Extra kids and animals

I have had an extra child and an extra dog at my house since Thursday night.

I am not kidding when I say, the cats are pissed.

The extra child was my niece, T. I dropped her off with my sister-in-law's parents yesterday evening. Gabe seemed ready to go back to not having to share his entire life with his cousin.

Which is not to say that Gabe and T. are not great friends - they are. They were just SICK of eachother after being together for three days straight.

Apparently, my husband had quite a power struggle with T. at a McDonald's on Friday at lunch. (Don't ask me why the school where my husband teaches was closed on Friday, but, open today, President's Day. I have no answers.)

Anyway, T. wasn't going to eat because my husband had not ordered her hamburger WITHOUT KETCHUP. (Oh the humanity!!!)

She sat with her thumb in her mouth, twirling a piece of hair around her index finger and glaring at him for 10 minutes. (For those of you who know me personally, note the amazing power of genetics. This child twirls her hair EXACTLY the SAME WAY I do, and has since she had enough hair to start twirling. It's a bizarre niece/aunt connection.)

After 1o minutes, and after my husband switched out her top bun for his bottom bun (thus creating a burger with NO ketchup for T. and a burger with LOTS of ketchup for my husband), she relented and started taking miniscule bites, that eventually led to her consuming roughly half of the burger.

My husband was very tired by the time I got home on Friday. Also, my niece looked like someone had stuck her hand in a socket, because her hair was every-which-way, and no amount of coaxing with a brush, on either my husband or my part, did ANYTHING to make her hair look normal. She has long brown hair, and it stood at crazy angles all weekend.

Apparently my husband and I flunk "Preschool Girl Hair 101."

My brother and sister-in-law should be back from Canada this evening, so, let's just hope that they are able to do something about her head.

The dog is my mother's. It is a VERY small dog. MAYBE 5 pounds. It is a VERY OLD dog. It is a TINY, DECRIPIT and BARKLESS creature and, from the reaction of our two cats, you would think we had brought a FULL SIZE GERMAN SHEPHERD into our home.

Our big orange tomcat and our small black cat BOTH outweigh this dog by at least 7 pounds and 4 pounds. They coud TAKE this dog. Instead they are huddled under furniture, whimpering, and, evidently, on a hunger strike, since I haven't needed to refill their dish since the DOG arrived on Thursday. (No, the dog isn't eating their food. The dog cannot FIND food unless you put it under her nose.)

At any rate, hopefully this evening all will be back to normal at our house - T. is gone and reportedly the dog will be gone by dinner time.

What do you want to bet that the cats retaliate by staying up all night tonight singing feline arias while dancing on our heads?