Mine mine mine, all mine

sing it with me...holiday-ay!

To celebrate, a haiku:

a four-day weekend
might almost be enough to
give me strength to live.

Last night we attempted to take Drew to a baseball game.  The Greenville Drive was playing a home game, and my boss graciously gave us all tickets. Wow. A free outing!

Well, except for having to pay $10 to park. So, OK. A $10 outing.

Oh, but the game didn't start until 7 p.m., and Drew needed to eat before then, so we had to stop at Zaxby's to get him some chicken fingers. And of course, Drew can't eat chicken fingers alone. I'm sure that would have made him feel terrible and, you know, all self-conscious. So, OK. $10 for parking and $10 for food. Now we have a $20 outing.

I won't mention the side trip to Old Navy, in which I purchased myself a new pair of shorts that I didn't realize were of the "ultra-low waist" variety until I got home. (yes, i bought them without trying them on in the store and i therefore deserve whatever calamity may befall me)

We arrived at the stadium, excited to show Drew his first glimpse of a real, live baseball game. At which point Drew went into full-blown toddler tantrum mode.

Fine, except that I'm surrounded by co-workers (and supervisors) who are holding their own perfectly mannered and perfectly groomed children and watching my sweaty son scream and squirm and do that thing where I try to hold his hand and he twists out of my grasp and hurls himself to the ground, screaming, "NO! NO! NO MAMA NO!'

"Drew," I hiss, desperately. "You. Must. Hold. My. Hand."

"NOOOOOOO!" (twist. squirm. fall.)

Sheepish grin at my co-workers, most of whom are smiling in sympathy but a few of whom are shooting me annoyed looks (the childless ones...they'll learn...oh yes...and I'll laugh and laugh), and my frantic and totally lame explanation of  "Oh, he's just a little tired! Poor guy!"

"MAMA! NOOOOOOOOOOO!", as I'm grabbing for his sweat-damp hand and trying to smile and also trying to make sure his struggles don't pull my tank top down so far that I accidentally flash my co-workers.

We stayed at the game for 15 minutes. Yup. We got to see the national anthem being sung, and the first two pitches, and then we were out of there.

$48.50 for 15 minutes of a ballgame, some fattening chicken that made me sick later and a pair of shorts that I can't decently wear in public.

At least I have a four-day weekend in which to erase it all from my memory.

hey ya'll, watch this

My mom sent me this in an email, and most of it is so true it's eerie:

You know you are from Georgia if....(and a lot of these could apply to all Southern states)

1. You can properly pronounce Chickamauga, DeKalb, Dahlonega, Buena Vista, Valdosta, Okefenokee and La Fayette.
Who can't?

2. You think people who complain about the heat in their states are sissies.
They are. It's only really hot if you get second-degree burns from walking on the pavement barefoot. Otherwise, it's just warm.

3. A tornado warning siren is your signal to go out in the yard and look for a funnel.
Sadly, I never saw one.

4. You know that the true value of a parking space is not determined by the distance to the door, but by the availability of shade.
So true! Nobody wants to get scalded by their seatbelt buckle.

5. You think everyone from a Yankee state has an accent.
Well, they talk funny, that's for sure.

6. You measure distance in minutes.
How far away is it? About 10 minutes.

7. You know cowpies are not made of beef.
Eww.

8. Someone you know has used a football schedule to plan their wedding date.
I totally know someone who did this. I also know several people who got mad at my first wedding because it was during football season.

9. Almost everyone you know is either Baptist or Methodist.
Or a former Baptist or Methodist, yep. Those are the biggest churches, too.

10. A Mercedes Benz isn't a status symbol. A Chevy Silverado Extended Bed Crew Cab is.
And yes, I totally want one.

11. You know everything goes better with Ranch dressing.
Carrots, potato chips, baked potatoes, french fries, celery...yeah, Ranch makes everything better.

12. You learned how to shoot a gun before you learned how to multiply.
I still have trouble with multiplication.

13. On one side of the road, there's a Wal-Mart, and on the other is a cotton field.
Or a cow pasture, either one.

14. The directions to your house include "turn off the paved road..."
Only because we couldn't afford to have them pave the whole driveway.

15. "Ya'll" is a word.
It's in the dictionary, therefore...

