Wednesday, April 18, 2007

New arrival

As if life wasn't busy or full of enough stuff, we have taken the ridiculous decision to foster a cat. Our cat was killed when Charlie was 3 weeks old and we've never really gotten over him. Sammy, our temporary cat, was left homeless when his owner passed away a few months ago and we figured that we're mourning a cat, he's mourning a human, perhaps we can shuffle along together.

The effect on Charlie has been electric. You would think we had rustled up all the boobs in the world and given him free access 24/7. All Sammy has to do is to enter the room and Charlie is waving his little hands around, laughing and reaching for him. As an older cat (Sammy is 16), we figured he wouldn't want anything to do with a baby but he seems as fascinated by the baby as the baby is by the cat. Charlie has had his fingers, head and face licked and a sleepy head pressed up against his back while Sammy has had his whiskers, tail, face, back, ears and... well anything within reach... yanked, pulled and pinched. His response, thankfully, is to purr and proffer another piece of his anatomy for consideration by tiny fingers. It hardly seems a fair swap.

All rosy and gay, it seems. The problem is that old cats, like young babies, have small bladders and are easily woken. While Charlie is beginning to sleep through, Sammy has taken over where he left off by waking up at 4am and crying for attention. This is not endearing him to my ever-patient other half who has put up with small bladders, night wakings, babies in the bed and attention-seeking tantrums since... oooh... since I was about 5 weeks pregnant I guess.

He has been looking forward to sleeping an entire night without anyone or anyTHING in the bed other, hopefully, than me. The problem is that with a 16-year-old wanna-be lion prowling around in the wee hours and digging noisily in his box, Charlie, who hates to think that he might be missing a party, is now waking faithfully at 4 in hopes of a boob, the parental bed, a feel of some whiskers, or preferably (and frequently), all three.

Since I've been hoping that Charlie sleeping through will mean that he eats more which means that he will sleep more, which means that we fall into a happy cycle of good sleeps, big eats and fewer boobs and that eventually I can move back into lacey lingerie in something realistic like a 'D' cup, the advent of a high-decibel insomniac feline is a considerable set back.

This is not endearing Sammy to my frog prince and resultantly his tenure is still under discussion (Sammy's, not D's, for clarity). We've got him for another 3 weeks before we have to decide for or against him.

I'm wondering if some sort of routine will help him sleep through...

.

69 comments:

Through_My_Eyes said...

Sleeping through the night sounds like an impossible feat. However, it seems that you have a baby and a cat who both love to be loved by you. Hope the hubby doesn't get too put out. Good luck keeping it all under control!

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bearette said...

cute cat.

thethinker said...

Your cat sounds a lot like mine. She wakes easily, and once she does, she won't stop meowing. It makes sleeping a very hard task.

Jennifer said...

Ah yes, to sleep through the night... So far I'm up to a record of 5 consecutive hours. Not too bad, eh?

I'll avoid cats so as to not take any steps backward. :-)

Anonymous said...

Since he is an older cat and doesn't have much longer to hang around it may be a good idea to keep him so as not to upset him so much and he seems to have taken to your family.

Only problem is it may get expensive and oh, the little problem of no sleep. Hope it turns out well.

Anonymous said...

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cattiekit said...

Aw. Me loves an elderly, purrpants cattie.

My husband isn't all that crazy about cats either, but he's gradually gotten used to them. They're a fact of life around here.

It sounds almost perfect, except for the lack of sleep.

I have a tiny Copper Tabby (9-ish) who pretty reliably looks for love at about 2 to 3 a.m. and stands on the middle of my back mewping piteously for it.

Catz is the craziest peoples. :>)

Wildwaters said...

Shame man -- cats and babies are cool and the fact that they both seem keen on each other is a great thing... Good luck

Wildwaters said...

Shame man -- cats and babies are cool and the fact that they both seem keen on each other is a great thing... Good luck

justmeReka said...

Baby + Kitty = getting along...KEEP'EM!! The cries should stop soon

reading your blog whilst at work...shhh don't tell the boss!! ;)

Jen said...

my kitty loves to make his presence felt in the early hours of the morning too - we need to lock him out in the family room at night!! Works for us... :-)

Great blog by the way - i found you via the 'blogs of note' listing. Congratulations!!!

