Chewymom

Let’s see…how many pets do we have now? That’s right, six. I know, I know, sometimes my life seems a little insane. Okay, all of you IRL friends and family–I see you smacking your hand to your head saying, “You ARE insane!”

So here’s the deal. Each of my sons has his own pet, plus we have a “family cat.” DD5 has been begging for a pet of her own. And she gets whatever she wants, end of story. No, that’s not the end. We didn’t really want to get DD5 a pet of her own, but come on. This desire wasn’t going to go away any time soon–I mean she was well aware that everyone else in the family under the age of 100 had a pet. Sure we could put her off a while longer, but why prolong the agony of having to listen to the incessant whining and begging when we were just planning to give in eventually anyway. And what were we waiting for? Kids to leave home? That wouldn’t really help. I mean, sure my food budget might go down into the less-than-a-zillion-dollars-a-month range, but I’d also lose pet feeders, poop scoopers, etc. So we added another pet.

Serafina (that would be the cat picture in that post, not the ink) is a perfect kitty. She is actually a breed (who knew cats come in breeds, too??). She is a Ragamuffin, which is a breed known for being…well…dogs. She comes when we call, she purrs constantly, she begs us to scratch her tummy, and she licks my nose with her sandpaper tongue when I’m trying to sleep. Most of her habits are quite endearing. Including her habit of wagging her head at me from the top of the stairs as I walk up. And her habit of making a flying leap onto the bed and…missing.

And it turns out that those latter two habits are indicative of a problem. Serafina, it turns out, has a congenital eye problem. I know this because I spent my morning driving the cat to another town to see an ophthalmologist. Another thing I learned–there are animal eye doctors. And no, they don’t have cats read eye charts or say, “Is it better one? Or two? Three? Or four?” But they do dilate cat eyes and take a peek around. And discover holes where the optic nerve comes in, for example.

So although I have learned things like that there is actually a breed of cat that behaves like a dog, and that there are ophthalmologists for cats, and that sometimes you even drive pets out of town to see a doctor because you just really love them, that isn’t the main lesson. Here’s the thing. Serafina, being a fru-fru cat, came with a health guarantee. Meaning we have the option to send her back for a new kitty if she isn’t healthy. I have a son with a genetic condition–Down syndrome. I had no option to send him back, although had I known prior to his birth I would have had the option to “get rid” of him. And I could not and would not have chosen that option.

My family loves Serafina, even though we have only known her for less than four weeks. If I sent her back, what message would that send to my children? If something isn’t perfect, we don’t keep it–we trade it in for something better. And DS16, with his own “imperfections” would no doubt get the message. As would my other kids who are less than perfect in their own quirky ways. Not that there’s anything imperfect about sucking your thumb and picking your belly button after you turn five, or with kicking holes in walls when you’re mad, or with cussing when things don’t go your way. Nosireebob. Hmmph.

We are talking to Serafina’s breeders to hopefully reach a solution, but that solution will not include sending her back. Because when all is said and done, she is who she is partly because of her imperfections. Cookie cutter cats, like cookie cutter people, are boring. Diversity is what makes us appreciate beauty. Kind of like evil makes us appreciate good, but that’s a theological issue I’m just not tackling. Serafina, with her quirky genetic material that causes her to not see clearly, to have smaller-than-normal, different-sized eyes, to “clothesline” herself when she runs and jumps on our bed, and to bob her head around from side to side in order to see, is a welcome member of our family that is replete with quirky genetic material. All from DH of course. I’m just sayin.’

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Down syndrome, Mommy Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.