16. Krispy Kreme donuts are the only kind of donuts you eat.
Actually, if you're going to eat fried dough dipped in sugar and chocolate, I don't think it really matters who makes it. It's still going to kill you.

17. You call it a cold Christmas if you don't break out in a sweat in your new sweater.
Yeah, I usually can't wear my new sweaters until February.

18. Your whole town completely shuts down for 1 inch of snow or just the threat of snow.
And every grocery store runs out of bread and milk within five minutes of a snowstorm warning.

19. You know the difference between a hillbilly, a redneck, and a Southerner.
Everybody knows this. Don't they?

20. Panama City Beach is a big deal.
We went there every summer with the church youth group. You're damn straight it was a big deal.

21. You understand that at least once a year your car will turn yellow with pollen.
I wish it was only once a year.

22. You say, "tuna fish sandwich."
I don't get this one. It's got tuna fish in it and it's a sandwich, what else would you call it?

23. And finally, are 100% Georgian if you have ever had this conversation:
"You wanna coke?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

adjustment aplenty

Adjustment #1 - Drew's a 2

Drew moved to a new room at his daycare this week - out of the toddler room and into the K2 room.

In a flash, he went from being the biggest kid in the room to being one of the smallest.

It didn't seem to phase him. He doesn't care who has the shiny dump truck toy - a defenseless 8-month-old or a burly three-year-old - if he wants it, he's by-God going to take it.

I think he's going to be fine, though. His new teacher, Miss Shannon, seems very sweet, and for goodness sake, she reads the Bible during her breaks. How bad can she be?

I think this is going to be more of an adjustment for me than it is for Drew.

Adjustment #2 - adventures with appliances

This one, fortunately, was a short-lived adjustment. For three days this past week, we had to adjust to life without a dishwasher. I feel much less motivated to cook, by the way, when I know we have to wash all the dishes by hand afterwards. Yes, I'm spoiled by technology. That's what it's there for - to make my life easier.

Anyway, what happened to our dishwasher? My husband happened, that's what.

I'm in the living room, hanging with Drew after dinner. Charles is in the kitchen, purportedly cleaning up after dinner.

"Oh crap, Amy. Keep Drew out of the kitchen."

"Um. OK. Why?"

"Just do it. Don't ask why. And don't look."

"Oh, no, you can't do me that way. I'm coming in there."

With Drew in tow, I turn the corner into the kitchen, and am greeted by the sight of Charles frantically trying to mop up about six inches of suds from the floor. Our dishwasher looks like it's possessed - suds spewing everywhere from every crevice.

Drew thought it was the greatest - he was struggling to get down so he could go play in it. It was like his bathtub - only in the kitchen! How cool is that!

Turns out Charles used liquid dishwashing soap - you know, the kind you use in the sink - in the dishwasher because we had run out of powder detergent.

"Did you know you weren't supposed to use that stuff in the dishwasher?" he asked me.

"Honey," I replied gently. "Everybody knows not to use that stuff in the dishwasher."

The up side is that now our kitchen floor is really, really clean. Seriously, you could eat off of it.

The down side is that apparently once you've put liquid sink soap in a dishwasher, it starts to mutate and grow fruitful and multiply, so that every time you use the dishwasher from then on, it continues to spew suds about the kitchen floor.

Charles, being Internet-savvy if not kitchen-appliance-savvy, did a Google search on dishwashers that won't stop foaming at the mouth.

"My first hit was a page about what to do if you used liquid dish soap in your dishwasher," he told me. "So ha ha on you, apparently everyone does not know not to do that."

Turns out we needed to buy a de-foaming agent, like the kind used in hot tubs, in order to encourage our dishwasher to stop freaking out about the liquid sink soap.

Adjustment #3 - still church-shopping

Ugh, this is worse than car shopping.

We've been trying to find a good church for about a year now. We'll go through spurts of going to a different church every Sunday (or maybe we'll go to the same one twice or three times) and then we'll give up and turn into Godless heathens for a few months before we start trying again.

This past Sunday we tried a Presbyterian church. Neither of us had ever been to a Presbyterian church before, so we thought it might be interesting to try something new.

The service was fine, very similar to the Methodist church I grew up in, but about halfway through, the pastor started bashing Israel. It was subtle, he wasn't foaming at the mouth or doing anything crazy, but he was definitely making a political statement.

