I love this cat, but I’m about done with him. I’m sick and tired of dealing with poop every day. Just go to the fucking litter box already. We even bought this really expensive litter called Cat Attract, which has really high ratings with effectiveness. All the reviews I read practically gushed with awesomeness and how the owners of the cats were pleasantly astounded that there was something out there that got their cat back to using the litter box. So we tried it.

FAIL.

If anything, it made the pooping worse.  The day the litter arrived, he pooped in the box the litter came in, so we had high hopes that this stuff would be powerful enough to attract him to the litter box. After all, just the lingering smell in the shipping box was enough to get his bowels moving.

Nope.

That night, he took SEVEN SHITS on the floor and peed on the tile in the back room. We’ve had a fecal test and a urinalysis done, and both came back normal. We’ve tried multiple different cat litters, added an extra litter box, clean them every day, removed the hoods off two of the boxes, changed cat food, tried punishing him, tried ignoring it (which made it even worse), tried giving him even more affection (which was worse than just ignoring it)… I’m seriously at my wit’s end with this.

SERIOUSLY.

Why, you ask? Well. Let me tell you. He poops in high-traffic areas where it will be seen such as in the hallways and places where I have STEPPED in it. He’s pooped in front of Nathan and my child PLAYED in it. He’s pooped on the couch, on the pillows on the couch, on the hoods of the litter boxes, in his favorite cat beds, on his scratching posts, under the cat tree, beside the water bowl, beside the food bowl, in Nathan’s time-out corner, right beside our shoes as well as ON Paul’s shoes, beside as well as ON his cat toys, in front of the front door… I’M DONE. I’m SO done.

Now, I’m no vet, but I really think he’s marking. I think Andrew is highly insecure and jealous of Nathan… and not to mention, one of our other cats, Meeper, has been trying to “dominate” Andrew, which is just a burr in his side and exacerbates the problem.

So I tried sequestering him in a small room to get him reacquainted with his territory and with the litter-box.

FAIL.

He left me 9 blobs of poop to clean up. His pooping is very calculated and deliberate. Whenever he’s about to go, he starts exhibiting behavior which alerts us to what he’s about to do. He sniffs around for a spot, hunches over on all fours and contracts his muscles… he is not losing control of himself. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. So most of the time when I see him about to go, I grab him and put him in the litter box. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I want to give him away, but I can’t do that in good conscience without disclosing his pooping problem. And if he’s marking then relocating him will only make it worse. And not only that, but I am a really nice person. I’m a huge animal lover and a supporter of animal welfare (not animal rights… big difference). And even me, being the animal lover that I am, find myself resisting the urge to throw him out the door and let him take his chances with our busy road. It’s my first reaction when I get up in the morning and have to clean up SIX-EIGHT PILES OF CRAP. Too bad he’s been an indoor cat all his life or I would just give him to someone who could keep him outside. Also, I am OCD when it comes to germs and cleanliness so after I clean the poop up, I then disinfect the area. It takes a while. It’s hard not to get pissed off, ya know? So how could someone who doesn’t have nine-years of loving history with with this cat be able to handle his problem without losing their patience?

So we will be taking him to the vet soon. I think we have one more option- a feline anti-depressant. That is my absolute last resort. I don’t know what else to do… and Paul and I believe the core issue is that Andrew has become a highly insecure and jealous cat now that Nathan’s in the picture. As much as I don’t want to put him on medication, it’s my last resort for the sanity of everyone in this family.

I just want him to be his happy, poop-free little self again. The only reason we’ve been putting up with this for so long is because we remember how cool he used to be. He’s such a conversationalist and more like a dog than a cat. He even used to sit really cool… like a human with his little belly splayed out. He loves belly scratches and has even let me use him as a pillow. He rarely shows his belly anymore.

Now when Paul or I try to love on him and pet him, immediately when we’re done, he takes a big ole dump right beside us. And he still poops when we ignore him. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

This has to stop.

It started in the afternoon. Nathan and I had just gotten home from a busy day out when I had to use the bathroom. I was in there for less than five minutes. When I came out, Nathan was playing with his brand new firetruck in his bedroom.

