Torregrossa Family: Oh, the drama!

The last 2 weeks have been exhausting and dramatic. Not only is our house in total chaos due to a previous construction project and the damage from the hurricane, our daycare is still closed due to lack of power. Matt and his grandparents have been handling the majority of the childcare duties. Gianna has been extra crabby--I don't think she likes spending too much time with her parents. She misses the other kids. Then, 2 nights ago we discovered our 11-year old cat, Cleo, was missing. We had been borrowing electricity from our neighbors who were nice enough to throw an extension cord over their back fence, so the window and screen were open. Neither Matt nor I thought it would be a problem. All of a sudden on Monday night I realized I hadn't seen Cleo all evening. I freaked out and we tried looking through our house, but with no power and only flashlights, it was pretty difficult. I knew she had escaped and we walked around the house with an open can of tuna hoping to lure her back, but no luck. Tuesday I spent the entire day worried about the possbile fates she could have met. I was basically a basket case. Luckily, I was home with Gianna and didnt' have to act normal at work. Matt came home and tried to comfort me, but it didn't work. While I was reading Gianna bedtime stories, Matt rushed in saying he had seen a flash of white in the yard. He tried following her, but she was too fast (although it seems hard to believe, it was true). A girl walking around the block pointed where Cleo had gone. Matt and I grabbed a flashlight (and Gianna) and I ended up crawling through some bent chicken wire and many shrubs to find poor Cleo. She hissed at first, but once she smelled me, she let me pick her up and drag her back through the bushes to safety. She seemed a little traumatized, and immediately went to the food dish. I think she dropped a couple of pounds. Anyway, that was the dramatic finale to the past 11 days. Hopefully, better times are to come!