This is hysterical ... are you spying on my family!? We have a dog and three cats. The dog is a good dog -- not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he's great with the kids. Still, I dream of a day when I don't have to scoop poop before taking the kids in the back yard or don't spend my days sweeping up tumbleweeds of dog hair blowing across the kitchen. Of the three cats, we only ever see one (the other two vacated to the basement -- finished, btw -- when the kids were born). And yes, he's Uber Annoying Cat. I used to be the hugest pet lover on the planet. If you'd told me that having kids would change the way I felt about my pets, I'd have probably socked you in the jaw. But it really did ... they're not my babies anymore; they're just pets. I still care about them, and we'll have them as long as they live, but they'll never be the center of my world again.