My cat, Sybil, has sensitive skin. From time to time, she breaks out in an unattractive rash around her ears or collar-line. Recently we had to take her to the V-E-T to have these bumps checked, because they looked quite annoying and painful.

After chastising me for the 43rd time to get my cat's teeth cleaned (a $150 procedure which involves sedation - no thanks, she can have tartar), the V-E-T informed me that Sybil's bumps were actually infected and would require a cortizone shot and twice-a-day, icky, pink, liquid antibiotic to be administered, of course, by me, since my husband gets to run off all day to that la-la land we like to call a "job."

Sybil was pensive on the ride home, no doubt nursing her shot wound and planning her counterattack. Sure enough, within three hours of arriving back at her rat hole, she had peed on the futon. We countered with a non-response, understanding her pain. The next day, she effortlessly switched gears and began waiting until after I had stuffed her with pink stuff and returned downstairs to feed the little angel before puking in not one, not two but three gridded areas of the carpeting. Mind you, over half my house has oh-so-easy-to-clean hard-wood floors. This exercise has been repeated with the EXACT SAME GRID AREAS PUKED UPON for the past two days. Today as I approached Grid Area One, I saw her sitting on the sink smirking, with her little kitty eyes saying: "Bring It, Mommy. I was here first."

My cat, Sybil, has sensitive skin. From time to time, she breaks out in an unattractive rash around her ears or collar-line. Recently we had to take her to the V-E-T to have these bumps checked, because they looked quite annoying and painful.

After chastising me for the 43rd time to get my cat's teeth cleaned (a $150 procedure which involves sedation - no thanks, she can have tartar), the V-E-T informed me that Sybil's bumps were actually infected and would require a cortizone shot and twice-a-day, icky, pink, liquid antibiotic to be administered, of course, by me, since my husband gets to run off all day to that la-la land we like to call a "job."

Sybil was pensive on the ride home, no doubt nursing her shot wound and planning her counterattack. Sure enough, within three hours of arriving back at her rat hole, she had peed on the futon. We countered with a non-response, understanding her pain. The next day, she effortlessly switched gears and began waiting until after I had stuffed her with pink stuff and returned downstairs to feed the little angel before puking in not one, not two but three gridded areas of the carpeting. Mind you, over half my house has oh-so-easy-to-clean hard-wood floors. This exercise has been repeated with the EXACT SAME GRID AREAS PUKED UPON for the past two days. Today as I approached Grid Area One, I saw her sitting on the sink smirking, with her little kitty eyes saying: "Bring It, Mommy. I was here first."

Apparently, more than one thing in life can be faked.

My little angel awoke this morning at five for her usual bottle of Liquid Sleep. I prepared it groggily, but I know I made the right amount. We sat in the rocker, I popped in the bottle and tried to go back to sleep (this is impossible sitting upright with a wiggling twelve-pounder in your lap). After about ten minutes passed, I peered down through the fishy-nightlight glow to see the little angel sucking away. Satisfied, I tried head rolls to work out the cramp in my neck from perpetually cocking my head to the left during feedings to see if the bubbles in the bottle are going down her little throat.

Ten more minutes. Strangely, the level in the bottle didn't seem to be changing. I pulled it out and checked the rain-gauge on the bottle. Sure enough, she hadn't eaten a drop in twenty minutes. NOT A DROP. I popped it back in her mouth. She smiled, batting her newly-grown red eyelashes at me. Through the corners of her smile, I saw she was just bobbing the nipple up and down, NOT ACTUALLY SUCKING.

So it just goes to show, people will fake anything to be held.

I once thought I could understand my daughter's eating schedule. For a while, it was every two hours, then every two and a half, then we tried Enfamil (or "liquid sleep," as my husband calls it), and it became every three or four. Then she clicked over the six-week milestone and it became "whenever the baby damn well wants to eat."

I try to be cool about it. Today baby and I went to visit my friend J. and her son, who is three weeks younger than my little angel. J. runs marathons, so she was eager to start walking again at roughly a month after giving birth to a seven-pounder. I gamely accepted, even though on my best days I couldn't have kept up with her nine months' pregnant. Thank goodness she hasn't been cleared for heavy exercise yet. So we got to the mile-and-a-half mark on the trail and turned around, chatting happily about new-mommy topics, when the little angel decided she was hungry, even though she just ate Liquid Sleep two hours before. She started whimpering, which I tried to disguise by throwing shut the extra canopy on her stroller. The noise grew, could not be contained. Soon she was hitting her Whitney Houston octaves. She. Was. Hungry. Now. Screaming with hunger, in fact. A passerby on a golf cart gave us a sidelong view, obviously convinced I was sticking my baby with pins under the cover of a jogging stroller. J. was understanding, but probably concerned the pins might reach over to her stroller and stick her son, too. Can a baby scream for a mile and a half?

Yes, she can.

Last night, my husband, my cat (Sybil) and my seven-week-old daughter sought refuge from "tornadic" storms (I have never heard this word until last night - is "tornadic" a word? Or did my local newscasters make this up?) in our Silence-of-the-Lambs basement. When I was growing up, we had a finished basement. Though cricket-filled, it was at least nice and carpeted with painted walls and no fears of bodies buried under the cracked concrete. This was an entirely new experience, though now at least they make battery-powered televisions so you can watch the over-excited meteorologists instead of listening to news radio.

Apparently, between the Kansas and Missouri sides of Kansas City (where we live), over 90 tornadoes were cited yesterday and 90 on Sunday. We of the Midwest take pride in our tornadoes, but this was ridiculous. And now that I have a babe, I had to pursuade my energetic husband to get off the front porch and down to the basement because what the hell am I going to do if he ends up with his little red shoes sticking out from under the neighbor's house?

Speaking of neighbors, ours are pirates. On one side we have a little blue-haired skate punk with a half-pipe in the backyard and a two-years-younger sidekick. Both of them are apparently allowed to pull Ollies until midnight on a school night, because I now collapse into my bed at 9 p.m. after a day of baby-caring to hear the clunk-clunk of missed jumps and flung curse-words from the mouths of preteens. On the other side, we have a large, bald man who keeps 50 tires in his backyard at all times and a washing machine in the front. The Environmental Protection Agency told him to get rid of the tires, so he conveniently now stores them on his truck, the mobile bastion of blight. Still, what can you do when you have bills to pay and don't want to live five light-years from all the fun stuff downtown?