Morning madness
Feb. 19th, 2010 06:55 amI am not doing well at handling my morning routine these days. The last 20-30 minutes before I leave for work is a blur of activity. I have to feed three cats three different kinds of food, and remember to give Patches her insulin shot.
Since Patches is diabetic it's pretty critical that she eat only her food. But, cats being cats, she tends to wander over and try to eat out of the other cats' dishes, while they, in turn, try to steal her food. So I have to keep an eye on them while they're eating and run interference whenever I spot food stealing going on.
Then while the cats are eating I set up Patches' automatic feeder so she gets a couple of meals throughout the day, then stick the feeder in the oven so that Ki doesn't break open the feeder and eat all of her food within minutes. (Rob puts the feeder out before he leaves for work, after having locked Ki upstairs behind two stacked baby gates. This extra bit of morning fun is all due to the fact that a) the weather is bad and Ki can't go outside, and b) this old house doesn't have doors that shut well enough to latch.) *
At this point I can fix my own breakfast (a smoothie of soy milk, blueberrys, spirulina, and ground flax seeds; and often a cup of microwaved egg whites) and pack my lunch into my messenger bag.
It takes the cats about 15 minutes or so to eat, so all this while I have to keep a lookout to what's going on with their food and correct any errant felines. Hissing works for the two hearing cats, but Patches, being mostly deaf, requires moving physically. Often I end up herding her across the room with my feet like a footballer**, which looks pretty comical.
There is so much going on that I sometimes end up forgetting a step. Not always, or even often, but when the step I am most likely to leave out is to give Patches her injection, it's a problem. That happened this morning. Luckily I remembered in time to call![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rfunk and he was able to go back and inject her. But I feel really bad about sending him back because he had to navigate the snowy, now slightly icy, driveway twice (thankfully he didn't get stuck).
Clearly I need to rethink my morning plan. I think I'll try posting a morning to-do checklist in the kitchen to remind me of all the steps in my routine. A friend with an ADD child had such notes posted around their house and it seems to work for her.
Much of this madness is a result of having to feed all three cats indoors. When the weather is better I can feed Ki and Barney outside, where they are happy to stay during the day (major advantage of living on a farm. Of course, working interior doors would also help with the food separation issue.) Life will be much easier come the thaw.
*I was sure I had mentioned this before, but looking back over my recent entries it doesn't look like it. Probably because the whole thing seems so ludicrous.
**Embrace your inner Anglophile, I say.
Since Patches is diabetic it's pretty critical that she eat only her food. But, cats being cats, she tends to wander over and try to eat out of the other cats' dishes, while they, in turn, try to steal her food. So I have to keep an eye on them while they're eating and run interference whenever I spot food stealing going on.
Then while the cats are eating I set up Patches' automatic feeder so she gets a couple of meals throughout the day, then stick the feeder in the oven so that Ki doesn't break open the feeder and eat all of her food within minutes. (Rob puts the feeder out before he leaves for work, after having locked Ki upstairs behind two stacked baby gates. This extra bit of morning fun is all due to the fact that a) the weather is bad and Ki can't go outside, and b) this old house doesn't have doors that shut well enough to latch.) *
At this point I can fix my own breakfast (a smoothie of soy milk, blueberrys, spirulina, and ground flax seeds; and often a cup of microwaved egg whites) and pack my lunch into my messenger bag.
It takes the cats about 15 minutes or so to eat, so all this while I have to keep a lookout to what's going on with their food and correct any errant felines. Hissing works for the two hearing cats, but Patches, being mostly deaf, requires moving physically. Often I end up herding her across the room with my feet like a footballer**, which looks pretty comical.
There is so much going on that I sometimes end up forgetting a step. Not always, or even often, but when the step I am most likely to leave out is to give Patches her injection, it's a problem. That happened this morning. Luckily I remembered in time to call
rfunk and he was able to go back and inject her. But I feel really bad about sending him back because he had to navigate the snowy, now slightly icy, driveway twice (thankfully he didn't get stuck). Clearly I need to rethink my morning plan. I think I'll try posting a morning to-do checklist in the kitchen to remind me of all the steps in my routine. A friend with an ADD child had such notes posted around their house and it seems to work for her.
Much of this madness is a result of having to feed all three cats indoors. When the weather is better I can feed Ki and Barney outside, where they are happy to stay during the day (major advantage of living on a farm. Of course, working interior doors would also help with the food separation issue.) Life will be much easier come the thaw.
*I was sure I had mentioned this before, but looking back over my recent entries it doesn't look like it. Probably because the whole thing seems so ludicrous.
**Embrace your inner Anglophile, I say.
