Men and Cats

Somehow, my baby has turned into a toddler! And – no surprise here – he is obsessed with cats.

He loves our cats so much – although the feeling’s not entirely mutual. He gets so excited when he sees a cat – he’ll run over to them, giggle, and say “Mow! Mow!” (his version of “meow”), which will often send the cats flying out of reach. However, we’ve been working on approaching the cats GENTLY and QUIETLY and we do occasionally manage to pet them, or even sweetly kiss them (in Charley’s case). My little guy also calls out  Charley, aka “CHA-CHEY!” all the time.

He also knows where all the other cats on our street live. Our neighbor across the street has two cats, and  a yard/driveway filled with cat-themed objects, including cat planters. My guy will go up to each and every cat object and pet it, and kiss it, and reverently say, “Mow.” He tugs me down the street to the house with an indoor/outdoor cat, saying “Mow! Mow!” the whole way there. He’s delighted if the cat’s outside and disappointed if he’s not! He even kisses pictures of cats. Last weekend, he kissed a bag of cat food I’d just brought home, because it had a picture of a cat on it. “Mow,” he said after he kissed it. Mow, indeed.

Now that my son is crawling, he loves to crawl around after the cats. Wherever a cat goes, the baby follows.  The baby gets a very specific “I’ve just seen a cat!” look on his face, where his whole face lights up. And I swear one of his first words will be “cat” because when he sees a cat, he starts saying “Ah, Hah, haaa, haaaa”… which might not sound much like “cat” but he says it pretty consistently when he is watching a cat.

Charley has always been more agile, slimmer, and shyer (although he’s gotten noticeably friendlier and cuddlier over the years) than his brother. He is better at evading the baby. But he also has accepted him into the pack as he’s given him nuzzles and will purr when the baby pets him with mommy’s help. Thurston, who is a little slower, lazier, and  not quite as cunning as his brother, is still figuring out that if he wants to avoid the baby, it’s better to just jump up somewhere high rather than lay down on the floor. He’ll get it eventually. In the meantime, we managed to find this great baby gate which has a cut-out for the cats to walk through! Yes, the cats could theoretically jump over the gate (well, Charley could,  since he is able to jump up onto counters much higher than the gate – I’m not so sure about Thurston) but since they are seniors, I thought it would be nice to give them the option of walking through the gate rather than having to jump over it.