Now, yes, I am a conservative, but even if this pastor had also been conservative, I still would have been put off, because I believe that the pulpit is no place for politics.

I go to church to learn more about God and Christianity and to fellowship with other Christians. I don't go to church to learn about current events or to discuss political beliefs. I can do all that by watching the news, reading the Internet and posting on political message boards.

Drew liked the nursery, though, so that was a plus. Maybe we should just start judging our churches by their nurseries - that would make things a lot easier.

my commute

Usually I don't notice it so much - my commute - because my husband and I typically carpool to work and back home. We're talking with each other and with Drew and the 40-minute drive doesn't seem that bad. (plus sometimes I get to sleep since Charles likes to drive...)

The past week and a half, though, Charles has been attending his annual training for the National Guard. His commute still takes 40 minutes, but it's in the opposite direction to the armory, so we've had to take two cars.

Drew is a wonderful companion, but he usually falls asleep after 15 minutes in the car, so then he ceases to be an amusing conversationalist (saying "vroom" whenever a car passes us and "moooo" whenever we drive past a field of cows) and starts snoring, which makes me really sleepy.

So, I've had a lot of time to think lately.

One thing I've been thinking about is four-way stops. I don't think that anybody in the free world really knows how four-way stops are supposed to work. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to involve both drivers gesturing "go ahead" at the same time, followed by an intricate dance of starts and stops.

I'm almost positive that there's some kind of rule about who goes first at a four-way stop. Is it the person with the most expensive car? The best-looking driver? Wasn't there a question about this on my driver's license test?

Another thing I've been musing on is the movie 'Rent'. Had the chance to borrow it from Nan and watched most of it last week. I have to admit, my primary thought during the entire film was that if these people would get into rehab and go out and get real jobs, their lives would probably be a whole lot better. I mean, if your power is getting cut off in the middle of winter, it's time to stop whining about your Art and start doing something that someone will actually pay you for.

Nan also loaned me the first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though, so that helped. A cheerleader who kicks vampire ass and never breaks a nail? Now that's escapism at its finest. And hey, lazy Rent people, Buffy goes to school during the day and slays vampires all night. You could learn something from her.

I wonder if I need to start watching more prime-time TV. I have never, not once, watched an episode of American Idol. Not even half an episode. Not even the opening credits. Yes, I am an Idol virgin. When people talk about it at work, my eyes glaze over.

This is not some kind of cause or movement or rebellion on my part - it's just an utter lack of interest. I'm a nonconformist, but only through sheer indifference. Should I conform? Am I depriving myself, and by association, my child, of significant social advances because of my lack of attention to popular culture? Will one day children jeer at my son and call him "That boy whose mom has never watched American Idol" ?

I recently tried to get involved in a local mom's meetup club, so I could get to know some other parents in the area, but it seems like 90 percent of the other moms in the group are stay-at-home moms.  So, obviously, all their meet-ups tend to be during the daytime hours during the week. The whole thing is depressing the crap out of me and I'm thinking about dropping the whole idea and just continuing my hermit-like existence.

Then I think, what I really need to do is make some more friends who don't have any children but who still like children and are thinking about having them one day, so that then they'll agree to babysit Drew for me, you know, as practice.

But then again, do I really want people practicing on Drew?

Don't you wish adults could make friends as easily as our children do? I could just go up to some random adult in the mall, hand her a toy car and have a new best buddy...at least for the day. We could go see a chick flick together and eat sushi.

As you can see, this solitary commuting is not doing wonders for my anxiety level. I can't wait to get back to my old, normal, sleep-if-I-want-to commute.

Oh, and by the way Liz, damn you to hell for showing me this. How am I supposed to get any real work done now?

Happy father's day and various ramblings

If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right. - Bill Cosby

Allow me to wax sentimentally about the daddies in my life.

First, there's my dad. Poor guy. Father to three girls.

There's a theory that a bunch of women who live together will eventually all share the same monthly cycle - something to do with hormones or pheromones or some other type of -mones, anyway, I have no idea what's supposed to cause this. Point being, this did not work in our family. Nope. I think we all cycled at completely different times, the result being that, at any given time in our family, at least one of us had PMS, was just recovering from PMS or was just about to start PMS-ing.

