It's a Hissy Cat!

It was approximately 6:30 this evening when the mayhem began. I was washing supper dishes. Lexi was finishing up her supper in her high chair. Liv was long gone from the kitchen...probably trying to escape cleanup duties. I asked Will to scrape his plate which he proceeded to do into the dog dish right outside our kitchen door.

That's when I hear him scream and yell in a very panicked voice, "There's a cat in the house! There's a CAT in the HOUSE!!!" We live on a farm and although we raise animals and care for them, we do NOT care to have any in our house.

Sugar and Lexi, one of the
non-hissy cats that live
on Primrose farm.

I look over toward my hysterical son and say, "It's OK buddy. It's just a kitten."

JUST a kitten. That would have never been uttered from my mouth if I would have known how much craziness the next 45 minutes would entail. 

I finish washing the couple of dishes I have left in the sink while Livi walks in to see what the commotion is about. "Why is there a cat in our house?"

Will is crying, "I didn't mean to, it was just an accident!" The kitten moves, probably to enjoy all of the food that Lexi has dumped off her tray, and Will screams.

I continue to calmly wash dishes. "It's OK buddy. It was just an accident. Why don't you try to get it out of the house? Walk behind it like you're herding the sheep."

Livi, who loves to help her daddy on the farm, eagerly steps up to herd the cat out of the house. As soon as she gets within a foot of it, it starts hissing and swiping at her. "It's a hissy cat! It's one of the HISSY ones!" She starts screaming and running around the kitchen which gets Will crying even more.

This is when I decide I better intervene. "Calm down guys," I say as I calmly turn off the water, wipe my hands on a towel and walk over to the little black and white kitten who is causing so much chaos. "You two stand over there so he doesn't run that way and I'm going to walk him to the door." I walk toward the kitten and he scurries under a chair, hissing at me. I jiggle the chair to get him moving and he scampers to the door a few feet but when I start to follow he turns and attacks, hissing and screeching as if I had pulled his claws out. This startles me so I scream which not only gets all three of my children screaming but scares the damn cat and it darts away across the kitchen.

And that's when the real fun begins because I can't find that darn thing. I can't find him anywhere. I look throughout the kitchen, bathroom, toy room and living room. No cat. I look upstairs. No cat. All the while my two older kids are following me around and screaming and Lexi is persistently calling, "Up! Up! Up!" while reaching out for me. 

"What are we going to do?!?!" Livi sobs as her and Will huddle together while standing on a chair. Vaguely this reminds me of myself the first time we had a mouse in our house and I laugh a little.

"It's not funny!" Will shrieks as tears are streaming down his cheeks.

"Livi, go call your dad. Will, calm down. He's not going to hurt you and we will find him." I try to reassure them as I lift Lexi out of her high chair. I continue to look for the cat as Will clings to me and Lexi demands to be held. Livi is sobbing on the phone to Brad, "You have to come inside because there is a cat in here and Mommy can't find him!" I can almost hear Brad's heavy sigh on the other side of the line. Livi hangs up and joins our posse as we peer under dressers, desks, couches, chairs. I really can't do this effectively with two children who are panicked and another who just wants some attention.

Sugar following the kids on
a hike. Hope they will still
love him despite the terror
his buddy caused tonight.

Brad comes in the house and I can tell he is not happy. He looks at me, "You lost a cat in here?" 

"I was trying to get him out of the house when he darted past me and I didn't see where he went." I leave out the part about me flippantly letting the kids handle it at first. "The kids are freaked out and I can't really look for him while they are clinging to me." 

Brad grabs a flashlight and marches around the house covering the same territory I already covered. I can tell he's a little exasperated with us all so I corral the kids into the living room. Will sits on my lap and continues to cry, "What if we can't find the cat and I go to sleep and it jumps up on my bed?" I give him a hug and tell him, "We'll find him buddy." And I feel so bad because he's not really afraid of the cats but seeing me scream has put him over the edge. He's definitely afraid of THIS hissy cat that we can't seem to find anywhere. And I start to think, what if we can't find him before bed? And I get a little panicky too!

Just then, Brad calls out, "Found him!" I lock the kids, who have calmed down a little, into the living room with the baby gate. Brad is gingerly pulling my pots and pans out from a cupboard and I hear little hisses coming from deep inside. I must have left a door open when I got a pot out to cook supper. Brad coaxes him out of the cupboard and he orders me to stay in a certain spot. Hmmm...this is the same exact thing I said to the kids. "Don't let him get past you." Yeah, that worked so well the last time.

We manage to get the kitten out of the door with no injuries to human or cat...just lots of hissing. By the time the cat's out the door, the kids are laughing at us like we are lunatics. "Yay! Daddy saved the day!" I applaud as Brad rolls his eyes at me.

So our children are sleeping soundly now that the cat has been released back onto the farm and is no longer terrorizing our house. I'm just wondering if he'll be terrorizing any dreams tonight. Here's hoping we have cat-less dreams and no more intruders tonight.