*sniff sniff*

I smelled poop. And it wasn’t Nathan’s.

So I cautiously peeked my head out of Nathan’s bedroom into the kitchen and lo-and-behold! There was a big ole clump of poop SMEARED into the kitchen floor. My cat ANDREW had taken a dump in the floor, and NATHAN HAD PLAYED IN IT, dragging it about 2 feet, leaving a trail of smeared poop glistening on the floor.

Furious, I broke out the Clorox and cleaned it up. Afterward, I went into the living room for some relaxation. To my utter horror, however, THERE WAS MORE CAT POOP SMEARED ALL OVER THE COFFEE TABLE. And a 4″ poop log sitting defiantly on the floor next to the coffee table. Furious does not even begin to describe how I felt. I was utterly LIVID. I am a huge animal lover. HUGE. I donate to animal-welfare charities. I cry when I see dead animals on the side of the road. But for a moment, as rage coursed through my quivering veins, I wanted to hurl Andrew outside and let him fend for himself against the road. Or cook him in a pot of stew.

I’m sick and tired of dealing with this. It is not a medical issue, as I initially thought it was. Andrew is jealous of Nathan and I think he’s depressed. See, I feel guilty because before I got married and had a kid, I treated that cat like he was my child. I doted on him. I was one of “those” people who irritatingly treats their pets like a human. But now? I still love him just the same, only I don’t have the time to give him the same amount of attention that I used to. I still love on him, but only for five minutes at a time. I still have conversations with him, but after a while the incessant meowing (he is quite the conversationalist, believe me) can become irritating when I am dealing with a screaming toddler. I have been trying so hard to dote on him like I used to… and for about three weeks, it worked. He was pooping outside the litter box up to 5x a day… and with all the extra time-consuming affection I gave him, he went for THREE WEEKS without a single accident. But now? Now, my schedule has gotten busier, and the love I was showing him is now no longer enough. He follows me around like a lost puppy dog, his sad little eyes staring at me, wishing me to love him.

I can’t get him to understand that I DO LOVE HIM, but he is making it VERY hard to love when I’m cleaning up his poop multiple times a day. I don’t want him around me right now. I have to grit my teeth just to extend my hand to him. I’m SICK of this, and my toddler playing in his angry poop pile is the LAST straw!

And it gets worse. So after I cleaned up the coffee table, I grabbed Nathan to clean him up, change his clothes, and check his hands.

His hands were clean, except for some minute traces of poop.

You know what that means, right? I can’t even think about it at this point. I took him into the bathroom and washed his hands FIVE times for a minute each time, then sanitized his hands twice. And when I was done, his hands still smelled of cat shit.

Afterwards, Nathan was playing with his firetruck all over the house, and every time he walked past me, I got a whiff of poop. Nathan had a clean diaper. I checked his body, no poop. His hands still smelled faintly of poop, but not enough for me to notice unless I specifically smelled his hands. Paul and I were quite befuddled as we tried to ascertain from where the odor was originating.

And then we saw it.

IT WAS CAKED ALL OVER HIS FIRETRUCK WHEELS.

My son had rolled his BRAND NEW firetruck through Andrew’s poop. That’s where the smears came from. It never crossed my mind that Nathan would use a toy to roll through the poop. And then Nathan had rolled the poop-caked wheels ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE.

So guess what we did all evening? Cleaned the carpets, furniture, mopped the floors, and sanitized all surfaces that may have come into contact with that firetruck.

I’m STILL pissed. For once, I am at a loss trying to articulate the depth of the anger I feel towards that cat. Enough is enough. I can’t have my child playing in SHIT. And I would have more compassion if Andrew was sick or needed medical attention, but to cause potential harm to my child because the attention I have been giving him was not good enough is UNACCEPTABLE.

I’m going to have to figure out what to do about this. What a shame. I love that cat… he was my baby. I loved him more than any other cat I’ve ever known. He was so cool, so full of personality. Everyone who has ever met him has commented on how awesome he was. But this acting out can’t be tolerated. I don’t know what to do short of either putting him on antidepressants (how weird would that be?) or giving him away… but who’s gonna want a cat with poop problems? I don’t know if anyone would want to adopt him. He needs someone who can devote a lot of time and attention to him, something I don’t have. I don’t *want* to give him away, and I certainly don’t want to put him to sleep. But I don’t know what other options I have.