My dad couldn't just leave the house during these bouts, because he would have had to stay gone FOREVER.

Poor, beleaguered dad.

But growing up with three girls made him quite multitalented. One week, you'd find him coaching our softball team and the next week you'd find him braiding our hair into buns for a ballet recital. (and he didn't pull our scalps nearly as much as mom did). One week he's trying to teach us how to mow the lawn and the next he's watching patiently as we parade around in our prom dresses. ("you are going to wear a jacket with that, right?")

Dad, who grew up in the country, felt that a day without a hot breakfast was doomed to failure. I'm not talking a bowl of oatmeal, either. I'm talking he cooked us scrambled eggs, grits, sausage and bacon and toast with jelly. He still does, whenever we go visit. As an angst-ridden teenager, I just wanted a Pop-Tart and to get the hell out the door. Sorry, daddy. I love your cheese grits, I really do!

Dad's idea of waking us girls up in the morning was to flip on all the overhead lights, grab us by our ankles and yank us unceremoniously onto the floor, running quickly into the next daughter's room, followed by yells of "Moo-oom! Make him staawww-oopp!"

Nowadays, he gets at least four phone calls per week between the three of us. When we want sympathy or we just need to gripe or cry, we ask for Mom. But when we need something fixed, we ask for Dad. From the strange knocking noise our car is making to the water leaking from our dishwasher, if he can't fix it, he'll at least pretend that he can.

Then there's my husband, the world's second-best dad.

Charles was not fortunate enough to grow up with any good role models for fatherhood. It is a sign of his intelligence and his maturity that he has created in himself such perfect daddyness.

There is not a single messy chore of parenthood that Charles is above doing. He has awakened in the middle of the night to comfort his sobbing son, he has changed the messy diapers, cleaned up the mayhem left behind by the bout with a stomach bug and dealt with being covered in milky drool during that reflux phase when Drew was an infant.

It's obvious that nothing is more important to Charles than spending time with his son - not work, not hunting or fishing, not going out with the guys or drinking or, well, anything.

Drew has and will continue to grow up knowing that he tops the list of the most important things in his dad's life.  Drew will probably take that for granted as he gets older and starts his bid for independence, but that's OK. By the time he's our age, he'll realize what a gift he has - a dad who, like my dad, is there for him no matter what.

---------------------------------------------

Quite a smorgasbord of questions on Monday Madness this week:

1. How many cop shows can you name?
Um, let's see: Cops, Law & Order (I'm not going to cheat and name all the offshoots either), CSI, Miami Vice, CHiPs (I'm dating myself!), Starsky & Hutch...that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
2. Do you send text messages?
No, ugh, text messages would just be another way for people to bother me.
3. If you could be on a gameshow (current or old), which one would you be on and why?
Oh, I would be on Family Feud. I could totally name 10 things found in a diaper bag or 10 famous Georges.
4. What are some of your favorite websites?
For news, I like Drudge Report and Fox News. For entertaining news, I like The Smoking Gun. For news commentary, I like Michelle Malkin. For humor, I prefer IMAO. And to find out if that email about the girl who went missing yesterday is true, I like Snopes.
5. What are your favorite things about the internet?
I can do a search for something wonky like "man-eating marsupial" and actually come up with something interesting.
6. What about least favorite?
The search for "man-eating marsupial" also gives me approximately 4,597 pages of porn.
7. What are some good ways to deal with a pet loss?
Have a memorial, and don't let anybody tell you you're silly for doing so. Allow yourself to grieve.

Say it with me...Dada...D A D A

A conversation with Drew:

Drew: Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama

Me: Yes, my sunshine? What can I do for you?

Drew: (smile) Mama.

Me: Yes, darling?

Drew: (frown) Mama. Mama. Mama! Mama! Mama! MAMA! MAMA!

Me: OK Drew...what is it?

Drew: (pointing off into space) MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!

Me: For the love of...Drew...what, already? What?

Drew: Mama. MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!

Me: What for chrissake? What? Say something else! Something that resembles ANYTHING that might be even REMOTELY similar to what you want!

Drew: (long pause)

Mama?

Me: (frantically) I'll bet Dada can help you with it! Let's ask Dada! Say it with me! DA - DA. DA - DA.

Drew: (giggle, which rapidly turns to discontent)

Mama! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!

