I should probably be feeling guilty. As it is I'm just mildly embarrassed.

So I followed the wise and most-appreciated suggestions of some of you to get self – and more importantly the kittens – to a vet STRAIGHT AWAY, and left feeling like one of those women who post questions on FB forums such as: “My newborn baby has been vomiting for 6 days now and his breathing has been funny.  Any ideas anyone?  Should I bring him to the doctor or wait and see for a few more days?”  (For the record, this isn’t entirely off the top of my wino head;  this sort of thing pops up on forums here a LOT, often followed with a request for information about a cheap doctor, “because doctors here are so expensive, LOL”.)  Anyway, it turns out that the prolific,  prodigious poo, swollen tummies (oh, I didn’t mention that, did I) and chronic flatulence (a new development, tho in this house with my children it could have been there undetected since they arrived) was NOT RIGHT, and I left armed with antibiotics and some sort of feline Imodium. (Also, with two vaguely traumatised cats;  if you think that the look on your child’s face when you insert a suppository is funny, you should see (and hear) how cats react to up-the-bum thermometers.  I’m counting on the vet assuming that my laughter was the nervous, and not the humoured, type.  [Tho it was most def the latter].)

Anyhoo, imagine this.  There is a sick hen in your kitchen.  You have to catch the sick hen, cover it in oil, then give it a bath.  Twice.  THAT is what feeding medicine to these cats is like.  It took two experienced vets several (messy) attempts to complete the task, while I looked on, fascinated and horrified in equal measure.  “You want me to do that?” I asked;  evidently, they did. Twice a day, for a week.  “You’ll get used to it,” the head vet said, as she removed her industrial strength protection gloves.

At some point I am going to have to admit to my husband that he was right, I really hadn’t thought this through very well (if at all). 

Oh well.  It’s a beautiful evening, the children are having their TV fix, I am on the balcony with a glass of chilled (but rapidly less so) wine in hand, the cats are in a suitcase under the bed (by their own volition, I should add) and I’m ignoring my OCD and have decided that the kitty litter can wait.  For a few minutes anyway.