the other night, we were sitting on the couch when we heard fred meow. loudly.

"is something wrong?" mike asked me.
"it's just fred," i replied.

then fred meowed again and mike shot out of his seat.

"they're outside," he told me. he had let them (fred and charlotte) out when he got home and hadn't remembered to bring them back in.

so, i write an amendment to the earlier terrible parent theory. we just have to have two kids instead. and make sure that the second one is loud.