Charles: Heh. I think he wants you to do it, whatever it is.

Me: Oh really? Do you really think that? do you? HUH MR. SMARTY, DO YOU REALLY?

Drew: (in the background, ceaselessly) mama mama mama mama mama mama mama mama

haven't done this in a while

Monday Madness

1. I have a picture of _____ on my computer desktop.
What do you think? It's a picture of Drew - the one of him sitting on the bench at the playground.

2. There are _____ pictures hanging on my living room walls.
Three. One really big one and two smaller ones.

3. My big goal for this week is to _____.
Not run out of money.

4. I plan to visit _____ blogs this week.
too many

5. The weather we're having right now is _____.
hot. So very very hot.

6. I really should _____ more often.
post here

oh look - a tater tot - on the floor

Went to visit middle sis Jenn this weekend. Charles had National Guard drill, and I didn't much feel like spending the weekend alone with a toddler, joyous though he is.

Sister Jenn and her husband live in a sprawling subdivision containing approximately 400 bajillion very beautiful houses with perfectly landscaped yards and one of the biggest community swimming pools I've ever seen. I swear the pool took up at least like four city blocks.

Well anyway. It was big.

It is to this pool that Drew, Jenn and I adjourned Saturday afternoon. At first, Drew seemed overwhelmed by the sheer volume of water present, but he soon lost all inhibitions and began clamoring for me and Aunt Jenn to LET GO of him already and let him SWIM on his OWN dammit.

I almost let go of him just to watch him sink like a rock to the bottom and hopefully teach him a little lesson about wanting to do everything himself, but 1) I was worried about his ear tubes and 2) I didn't want to get arrested.

I don't think he would have cared, though. He regularly dunks himself under water in the bathtub and it doesn't seem to faze him in the least.

After about three hours at the pool, we went back to Jenn and hubby's house and took nice, long naps before grilling out hamburgers for dinner. At this point, I realized that Jenn's husband Paul is probably not quite ready for the messiness that is a child. (which is fun, since he's going to have one of his own in 7.5 months)

Paul is a very neat, very fastidious sort of person. Every time Drew dropped a bit of food on the floor, (which occurred approximately every 2.7 seconds) Paul flinched a little bit. To his credit, he made a great effort to go with the flow and laugh it off.

"Ha ha! He dropped a bit of burger on the floor!"

(pause)

"Look at that! It's on the floor! A little bit of burger! On my floor! Isn't that funny? Ha ha!"

(pause)

"Oh look! He dropped a tater tot too! Right there on the floor! Ha!"

Jenn, being quite practical, simply called her dogs over to clean up the mess. Dogs put up with children just for this very fringe benefit.

Anyway, Paul is cool. We watched a cheesy zombie movie together after Jenn went to bed (first trimester fatigue - don't envy her a bit) and laughed at all the gory bits.

Drew didn't want to go to sleep at first - it being an unfamiliar place and him having to sleep in his Pack-N-Play since Jenn and Paul don't have their proper crib yet - but Aunt Jenn did a fabulous job of back-rubbing and lullaby-singing (and I didn't even have to bribe her! she volunteered!) and he eventually dozed off.

Sunday morning we went to Sunday School, ate out at Red Lobster after (more food dropping and Paul-flinching - this time there was applesauce involved! tres messy! much flinching!) and then stopped by my parents on the way back home to South Carolina.

Jenn has pictures held hostage in her digital camera. Will post them when I meet her ransom demands.

flatulence aplenty

I have lived a sheltered life.

Until this past weekend, I had never shared my bed with a large dog. (unless you count one of my ex-boyfriends, but calling him a dog would be an insult to all canine-kind - if you're reading this, you know who you are...) And until this past weekend, I had never known what it was like to be trapped in a room surrounded by four very large farting machines.

Well, there was that time in college, but I think it was a sorority hazing incident, which I'm pretty sure is why I became an independent.

Anyway.

Those dogs could flat out release some gas. I'm talking flatulence that could rupture your eyeballs.

What the hell is she yammering on about? My trip to Gatlinburg for Mountain Hounds '06 is what.

This is an annual gathering of greyhounds and their housekeeping staff (i.e. owners), for the purpose of random butt-sniffing. Amongst the greyhounds. Not the staff.