Anonymous said...

Babies are a gift from God!

Dwacon said...

Cats and babies always get along well... must be the milk on their breath.

Creative Soulful Woman said...

dear sparx
I can relate, even though the teens don't beg to sleep with us anymore (it ended somewhere after age 11!), we now have a shitzu, and two cats in bed. At first I used to lock the bedroom door. But since the 'new' puppy came along and she's so small (smaller than the golden who used to hog the pillow) we let her in, and sometimes the cats too. They have an annoying habit of scratching the comfy chair when they want out at 4 am, what is it, birdsong that wakes them up at that hour? no nursing babies in our bed, just a tiny white dog that licks my husband's ears....
ps cats are healers of some kind, so I like them on my bed. A young cat would drive you crazy too cause they want to play all night. perhaps after baby is sleeping through the night you'll enjoy a pet.

Lucretia said...

While I don't have the child component to deal with, I do have a cat that loves to wake me up at 4:00 am to be petted every morning. She won't be content until I've rolled over on my back so she can lay on my stomach and swish her tail in my face whilst being loved on. Her method of waking me up -- licking my face and eyes or giving me little nips on the chin. Aren't pets wonderful things? Sometimes, if you didn't love them so much, you might strangle them ;-)

Unknown said...

I'm becoming a fan, lol, you have a gift in writing. You have a very eloquent way of putting things, unique, brings a smile to the face.

As for the cat? well, ignore him at night, takes time but cats are intelligent eh will figure out that no one is paying attention to the cry's and eventually give up as he'll see it as pointless. :-) On the plus side, Cats and babies are usually a dangerous mix (for the baby) you've gotten lucky with a patient cat.

K. said...

Hi there, you were on my random list of blogs and I think your's is really interesting.
Congratulations on the baby. I have a 20-month-old baby brother and I love him to death. My life would be incomplete without him in it :)
And congrats on the cat. I hope everything works out :) If this cat gets to be too much, just ship it to NY and I'll gladly take him; I love cats :D

If you'd like to read my blog, go right ahead...no one's commented on it :P

♥*

Anonymous said...

Awww, it would be ashame to give the cat away! He doesn't have much to live anyway, so you should probably just keep him in the family ; )

About the sleep, I think the only advice I would give is to keep the cat out of all the bedrooms through the night (close all doors) so that he [the cat] won't disturb your sleep...Hope that helps LOL.

Admin said...

My first thought was, to keep the hubby happy, ditch the cat. (And I AM a cat lover!)

But, as others pointed out, mr. kitty doesn't have too much longer in this life. Is there any way to move the litter box out of ear-shot of both baby and hubby?

Best of luck to you. Great hubby. Great son. Great cat. It'll all work out!

Crezalen said...

Your Cat seems to have a great temper.

Contessa2007 said...

Congratulations! Sounds like you have an adorable combination! I have to admit I am a bit biased, I am 22 weeks pregnant and rescued an older cat a week before I found out, so my hubby will be use to things in our bed and not sleeping by baby time in August! Great Blog! Keep the Kitty....

Anonymous said...

Why don't you chain him (sammy) to a wall and cover his mouth with Duct Tape before goin to bed, and give Charlie some time, he will learn...

High Power Rocketry said...

Great blog : )

JamesWarner said...

I dont know that this will help you, but i have had advice from many people that puting pictures on your blog is always good. It certainly does liven it up a bit.

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Unknown said...

very new to blogging, but really enjoyed reading yours Sparx. As mother of 5, I assure you, breastfeeding will come to an end (I breastfed for over 4 years total!) but there may come a time when you have to make a stand and wear a heavy unzippable jacket!
Re the cat, what about a cat door/window? I have always had 2 cats and they have just come and gone as they please.

PS, Why would I use HTML tags?? anyone?

Paramiliar Design Studios said...

ew cat? fancy a hamster instead? mine keeps waking me up through the night by tapping his toilet onto the side of the glass :( damn annoying thing

Paramiliar Design Studios

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mygirlpurple said...

