me and her so I texted that I was not going to be able to run until we had both recovered. That led to me wanting to take a nap with Belén because I was too nervous if I let her sleep on her own she might die because the Vitamin D was in her lungs or something. Which led to waking up around 12:30 starving. Which led to being lazy on the couch and then Andy going and getting us BURGERS and TATER GEMS (seriously, like that is going to help the situation…but yes, I ate EVERY LAST BITE!) which led to me delaying the run yet another 45 minutes so I could digest a bit. And we finally met up at Anna’s house around 3:15pm.