He was a little grey ball of fluff, sitting in the middle of the road.  He didn’t even budge when we went around him and pulled into the drive.  If I didn’t move him, a car would hit him.  Batty (so named because it was the day before Halloween) stole our hearts and soon found a home in our garage.

“Mommy, he needs some toys to play with,” was all it took before we were making these 2 DIY cat toys, perfect for the cat in your life. 

What’s great about these cat toys is you probably already have all the items you need to make kitty happy!   And, they are easy enough for a child to make.

Materials Needed for DIY Cat Wand Toys:

• Yarn
• Wood Dowel Rod (or un-sharpened pencil)
• Feathers

To Make the Feather Wand Toy:

• Measure enough yarn to touch the floor when you hold the wood dowel rod in your hand at a comfortable height.
• Tie one end of the yarn around your wood dowel rod.  (We used an un-sharpened pencil for ours.)
• Tie the other end around 2-3 feathers.

That’s it!

Your cat will love chasing the feathers or even just batting at them.

To Make the Pom-Pom Wand Toy:

This one is very similar, the only difference is you will be adding a pom-pom to the end of the yarn instead of a feather.

Don’t know how to make a pom-pom?

• First, wrap yarn around four fingers, as seen in the photo below.   For our pom-pom we wrapped it around 12 times.  For a fatter pom-pom, wrap it more.
• 
• Next, tie one end of your long piece of yarn around the middle of the pom-pom loops.  Make sure to double knot it and make it tight!
• 
• Finally, just use scissors to cut the loops.  And then you have your pom-pom wand toy for your cat.
• 

These 2 simple DIY cat toys have kept our kitten very entertained.  He loves to chase the pom-pom when my daughter runs, dragging it on the ground.  And my daughter is super proud she was able to make them all by herself.

They are the perfect DIY gift for any feline this holiday season! 

The post 2 DIY Cat Toys the Kids Can Make! first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

A few days ago I called and made an appointment for our cat to get her annual shots.

30 minutes before our appointment I went to the kitchen to get the kids a snack to eat in the car.  After all, hungry kids are no fun when running errands.

As I was packing yogurt-covered raisins into baggies, the kids grabbed hands and started playing a super-fast version of Ring-Around-the-Rosie.

Bam!

The next thing I knew the 3 year-old was crying, blood pouring from his mouth.  He had slipped on a cardboard sign they had made earlier and had left on the floor.

I scooped him up, tried to look in his mouth, and realized it was impossible to really see the issue.  To calm him down, and make it easier to assess the damage, I got a popsicle out of the freezer.  After a moment I took the popsicle and looked in his mouth:  the blood was coming from around his top front tooth.

Oh, no!  I thought…  Please, please don’t let his tooth be loose!  I started second-guessing my choice of pediatric dentists since ours is over an hour away…

I tried to wiggle it, and it seemed okay.  His tears were already drying as he asked for his popsicle back.

Figuring things were okay, I went to put a bag of old towels in the car that I planned to donate to the vet’s office.  I slammed the door to the car and, “Meooooowwwwwww!”

Remember how our cat loves cars, even after her near-death experience this summer?

You guessed it, I looked down and there was the cat, tip of her tail stuck in the door.

Quickly I opened the door and she ran across the garage.

I hesitantly walked over where she was, and she appeared no worse for wear.   At least we’re heading to the vet, I thought.

I went back inside, got the kids into their coats and loaded them into the car.  Now all I had to do was get the cat and we were good to go.

“Here, Kitty-Kitty….”  She came right to me, and I preceded to try to put her in the brand-new cat carrier.

To say she didn’t want in the carrier would be an understatement.  I swear her 4 legs went 8 different directions.  After a minute or so of wrestling, she twisted herself out of my grasp.

No problem, we’d just try again.

She came right back when I called, and again those legs were flailing, this time she hooked her claws into me, getting my hand pretty good.  Blood dripping, I called to the kids, “Mommy just has to put a band-aid on and then I’ll get the cat!”

Heck with the darn cat carrier!    When I was younger my mom and I always took my cat to the vet in a pillow case, twisted around at the top and held closed.  I’d do that!  I grabbed a pillowcase from the linen closet and returned to the scene.

This time she was wise to me.  I had to coax her from hiding with the laser pointer that she loves to chase.  Once I got her, I tried sitting her on the open pillowcase, her body twisting and turning like her life depended on it.  (I’m thinking this was easier when I was younger because one of us held the cat and one of us pulled the pillowcase up….)  Despite my grip on her, she was gone in seconds.

At this point I was thinking we needed to cancel the appointment.  After all, if you’ve been counting, 3 of us had injuries now, and we only had 5 minutes until our appointment time.

I had one more idea.  A box.  Before I got the cat carrier, the cat had gone in an old diaper box.  (I only got the carrier because the vet had suggested it.)

I raced inside and down the steps and grabbed on of the boxes.  Hmm…  It looked kind of small now that she was no longer a kitten.  Then a light bulb moment happened:  a storage tub!

You know what’s great about storage tubs?  They have a nice big opening at the top, and the lids snap on fast.

Once again the cat came out for that red dot she loves to chase.

Before she knew it, she was in that tub, and we were on the way to the vet.

The cat’s tail?  So far, it’s still okay, although the vet told me to watch it for the next 2 weeks.  If it start to get hard at the tip, we’ll have to go back and get it amputated.

I’ve already told the husband he gets to take the cat to the vet next time.  (Allergies or not, he’s got to have an easier time of it!)

What wild experiences have you had with taking pets to the vet?

The post Adventures of Taking the Cat to the Vet first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Today I am guest posting over at the wonderful natural parenting site of I Thought I Knew Mama.  Please take a moment and head her way to read my post:  To Sleep or Not to Sleep (a post about how my co-sleeping thoughts changed with our second child).

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Woof!

I mean, hi.  Every Thursday around here there’s a little thing called Thankful Thursday.

Well, this week I lucked out.  Just when my caretaker was about to start typing her post, the kids started squalling.  I finally get my chance to share my point of view.

Want to know what I’m thankful for?

• Air conditioning!  I mean, I am partly Siberian Husky after all.  Summer can be brutal, especially this year with so many days with temps over 90.
• My new squeak toy.  Yeah, I chewed it up in 10 minutes tops, but listening to that beautiful sound with each bite?  That was priceless.
• Messy kids.  Every day when they eat lunch, I know I’m going to get at least one juicy morsel.
• Laundry day.  She just matched up socks and lucky me, one of them had a big hole in it, which means it’s tug-of-war time!
• Oh, and cat food.  I could do without the furball in the garage.  But I have to say, her food is yum, yum, yummy!

Now you know what I’m thankful for this week.  Be a dear and toss me a couple puppy cookies and leave a comment letting my caretaker know what you’re thankful for — she loves comments even more than I like puppy cookies!

Or, if you have your own Thankful Thursday post, link it up!  Woof!

Shared on Black Tag Diaries

The post Fluffybutt’s Thankful Thursday first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.