Thursday, July 4, 2024

Baby is back

 

This is Mom. Well, obviously she's not Marilyn Monroe, so not her. I'm talking about the lyrics. Mom is one needy human lady.
When I stopped sleeping on her pillow with her (before der Dekan moved in even), she was devastated and kept telling me stories about her boys, how Merlin slept in her arm all through his life, a spot that Ponder took over very quickly who before that had usually snuggled up to her in another spot. Greebo was practically glued to the back of her knees at night. Even shy Gandalf liked to sleep at her feet. Dude liked to sleep on her before moving on to the ex (not okay she called him a little traitor).

What about the ladies, though?
They were more independent. Mim liked to be in the same room, but not too close, Esme and Meffi were Daddy's girls and only became snugglier (is that even a word?) after he left, but always on their terms - no grabbing, just light touches and if they wanted to get up, that's what they did.

Magica and Jester were too young to say anything about the snuggle levels they would have achieved.

So you can see, Mom had a lot of kitty love over the years, and to be honest, I think she has become addicted to it as so many cat lovers do. It's easy to become addicted to being loved by a cat and it's very difficult to be rejected by a cat.
Both der Dekan and I don't like being picked up for longer than a quick change of location which usually means der Dekan is getting thrown out of the kitchen when Mom prepares food, hers or ours, or that I have to go the vet's. He is a tiny bit more gracious about it, I could live completely without having to fly through the air.
Mom, however, had become used to pick up her big boys - Dude, Merlin, Greebo, and Ponder - and throw them over her shoulder. She even danced with them, sometimes even with two at the same time!

We can't get her to understand that those times are over. That's finally something der Dekan and I can agree on wholeheartedly - and yet the brat is quite the snuggly cat. He sleeps on Mom a lot, shares her pillow with her, likes to curl up to the back of her knees, and sometimes he's just standing on her.
What her problem is then, you ask?
Her problem are higher temperatures. A few weeks ago, literally from one day to the other, der Dekan didn't come near her anymore. He slept stretched out on our official side of the bed or even more often in his corrugated cardboard bed which he thinks is the best thing in the world beside cheese.
Mom would look at him with sad puppy eyes - nice try - and ask him if he didn't love her anymore. It got quite annoying after a while.

Last night, however, after temperatures had dropped a little, the boy had mercy on her, and since then he went through his complete repertoire, sleeping on her legs, standing on her, lying next to her on her pillow, sleeping at the back of her knees, lying in her arm AND pushing his head in her hand (although he had to bite her a little first).
The human is finally happy again.

2 comments:

  1. Certainly, Mom has been blessed in her life with feline companions of all kinds. My Mixeta is in the group of cats that don't like being picked up, but they are equally affectionate, when and how they want. Now in the summer, I wouldn't mind if she kept a bit of distance, but it seems she doesn't feel the heat. At the same time, she tries to fill my mouth with hair. I guess to make me more empathetic with what she herself suffers.

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    1. Der Dekan is back to glue mode, I can only shake my head looking at it. He has even started to crawl in her long dress if she's lying on the bed, he sleeps there like in a (not so) small tent!
      Don't you dare make Mixeta keep her distance if she doesn't want that, hot or not. You know we keep tabs on behavior like that.
      If it's really hot, Mom tries to cool us down by running a wet cloth over our fur, but we both don't like that although we don't mind water per se.

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