So if you have pets, please take this into consideration if you are considering having kids. If you baby your pet too much, it could very well come back to haunt you.

So Paul and I had another date night Friday night, which was really nice. Nathan stayed with Paul’s parents and I’m not even kidding when I say the child enjoyed every single minute of his time with his them. See, the last time they watched Nathan was about three months ago, and Nathan started to get sick that day. Do you know what it’s like to have a sick toddler? For all the parents out there, I’m sure you are all too familiar with it. For those of you who don’t have kids, let me tell you that a sick toddler is the worst. Especially when they can’t talk yet and tell you where they hurt. So both Nathan and Nathan’s Grandma were crying… it was such a bad experience for both of them. Because of that, I was EXTRA happy that this last visit went without a hitch; Nathan played and played and played some more outside, dug around in the flower beds, rode in a wagon, played in water dripping off the roof, took a bath, and even gnawed on a potato that he insisted was a ball. Needless to say, the kid was doted on, and let me tell you, he was totally LOVING IT.

Meanwhile, Paul and I went out to eat a nice Italian restaurant. We gobbled up our food and enjoyed a few drinks. However, a couple days prior to our date, my allergies started acting up in a way that they hadn’t done in years, since I was a kid. My nose was completely stuffed up, so much so that my sinuses, eyes, and head would throb anytime I sat down. So I sounded quite nasal as I ordered my food and felt as if my eyeballs would explode out of their sockets as I ate the food that I could barely taste.

Then Paul and I decided to play some pool, one of our favorite things to do when we get a kid-free night. An hour or so after we started playing, though, I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. To my complete and utter horror, as I was using the bathroom, I USED THE BATHROOM. As in, my stomach was upset and was letting me know in no uncertain terms.

To spare you guys the gory details, let’s just say I was thanking my lucky stars that the music in the ladies’ room was blaring on a level loud enough to pop eardrums. THANK YOU, God, for small favors, huh?

I ended up being stuck in the bathroom 5 or 6 times that night.

It was awful.

Couple that with throbbing sinuses and a severely stuffy nose and you have something akin to pure misery.

Fortunately, things got better after I took some over-the-counter medication the next day. But on the hour-and-fifteen minute drive to Paul’s parents’ house to pick up Nathan, I developed a CRAMP IN MY BUTT CHEEK from trying to hold it as long as I could!  I finally made it to a gas station and let me tell you, you should have seen the look on the lady’s face at the register. I ran into the bathroom and came out a few minutes later to purchase the medicine. After I paid, she was staring at me so hard that I actually got a little flustered, and in an attempt to divert her unflinching gaze away from me, I nodded to the receipt machine and asked if I needed to sign the receipt.

“No,” she replied flatly as she handed me the receipt. I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I made a speedy exit. I guess some people are completely unaware of how they come across to others… either that, or they are just plain strange. I’m going with both.. this woman seemed totally NUTZO.

Anyway, things have settled down here. Nathan is back into his little routine and Paul has returned to work. As much as I enjoy dates with my husband, I’m hoping we don’t have another date-night like that for a long, long time.

So Friday night, my cat Andrew (who has been having issues with pooping outside the litter box) decided to take a dump in the kitchen. So I come trotting through the kitchen and guess what I did?

I STEPPED RIGHT IN IT.

With my bare feet.

And it squished up through MY TOES.

I didn’t even feel it until I had taken a couple of steps, leaving poop-footprints in my wake. And he must have JUST done it because the smell didn’t hit me yet. In fact, when I looked down and saw poop in between my toes, I thought to myself, there’s no way. There is no way I just stepped in a pile of crap. It was the most disgusting thing ever, let me tell you.

So fast forward to yesterday morning. Andrew (I assume) had left me two poop piles near the litter boxes, one of those had been anointed with a drizzle of pee. So cleaning all that up put me in an irritable mood, as I’m sure you would be to if you had been dealing with this for some time. I was now running a little late for church. So then, after I got it all cleaned up and put in a plastic bag, I walked to the door to put it outside when Andrew starts meowing at me, wanting me to love on him.

