Paris weekend

I'm in Paris for the weekend - ALONE!  I'm in a friend's studio apartment. BY MYSELF.  I left DH alone with the kittens and the girls and a prayer. Oh, and a houseful of guests that he's pretty sure are mob related.  And he's allergic to the kittens. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.  True, getting out of Bonvicino is not the easiest (for someone like me who doesn't like to drive) - driving our car that is truly on its last legs, an hour and a half at 5am to the train station in Turin.  I alternated between keeping the windows open and turning on some heat to try and balance freezing with the windshield which seems perpetually fogged. When I got to Turin, I gave up and just drove with my head out the window, like a dog.

But now I am here and it is pure heaven. Paris is in perfect fall weather.  Sunny skies, cool but not cold and I am totally totally alone.  Last night, as I heard neighbors going up and down the stairs, I had to remind myself that I wasn't at home and that it wasn't the sound of tiny feet running into my bedroom. Hard to get used to not being on edge thinking any minute someone is going to burst into the door in a dramatic fit of hysterics.

So while I am luxuriating in total privacy, DH is at home making pain au chocolat with the girls while braiding their dolls' hair. That is a super Papa.

Apparently he put them to work!

Sick kids, clingy kittens

Kids home sick.  I feel like I have been on house arrest for days.  Hubbie is hosting an all-guy wine and food fete for the past four days and, thrilled as I am that they're having a great time, I'm more than a WEE bit envious that they are frolicking away, while I am on lock down with children.  Once I am able to pry the velcro kids off me, I get to run down to the back of our house to the laundry machine and do a load - which of course takes no less than 2 hours to do 2 bedsheets in the tiny European machine.  Washing the kids' linens takes all day, not to mention attacking the pile of dirty clothes.

Meanwhile, the kittens have pooped on their bed blanket again, so that needs a wash as well.  Then, while the kids are distracted with a Barbie movie (no comment please, you gotta use whatever works when you are on 24 hour duty), I get to run a vacuum quickly over the rooms they aren't near (before Bimba screams "mama! I hate that noise!" and persists in unplugging the vacuum).  A quick wash of the toilets and sinks…I feel I have truly sunk to a new depth when a sparkling clean sink feels like an accomplishment to me.

After taking care of the sickie children, I had the sitter come for 2 hours so I could escape  to the supermarket (what does it mean when supermarket shopping solo feels like a holiday retreat?) and spent the rest of my time figuring out how to insulate the kittens' house so that they will sleep in there instead of on our doorstep.  Honestly, I feel up to my eyeballs in kid care, and now the kittens seem to think I am their mama.  I lure them into their cozy little house, only to find them right back on our doorstep. We can't let them in because Hubbie is allergic.

 had no idea how much poop four kittens could put out.  Frankly, having no previous experience with cats, I just figured they would do their business out and about and occasionally come by for a meal.  Today I noticed that one was missing.  Fortunately, the girls didn't notice (as I was trying to work out how I would explain a missing kitten).  Tonight I heard it purring and found that it had managed to get into the downstairs apartment.

Which is why I am now finally getting to post at 11:30, after repeatedly putting sick children back into various beds, and checking on the various kittens.  Honestly, sometimes I wonder what it's like for other moms.  Ooooops…gotta go now. I hear someone purring. And another one crying.  Oy.

Kittens

We  have four new kittens - I took pity on them because my friend's cat had a litter so now we have four darling kittens but they can't come inside bc DH is allergic so they are huddled outside the door which breaks my heart. I feel awful that they aren't with their mama. I have enough separation anxiety coming from my own kids, going to school etc and now I have four motherless baby kittens whom I can't even bring inside from the rain and cold.  I set up the girls' old playhouse as the cat house, with a tarp and blanket, but they prefer to huddle outside the froont door on the door mat and it breaks my heart. What to do? My neighbor just told me I have to get all the cats neutered.  OY! I have enough tramatic freakouts from my own kids about going to the doctor. Now I have to take cats?  Honestly, between Bambina's morning wake up call of  "MAMA!!! I doooooon't want to go to school," and the kittens' orphaned state,

I feel emotionally drained.