Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Cats in the House are Living in Fear

Our five month old baby can't say "mama" or "dada" yet, but the moment one of our four cats walk into the room she lights up and squeaks "hi."  While she's been saying "hi" for over two months, it still comes as a shock (I think that's why she does it.  She realized she gets quite a reaction and loves the attention) every time I hear her say an actual word.

Sadie can't crawl yet, but the cat's in our house are already very aware of her presence and her blossoming mobility.  Last month Sadie started noticing the cats when they walked through the room.  She could track them from the moment they walked into the hallway and her interest has only grown during the last few weeks.  

From watching the cats she graduated to cooing at them and trying to coax them over to her.  Unfortunately she hasn't gotten the whole "gentle" idea down and I have to watch her very carefully to make sure she doesn't grab them with both hands and try to pull them in for a kiss.  I don't want to take Sadie in for stitches if our sixteen year old orange tabby losses it when Sadie tried to "cuddle" her.  Pumpkin has been known to attack without provocation so I imagine it's only a matter of time... but for now she tolerates the baby rather well and didn't bat an eye when Sadie rolled over and grabbed her paw the other day.  

My other concern has to do with Sadie's aim when petting the cats.  If she isn't grabbing them by the whiskers she's reaching for their bums (I'm saying bums because it sounds a bit nicer than anything else I could come up with, and I don't mean there tails when I say "bums").  Sadie's been pretty consistent when reaching towards this area and while I should be proud of the hand-eye coordination this shows, keeping her from making actual hand to bum contact is now one of my main concerns (motherhood is just full of surprises).  I imagine this will make an amusing story when she's a teenager, and for now I have managed to avoid any actual contact.  But as I mentioned earlier she is becoming more and more mobile so that even with the best supervision in the world it is probably only a matter of time before one of our cats is surprised by being groped (yuck).  

Hopefully it isn't Pumpkin. 

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