tooth fairy for cats

when you become a parent, you find yourself having to do all kinds of gross things that involve another person's body. of course there's the diaper changing, but there's also ear cleaning, nail trimming, diaper rash cream application, sliver pulling, vomit wiping, booger picking... the list is practically endless & even though it's gross, we do it because we love our kids & it's not like they can do it themselves. helpless mites that they are, they need us to cleanse & pick them so that they'll look & smell better.

recently, i've found myself in this same roll all over again, but not with my child. it's with my baby kitty. i've had several cats since i've been an adult & i've cleaned up barf, scooped litter pans & clipped nails for years. no big deal. but this new baby is a long haired girl & that's a whole different story.

i didn't know that long haired cats have to get the fur between their paw pads trimmed so that you can get to the nails to clip them. that's a big job because girlfriend does NOT like me to be messing with her feet. i have to hold her down to do any of her grooming, which unfortunately includes cleaning her disgusting ears. i've never had a cat with ear issues, but this girl has them.

then there's the issue of her butt. did you know that you have to clip the hair off all around a cat's butt area? otherwise you get dingleberry dilemmas and that's pretty freakin gross. i have to hold her, butt up & trim her with kiddie safety scissors (they work better than any other pair in the house for cutting hair. go figure!) while she bites & claws at any part of me she can reach.

well tonight we came to a whole new kind of cat maintenance. we've known for a while now that nim's baby teeth were starting to fall out because we'll see spaces in her mouth. brooke loves to look at animals' teeth, so she's frequently digging into her mouth to have a look around and tonight we discovered that one of her little baby fangs (as can be seen in the picture here when they first came in) was very loose. brooke's been wanting to find a baby kitty tooth & save it for posterity & since we haven't discovered any yet & the new big teeth are almost all in, she thought this might be our last shot. she asked me to trap nim & pull that tooth out before it had the chance to get lost in the rug or digested with her food.

gulp. the things we do for our kids & pets. i got the cat flipped over & pinned in my armpit, pried her furry lips apart & yanked the baby tooth right out of her mouth.

it's now nestled down into the weird little tooth cemetery box with all of brooke's baby teeth. and i bet you can figure out the last question i heard as i tucked my girls in.......

"is the tooth fairy going to come tonight?"

for this face? yeah, probably.