It was a lot of fun other than the farting. I finally made Nancy go buy an economy-sized can of Lysol air freshener, so then the hotel room smelled a little less like doggie ass and a little more like doggie ass in a giant lemon tree grove.

And, despite my initial proclamations to the contrary, I did finally break down and let one of Nancy's dogs share my bed with me. Profile was quite gentlemanly - he pretty much stayed on his side of the bed and he only slobbered on me once, which is way more than I can say for my husband.

Here are the offenders. From the left, Nancy's dogs Profile and Jeannie, my dog Simon and Nancy's dog Hunk.

Here's Nan with her crew - Hunk is gazing fondly at her as if to say, "Don't hate me because I'm stinky."

Here's me and Nan and the zoo, preparing to go for a walk through downtown Gatlinburg with about 200 other greys and their owners. And there was much butt sniffage. Again, not the owners.

And here are the doggies in Nan's SUV on the way home. The way home that should have taken three hours, but instead took six because Nan let me navigate - a mistake I'm sure she will never make again.

In my defense, the map we were using was made by MapQuest, which is unholy and not of our Lord.

I'll also have you know that despite four dogs in a hotel room for two days and two nights, there was not a single unseemly loss of bladder control. Not one. Again, we're talking about the dogs here, people, keep up.

In other news, Drew had his ear ventilation tube surgery yesterday.

I was a nervous wreck, but he was completely oblivious. The only concern he had was that he couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight, and his surgery wasn't until 9 a.m. As soon as the surgery was over, we took him to Stax Omega for grits, eggs and toast, and it was as if nothing had happened. Amazing.

My heart squeezed quite a bit when I saw the nurse carrying him off to the surgery room, he with his stuffed Tigger doll tucked under his arm. He looked so innocent and trusting. He didn't know mommy and daddy were going to let him get gassed to sleep so a doctor could poke holes into his eardrums.

I hope the cheesy grits made up for it a little bit.

privacy and other ramblings

Have you ever had to resort to pretending like you had to use the bathroom just to get a little bit of peace and quiet?

It's devious, I know, but I've done it. So has my husband. He denies it, but I know he's sitting in there reading a magazine way past the time he's done with his business. I know because that's what I've been doing.

Sometimes I'll flush, so it sounds like I actually used the bathroom for its intended purpose and not as an escape hatch, but more and more often lately I don't even bother. He knows what I'm doing - why be coy?

Drew is becoming increasingly independent.

It's great when he can amuse himself without too much intervention from us, it's great when he can walk by himself when my hands are full and it's really great that he can feed himself.

It's not great when he decides that, because he can walk by himself, he should walk by himself...all the time. He should never ever be carried or placed in a stroller or a grocery cart. Sure, he walks fine, but the tiniest pebble or the skinniest crack can pose problems for his as-yet not-fully-developed sense of balance.

On one hand, I want to encourage his independence, but on the other hand, I don't want to spend four and a half hours in the grocery store.

His newest phrase (yes, he's using phrases now!) is "All gone", which he uses to mean either "Give me more" or "Stop force-feeding me, I'm done eating this swill you call dinner." Obviously it's quite a trick figuring out which one he means.

This weekend, I'm heading off to Gatlinburg with my friend Nan - we're attending a greyhound festival called Mountain Hounds.

I've been trying to fatten up my greyhound Simon, who is about five pounds underweight, by feeding him more table scraps and a whole bunch of peanut butter. (Gee, I wish I had his problems.)

I think it's working, but it's hard to tell since I see him every day. All I know is, the first person who implies that I'm not taking care of him because he's so skinny is going to get a kick in the teeth.
You try fattening up a dog who won't even eat peanut butter. What kind of animal doesn't like peanut butter? It's peanutty, it's buttery...it's delicious! It's very refreshing! (bonus points if you can guess which TV show I'm paraphrasing there - no, Charles, you don't get to play.)

And a final question - anybody have any advice on how to get Drew to stop trying to use the cat as a pillow? It doesn't help that our cat is so stupid he can't figure out how to run away from Drew. We'll pull Drew off of him, and the dumb feline just sits there, yowling.

Charles and I are both like, "Run, stupid cat, run" and the cat's like..."Wha...?" and by that time, Drew has managed to escape and sit on him again.

I think the cat secretly enjoys the attention. Maybe he's a masochist.