I enjoyed reading your blog.

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someone else said...

I love someone named sam dearly too

Unknown said...

Hey Sparx, thanks, yeah the bike is MY baby :P For now.

Marlin Jar said...

Excellent prose. Keep it up. I have laid down the link to your blog in mine.

Chipper said...

Old Cats and new cats are a like. My two cats are 1 and 2 years old and wake me up faithfully every morning at 5 am wanting attention. I have tried ignoring them, shutting my door etc.. to date the only thing that makes them leave me alone until my alarm goes off for work is feeding them a little...

Threat Assessment & Response Canada said...

Hi. I'm sitting at my desk, (supposedly to work) and browsing blogs.

I was feeling pretty lousy until I came across your blog. You write well. The picture you created with your words was pretty alive - and very cool.

Reading about your child and the new cat brightened my morning. Thanks!

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Inspector Mchammered of the Lard said...

You won't be doing much catnapping with Chas around!
Apologies if this sounds like a rude blurt.

Robert Crane said...

13. owned by a cat - the first couple of years a cat lives in a house are tough. and the last few years are pretty much intolerable. but those three weeks in between— when i do exactly what it wants—makes a cat want to do it all over again.

Anonymous said...

Wow you sure do get some interesting posts on your blog. You might want to use your "blog administrator" privilege and delete some of them! Just click on the little trash can below the post, and it will let you delete.

As for the idea of putting more pics on your blog...ahh...what do the critics know? You have a great blog!

Shrink Wrapped Scream said...

Oh boy,

What a wonderfully written post - made me laugh and wince. I'll be stopping by again.

As someone who has lived through it, I promise, it only gets worse..

Sparx said...

More thanks to you nice people. I have posted pics on the blog but only as and when. I thought about killing some of the comments but I'm not that keen on editing the world, I like that it shows it's madness in many ways.

I now feel guilty that I haven't posted for a couple of days. I will have to wrench something out soon.

Sparx said...

...mind you, some spam can go...

foodislove said...

i like your blog. it's very interesting to read about your cat and baby. i hope to see more from you :) take care!

Anonymous said...

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oregoncelticlady said...

Lovely, lovely writing! This is my first time here, so I will have to sit on the back porch and read backwards tomorrow! :-)

Love to Knit said...

The nights will be quiet and complete before you know it. Enjoy this time you are having with your new one. Even enjoy having to get up during the night. You are going to blink and it is going to be 17 years later, he's going to be getting ready to leave home, and you're going to wonder when it happened. When did he grow up?
I have 4. My oldest is 23 and has been on her own since 2002. My second is 19 and has been in the army since he was 17. My third is 17 and will be a senior next year, getting ready to go to college. My youngest is 16 and is leaving next year for a school 4 hours away from us. It is a very elite school academically; he was invited then had to go through a very rigorous application process, but he made it in and will be living away from home for the last two years of high school. Bottom line, I guess is that I'm experiencing empty-nest syndrome and am longing for the days when my babies were babies. Those days flew away too fast.

Chris Bassoo said...

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BOSSY said...

Bossy says: It's always something. Whenever Bossy has secured the promise for more sleep than usual - an empty house, kids on overnights - invariably her enormous dog will decide that's the one morning she must bark incessantly at something threatening - like the doorknob.

Jane said...

Hiya! Sammy sounds just like my ginger tom, he has always had a thing about turning up in the middle of the night yodelling for attention and sitting on me. Sometimes he wakes the whole family up, and there are shouts from all the bedrooms for him to shut up! We love him though, and will miss him when he isn't there anymore.

Love the blog, have been reading it almost since you started it and thought it was about time that I posted a comment!

Marsha J. Obrien said...

Very lovely stories that prodded memories of the time my children were small. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thanks!

Phoenix said...

my god u r a celeb or wat? i dont know how u like a cat...personally i would love to have a dog...but my mom said she wud disown me if i did

Pebble said...

