what happened

after eric got to the cat ER and pawpi was looked at he gave me a call. she weighed 4.4 pounds and her temperature was 96, when it should have been closer to 100. they did some blood work and when the results came back, apparently complete kidney failure is a 10 and she was a 9.9. pawpi was very very sick. the vet said she could stay the 3 days through the weekend, she would need constant attention and be pumped full of IVs and medicine. they would test her again on Monday and see if there was any improvement. if there was, and if she was well enough to come home, which they were not optimistic about, we would need to give her daily injections of fluids, and bunches of medicines because not only were her kidneys in bad shape, but her thyroid was going too. eric said that every time he would say "year" the vet would correct him and say "month". so eric called me, i cried and cried and cried but we decided it was time. poor poor pawpi, she was so so sick. i knew when we were packing her up to go that night that she wasn't coming back, i knew she was dying. i also knew that if we didn't take her in she likely wouldn't last through the night. eric was with her, he cuddled her, petted her, gave her kisses. then he called me again and i cried and cried some more. i cried the entire time until he got home around 2am and then cried some more, all the way until around 3am when i finally was able to fall asleep.
we decided we weren't going to tell the kids in the morning and then send seamus off to school. we didn't think that was a good idea, but if sirus asked during the day where she was, eric was going to tell him. but he didn't ask. later we had my company holiday party and decided when we got home it was too late to tell them and we would wait until the next day.
saturday morning we sat the kids down and told them what happened. seamus instantly understood and instantly sobbed. sirus looked confused and asked if that meant she wasn't coming home, and then he began to cry, too. we all cuddled and talked about it. seamus asked a lot of questions like how she got sick and what the vet was going to do with her. we told them she would be cremated and turned to ashes, and we will put her little box on the mantle and how she will always be with us. sirus said, ok, so she will be here but we just won't be able to pet her. apparently he didn't totally understand because later in the car seamus was crying and he asked her why. sirus then told me that seamus was crying because she thought pawpi had died. i had to tell him pretty directly that that was what happened. and he cried again, too. he had said earlier how we would miss pawpi but we still had nadj and seamus mccat. even later when seamus was crying again, he tried to comfort her by telling her that it was the normal life cycle, just like the salmon - the salmon lay their eggs, then they die. the eggs turn into fry, the fry turn into fish, then they lay their eggs and it goes on and on. it was pretty cute to listen to a 5 year old try to comfort his older sister like that.
it had already been a rough day, but we headed out, to get some shopping done and to just get out of the house. we went to bellevue square, and much to my surprise, many of the stores were having better sales than last week, so we stopped in a few and got some really great price adjustments.
then we went to the play area. its an indoor play area with a cushy floor and there is a ferry boat and a sand castle and a bunch of other shinny, slippery, slightly squishy things for the kids to climb on. its generally a mad house there, and yesterday was no different. i let the kids play for almost 40 minutes when i started the 5 minute count down. with 2 minutes to go, i saw a woman carrying sirus towards me, with seamus trailing behind. sirus was covered in blood - OMG - what happened? The woman said she didn't see, sirus was too upset to say anything. because he was so upset i knew it wasn't just a normal, no reason bloody nose, but i couldn't tell where the blood was coming from - nose, mouth, where? what happened? so i thanked the lady, picked sirus up and grabbed seamus and we headed out, blood gushing the entire time! we saw mall security and they took us into the mall security lair. he got the first aid kit, asked if i wanted them to call 911 and then i cleaned sirus up. while i was cleaning him, trying to find out what happened, seamus stepped up and told me that she accidentally kicked him in the face. i was proud of her for telling the truth and told her how very important it is to always tell the truth because when someone is hurt its very important for grownups to know what happened so they know how to help the hurt person. i was very proud of her because i am sure she was scared she was going to get in trouble. eventually the bleeding stopped and we headed back to the play area to get the kids shoes and then to finish up what we needed to do and go home. the lady who had helped came over and we talked a little, she said that at first, seamus was trying to pick sirus up and carry him to me, which is very sweet of her, and explains why seamus's dress was covered in blood. i was wearing my black puffy jacket and seemed like i was clean, but it was awkward walking through the mall with two kids with blood all over their clothes. :(
we made a quick stop at starbucks for some hot chocolates, and then sirus sneezed and a big deep red bloody snot rocket shot down all the way to his chin! i gasped in horror and quickly cleaned him up! then we stopped in one last store at the mall and headed to fred meyer. we got our business done there and headed home. only then did i finally go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and see that i had blood splattered ALL OVER MY FACE!!! OMG, dude, walking around, holding two bloody kids hands, with my face totally splattered, we must have been a sight, and WTF, why didn't anyone tell me????
around 4pm, seamus came to give me hugs and said, mommy it feels like its night time. she had a rough day, that is for sure.