I was like, how dare you meow to be petted after pooping outside your litter box! 

So I swatted at him with the poop bag.

But instead of swatting the cat, I managed to swat the wall. And it hit the wall JUST RIGHT. Because the angle where it made contact with the wall was perfect; the bag of poop freaking EXPLODED. It got all over the wall, all over the blinds, all over the curtains, the recliner, the window sill, the floor, and all over ME. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny poop particles flew EVERWHERE. So then I start crying. I was mad at Andrew, but mostly, I was mad at myself for letting myself get so irritated.

Then Paul comes out of the bathroom as is all like, Ewww what is that smell?

And then he sees the poop explosion. And you know what he does? He takes his church clothes off and tells me to go on to church- he’ll clean up the mess. What a wonderful guy! So I cleaned up, changed my clothes, and went on to church. But I felt horrible the entire time… since I was running so late, I left Nathan at home with Paul because I didn’t have time to get him ready. So because of me, they both had to miss out on church.

LESSON LEARNED, Lord. Lesson learned.

Neither cat used to meow late at night before our cat Turbo passed away in September, so I wonder if they are missing him. And prior to Turbo’s passing, Andrew had never pooped outside the litter box. He started after Turbo died, but we thought it was because we bought new litter boxes. Since then, his pooping problem has been sporadic, and it seemed like he only did it when he wanted attention. But for the past few days, it’s been DAILY. And now I want to pull my hair out.

ARG! (Yes, I just emitted pirate-speak. Which is what happens when you have cleaned up one too many piles of poop!)

No, we didn’t immerse ourselves in glittering rays of sunshine. Or win any money in the lottery. No, it was nothing fancy or even fun. That’s right. It wasn’t even REMOTELY FUN. Well, what on earth could we possibly have done this morning?

I’ll tell you.

WE CLEANED UP POOP.

Lots and LOTS of Nathan poop.

We had put Nathan in his play-yard for a bit, and before we knew it, he had pooped in his diaper. But it wasn’t just a regular ole poopy diaper, no sir-ee. It was a FULL poopy diaper. And Nathan decided he didn’t like it one single bit. So guess what he did?

HE PULLED HIS DIAPER PARTLY DOWN.

And I’m sure you can guess what happened to all the Poop That Was Once Contained. It was unleashed all over the play-yard. All over Nathan. All over his clothes. All over almost every single one of his toys. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had a Play-yard Poop Catastrophe.

So we spend a large chunk of our morning giving Nathan a bath, cleaning all his toys in the play yard (I’m not kidding when I say that only two or three of his toys, out of about 15 that were in there, were void of poop. The remaining toys all had a little dollop of poop smeared here or there), cleaning the play-yard’s mesh sides, and cleaning the play-yard’s floor.

Not a fun day, so far. Not fun at all.

It is not a lovely sight at all. Not one bit.

It’s it’s not just whole, unchewed peas that I’m finding. There is also corn. Whole kernels of unchewed corn. Sometimes bits of carrot. And the smell! Don’t even get me started on the smell. I think I’m going to have to buy a gas mask or something because this smell is pervasive; THERE IS NO ESCAPING THE SMELL.

I still smell it long after the offending diaper has been wrapped, sealed, and thrown away.

I still have, what? Another year or so of diaper changes before Nathan can be potty trained?

Oy vey!

We spent the day taking it easy and relaxing after a nice lunch with Paul’s grandparents. And even Nathan joined in on the chilling out by ONLY POOPING ONCE. He’s been pooping 3-4 times a day lately, and let me tell you, THAT GETS OLD. Who likes changing multiple poopy diapers a day? Certainly not many of us, me included.

We didn’t get to see the fireworks because we found out, once it was too late, that the fireworks in our town were going to be held on Saturday instead of Sunday. Saturday, however, we were watching the UFC fight, which was great, by the way. It was probably too late for Nathan anyways since they don’t start until around 10:00 at night, and Nathan is in bed by 9.

There’s always next year, though!

