ADHD vs. OCD An exhaustive study involving my cats

We have three cats.  One cat pees on the carpet so she is an outside cat.  The other two are inside cats.  We have the new kitten Abby and the old fat cat Tigger.  (I realize I have already established this fact, but just wanted to make sure my new readers were "in the know" :-)

(I bet you were surprised that Tigger is orange...weird right?)

Abby the kitten is the epitome of ADHD.  She has all three facets of ADHD.  She is distracted...I can call her and she starts to come, then she sees a piece of paper on the floor and decides to pounce on that instead.

She is impulsive...She decides at the last minute that it would be a great idea to jump from the table to the top of the bookshelf and falls to the floor instead.

She is hyperactive...she can go up the stairs in less than a second and she finds it amusing to bite your toes and jump around crazily on the bed at 2am.

Tigger on the other hand is OCD.  Things have to be just right for him.  If you are wearing black he ensures that it is covered in just the right amount of fur.

If you don't make the bed he will not sleep on the sheets.  He will find a section of the comforter to sleep on.

If you clean up all the puke he has recently placed strategically on the floor he will work overtime to get it back right where you are sure to step in it when getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

And he is also determined.  I have allergies.  One of the things I am most allergic to is cats.  Why do I have cats you ask?  Because I can.  And I really like cats...most of the time.  I take lots of allergy medicine anyways...so as long as I continue it (by not forgetting to pick up the prescription at the store for a week and wondering why my eyes look like I've been crying for the last 3 days) I'm fine.  The one thing I require is for the cats to not sleep by my head.  I wake up stuffier if a cat sleeps by my head all night so that is something I will not tolerate.

Tigger is persistent...every single night he tries to sleep on my pillow with me.  It's like his OCD is saying, "here is where I must sleep for the universe to keep in balance."

He never ever sleeps on my husbands pillow.  Ever.  Even though he is welcome there.  And he is also immovable.  When I try to shoo him off he puts down some electromagnetic force and it is impossible to get him to move.  Then I try and lift him.  His claws extend and he will bring the pillow with him if I manage to get him up.

This happens every night.  You would think he would get the message that I do not want him there.  All he is learning is how to be sneaky about it.  If I'm awake he will casually walk up to the head of the bed and if I say NO he plops down and gives me a look that says, "what...I was just going to lay down right here, by your side...I had no intention of going up to your pillow."  If I say no enough he will eventually give up and go down by my feet.  And then I wake up in the middle of the night and there he is curled up around my head. 

And then I yell at him which wakes up Abby who then goes into a hyperactive fit and starts jumping all over me and biting my toes. 

Shopping

I love shopping....but I am not very fun to go shopping with.  At least that is what I'm guessing.  My husband is always willing to go with me, no matter what I am shopping for.  But he is one-of-a-kind amazing husband.  My kids on the other hand...hate shopping with me.

When I go shopping for a specific item it is always a process.  Take for example recently I needed a cat carrier for my new kitten.  It did not matter that I already had two cat carriers.  I needed a special cat carrier because she is going to be my therapy cat and she cannot be seen hanging out in one of those boring old tan, hard sided cat carriers.  I wanted my kitten to be hanging out in style.  She needed a pink cat carrier.

Of course I decided this one evening about 7:00 at night and had to have it that night.  My husband indulged me and took me to the pet store.  I found lots of cat carriers that were less than perfect.  My husband found one that wasn't pink, but it was the right size and a really good price......but it wasn't pink.

**For some reason this in this picture I would fill in my red shirt and when I saved it parts of the shirt did not save.  So I'm not trying to look inappropriate...my computer is out to embarrass me.**

We kept looking and I could not find the perfect one, so I started settling for the blue one my husband had picked out.  But he could tell I was not happy with it.  I was thinking...how could I settle when we had only been to one store so far this evening?

So my husband agreed to take me to another pet store.  That is a trend with me.  I can find the absolutely perfect item that I am looking for, but if it is at the first store I looked, I can't help myself, I must keep looking.  The perfect item might be out there and if I stop looking I won't find it.  Never mind that this rarely happens.

So we go to the next pet store.  And I was right!!!  They have the perfect pink cat carrier.  But it is too expensive.  Hmmm....I keep looking...time is running out, I must find the perfect cat carrier tonight.  It's not like I have a need for it tonight or tomorrow, I just want it tonight.

I keep looking through the store, the perfect one was actually a dog carrier, I figure I will go check out the cat area.  And there it is.  The perfect carrier for the perfect price.  And I can purchase it, because before I ever got to this store I had checked at the big box stores while grocery shopping, I had checked online earlier that day and I had been to the other pet store already this evening.  If this had been the first place I had looked I would not have been able to bring myself to actually buy it.

So I thought I had been entirely reasonable that night only going to two stores.  I can't imagine why my kids refuse to shop with me.

Cleaning the house

I have this cat that pees on the carpet.

(It's actually the gray fluffy cat.  But for today's post she will be black.)  So the other day I noticed that she had once again used my living room for her litter box.  I decided to be proactive and clean my carpet immediately instead of leaving it for my husband like I usually do.  Simple right?  Just get out the carpet cleaner and clean.

I noticed the carpet hadn’t been vacuumed in a while so before I could clean the carpet I would need to vacuum the spot, but might as well vacuum the entire living room.  Still simple right?

Except I just noticed the living room floor is littered with assorted toys, papers, clothing and underwear.  

 Pretty normal for around here, but everything was too big to be sucked up into my vacuum.  No big deal I’ll clean it up.  Got that cleaned up and went upstairs to get the vacuum.  Okay ready to get this done.  Except I noticed that the floor upstairs needed vacuuming as well.  Might as well vacuum that before I bring the vacuum downstairs.  Except there were kids toys on the floor up here too.   

No problem, I pick up the toys and then proceed to vacuum the entire upstairs.

Next I bring the vacuum downstairs and notice the stairs could use some vacuuming as well.   

Pick up the toys from the stairs and proceed to vacuum the stairs.

 

Okay back to the living room.  Proceed to vacuum up the entire living room.   

Now to clean up the cat pee.  Hmmm…it seems to have dried up and I’m not sure where it was.  Again…no problem.  I will just clean up the entire area where she might have peed.

Finally…success.  That cat pee has been cleaned up.  What should have taken 2 minutes managed to take over an hour, but the amazing part is, it actually got done.  And now I have a clean living room and a cleaner upstairs.  Happy dance for me.  

 Except out of the corner of my eye I see….