Sunday, March 26, 2006

Edie Swedie

Good evening, ladies and jellyspoons!

To briefly recap: We've been on what I like to call the "baby schedule" the last couple of days - little Edie and Fynn have been scratching out their boundaries. In so doing, they've reverted back to the sleep schedule of our "sweetie Edie" (say it so it rhymes). Let me tell you, a five-month-old kitten has a similar sleep schedule as a five month old child. She sleeps from about six or seven till oh, nine. Then she's up, up, up!! and wants to bite her brother's butt until he smacks her head. This causes a fight, meaning the following:

(Fynn sitting down, licking his _______ (insert body part) POUNCE! Bite! Swat! Scrabble-scrabble-scrabble-scrabble-BAM! "rrrrr! grrrrrrooowRROWWRRR! Mrrrrmmmroowerr! WrrroowWOOWWWRRR!!!" hiss, spit, boo, hiss. Actually, histh - she has a tiny bit of a lithpth, thso thse thisssethh like thithhhh. For someone that weighs about five pounds, she's pretty fierce towards her "big brother."

About the sleep thing, though. Tonight, I commented to S. "I don't think we're ever meant to be parents to humans - we're wrecked right now after TWO nights of 'mrrowwwRRWOORR!!'... and there weren't even any bodily fluid issues."

He didn't dispute this logic. I looked up "kitten behavior" on Google - despite the fact I've had cats all my life, its been a very long time since I had a female kitten, and Fynn is the only one I've ever kept (well, 98.9% of the time) indoors as an adult cat. Since I don't really fancy the thought of Edie's pretty little face sans ears/nose/with cancer, she'll be staying indoors with him. In the last thirty hours, they've really become pretty tolerant, and I dare say, friendly with each other. So check this out:

If you've ever raised children (ummm... no... we have cats because we love them and .. well, let's face it, you can't have Social Services called for leaving a couple of cats alone for two hours), you probably know that being awakened at 2:00 a.m. is inevitable, and not a lot of fun. Kittens, being full of boundless energy (twice the amount of adults, remember), aren't always willing to sleep eight hours, according to your schedule (again...my schedule is from 12:30-9:30...or so..) Although it may be tempting (nay, irresistable! say I - plus who wants to hear that tiny, sad "mmeeeow?" outside your bedroom door?) to let the little kitten sleep in your room, as he grows older, and more playful, you may regret it. You have two choices:

  1. Accustom him from the start to sleeping in his own bed in another area of the house. Make sure his litterbox is convenient and accessible.
  2. Be prepared to wear him out with play before going to bed. This may eliminate the "night terrors" with a kitten wildly racing across your face at three in the morning, but it is not a guarantee. If that happens, you'll probably want to either get him a playmate, or revert to plan "A".
Ok - it is now 12:21 am. I am NOT going to start rousing a couple of cats to "hummingbird on crack" status in hopes of wearing them out (maybe) for tomorrow. This would only elicit a warm and sleepy, "mmmmrphrrrphhh?", and possibly a couple of rough-tounged kisses.

Not quite the desired response. The good news: I caught the two of them LICKING and NUBBING each other on a chair tonight. Edie's been coming to bed with us and has picked S. as her "Mommy", which means he gets a couple of hours of sharp-clawed kneading, combined with a squeeee-worthy pillow sucking, the like of which I've not heard of since "Are You There God, it's Me, Margaret" came into my world.

So...I guess we'll keep her.

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