Oh! My cat, seven years old, has always been with us, started last year to wake up very early in the morning in order to go out. If we didn't let her out she started to cry and to do things (such as trowing the clock alarm down from the counter...).
The problem was that my husband always woke up and open the door for her.
I tried not to wake and to ignore her: in three weeks she has changed and now she sleeps until we get up.
Maybe it's your case too. Don't give away the poor cat only for this problem :-)

Midnight in the garden of good & evil said...

I have a cat,she` s a 14 year-old one :)...i think that evry family shuoold have a animal around the house...it`s kinda better with them (cats & dogs) ...by

Shams said...

you have a nice old cat and a very young baby. Cheers and good luck.

Cordelia said...

Just voting for you to keep the fine old cat. Don't forget that the cat is transitioning to new owners, and is probably still in mourning, carrying some old habits. It might help to leave some food in a bowl that the cat can find, but has to work a bit for, e.g. high up on a counter, down a hall away from the bedroom, etc. Mine wake up looking for something to do sometimes, wanting to hunt, and having something to find takes the edge off. Just don't get up and hide it a four am, or you'll be promptly awakened every night at that point on. Best wishes !
PS There is a product called feliway that is supposed to calm anxious cats, if it comes to that.

Tonya said...

A new baby and a temporarily new-to-you cat...you are a brave woman indeed. I hope the frog prince conceeds to keeping the cat. Sammy seems to have enriched your life so much already.

sarariches said...

My babies are 27 and 22 and all I can say to you is take this time in both of your hands and CHERISH it - when you look back (and you will have insomnia again one day as I do - its 6am and I haven;t been to bed yet!) you won't believe how fast the whole thing rushed by.

We had 4 cats a dog and kids....it was chaotic and great. And as for routine...Before I looked round, they were at school and regimented and then at college. Plenty of time for routine.

Enjoy your son. Make as much time available to do so. He is a precious gift sent to you and your husband. Don;t hassle about what your're supposed to do. You'll do it wrong anyway!!

And when everything gets on top of you....just look forward to the calls from him telling you he;s lost his cash card, left his mobile phone in the student common room, has NO money in his account and can;t get any food, and telling you from a roomful of co-workers that he loves you!!

Best wishes

Saturated? said...

Keep the cat...

Saturated? said...

though i think u need to keep an eye on pets, especially if there are children around...

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Thinking Cramps said...

that was well written...enjoyed it thoroughly and will now proceed to prowl, Sammy-like, through more of your blog :)

anyjazz said...

Fun stuff!

Monkey and banana said...

cats are nocturnal carnivores. he's just hunting, ok? :) Here are some hints.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?articleid=3360

cazzandra said...

lol - I like the twist on blogging with blurting - someone's probably already starting a blurt site.

ancient clown said...

Blessings:

This is very nicely written, coming from a once full-time, live-in nanny myself.
I slept in the babies room and was in charge of night feedings from 4 months to 8 months, when they moved back to Michigan. I was told the baby actually hired me...they just agreed.
This experience was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. As easy as it is to say, and as hard as it is to do...we must adapt OUR lives to suit them as opposed to attempting to make their lives adapt to us.
I learned to take power naps when he was napping, pre-preping such things as bottles, meals, etc. helps things keep running smoothly. Making cleanup fun together, instead of a chore by yourself.
These little miracles are among the BEST life teachers we will ever encounter, if we but remember, they are more than capable of teaching us as well...if we're willing to learn and don't think we already know.
When things get really tough...STOP...Breathe DEEP & Breathe SLOW. (even 15-20 seconds of this can do wonders).
your humble servant,
ancient clown

Anonymous said...

Well evidently cats and babies strike the right chord with bloggers.

Evidently bloggers (and readers thereof) like cats and babies.

Think I'll go into business advertising baby food, diapers, Whiskas(TM) and cat litter on blog sites.

Get them coming and going.

OK, nice blog, etc etc. Great writing, blah blah blah. I don't have a cat or a baby and so this blurt is going to end right abo-o-o-o-o-o-u-t now.

Bah.

OK, now.

Anonymous said...

great blog

Madhura said...

sammy is really pretty...and, er, very solemn as well