But today, our festivities are officially over. Paul has gone back to work after five whole days of being off. I always feel a twinge of sadness when he has to return to work, especially after a long weekend. I am lucky to have an amazing husband that loves to spend time with me and vice versa! I married a family man… exactly who I’ve been wanting my whole life.

So, in other news, I’m thinking about switching up my postings a little bit. Instead of writing at the same time Monday through Friday, I’m going to start posting whenever I have something to post about… whether it’s multiple times in one day or just once every two days or whatever. I’m still trying to find the right fit for me and what works best with my schedule with Nathan. We’ll see how this goes.

Nathan is MUCH happier. Thank God. Because I really, REALLY don’t like to see my child in pain.

I sent Pampers an email and also contacted them via phone, and to their credit, the lady I spoke to was quite nice and apologized for the problem. I asked if they were thinking about taking the DryMax off the shelves and reverting to the old Cruisers (which we loved using on Nathan) but she said at this time, no they are not. In fact, they aren’t making any more diapers without the DryMax. Which is a bummer because I really liked the Cruisers.

I wish I knew why Nathan had such reaction to (what I felt was) the diapers.

All I know is that I change Nathan’s diaper almost immediately after he wets it. Paul and I have always been seriously on top of the whole diaper changes, which is why Nathan never, ever had a diaper rash of more than two or three little bumps that we were able to eradicate in a matter of a day or so. (Unfortunately, we can’t prevent diaper rashes 100% since we don’t know the very second Nathan wets himself, and with him being mobile and all, the diaper rubs against the wetness and causes mild rashes.) I was flummoxed when I saw the skin on his bottom turn bright red and starting to blister and even peel, something I had never seen before on him. It most definitely was not your average diaper rash. It was more like a burn than anything. And what really befuddled me was how quickly it worsened because I was changing his diaper within 5-10 minutes of him wetting himself. So I was at a loss as to why he had a this strange skin aberration in the first place, and especially worried about the severity of it.

I’m just glad I caught it before it got worse. I’m also appreciative that Pampers listened to what I had to say and documented my complaint. Hopefully, they can get to the bottom of this and fix it. Because the new DryMax technology would be pretty cool if they could figure out how to stop these painful reactions.

It’s a daily occurrence. I cannot escape it; I have learned to just hold my breath and deal with it. But now, I have something to tell you that’s even funnier than Nathan’s Pooping Episodes.

Can you believe it? Something that’s funnier than poop exploding from the back of a diaper?

So this story starts off with, you guessed it, poop. But it doesn’t end there.

I was changing Nathan’s diaper. A poop diaper. That had exploded with poop shooting of the back of his diaper and all over his back and his clothes. So I removed his soiled clothes and was holding his ankles with my left hand and cleaning up his mess with my right. It was CAKED all over his back, so I had to lift his legs high into the air in order to get his back clean.

Nathan was crying his poor little head off. I am apparently raising a baby cow because his poop sometimes has this pervasive manure-like smell, and the worse his poop smells, the more he seems to cry and protest when I change his diaper.

I don’t blame him. I don’t like smelling it, either.

So Nathan was crying up a storm while I was holding his legs and cleaning his back, when all of a sudden, he made this sound like a surprised yelp followed by a short gurgle. I put his legs down and noticed the poor little guy had smeared his tears all over his face and chest.

Wait a minute.

That wasn’t tears glistening on his face and chest. Or puddled around his head.

IT WAS PEE.  Huge puddles of Nathan Pee were everywhere. He was pretty much SWIMMING IN IT… it was all over his face, his torso, and arms. And his head was resting in a puddle. And remember how I said that I was in the process of cleaning Nathan up when this happened? WELL, I WASN’T DONE. So there was some pee that had run down onto his back, making the remaining poop this viscous, brown funk that smeared everywhere… and it was quite possibly the Grossest of All the Gross Grossnesses.

Don’t scoff at a pee-poop mixture. If you have yet to deal with this, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE IN FOR.

With a heavy sigh, because ya know, this kind of stuff always seems to happen, I cleaned up the entire mess and had Nathan dry and happy in a few minutes, and he seemed to forget about the whole ordeal in a matter of seconds.

But I will never forget. No, I will never forget the day that my son peed on his own face.