Sleeping with Cats
Good Morning, friends! Yes, it’s another cat post, because despite the Wonder Woman mug full of coffee beside me, it’s chilly outside and I’m still sleepy. I’m still sleepy because the cats decided to snuggle with us last night. And by snuggle, I mean they decided to sleep between us and pin down all of my blankets. This has become at least a weekly occurrence in our house since we started leaving the door open.
When we first brought the kittens to live with us in the new house a year ago, they were roughly seven months old and full of boundless energy. This meant that Calamity wanted to play all night long. We tried leaving the door open sometimes, but it always ended in Calamity trying to play with any exposed body part and Logan kicking her out. We started shutting the door every night. Sure, sometimes we’d give it another try, just to see if it had gotten any better. Pearl would sleep nicely at the foot of the bed, or maybe curled up beside us, but Calamity would bite fingers, noses, hair, whack at hands with her razor claws, run back and forth over both of our chests, and sniffle in Logan’s ears. Not conducive to sleeping.
We had a pretty good routine going with closing the door, though. We’d shut them out and they’d cry at the door at 7 am until one of us fed them. It all worked pretty well, until Calamity decided she didn’t want to be shut out anymore. She started hiding under the bed whenever we were getting ready for the night. We’d feed them their dinner and then go into the bedroom and there she’d be. She’d loaf on my side and if I approached she’d dart under and lay in the middle. I could crawl under there after her, sure, but do you know how hard it is to crawl and grab a cat who keeps shuffling away from you? It’s not a good time. So we’d lure her out with treats, but then Logan felt like that was rewarding her bad behavior and we didn’t want to do that, so we stopped.
What could we do? We couldn’t shut her out if she was under the bed. Neither of us wanted to deal with her at that point in the night, we just wanted to go to sleep. So we started leaving her and at some point she would come out and join us on the bed. If she was a problem, we put her out, or if she decided to go chase her sister, we just closed the door. But gradually, she became less of a problem at night. She started leaving us be until closer to breakfast time, when she started demanding food with her usual bothers. We could finally leave the door open without fear of cat attacks in the middle of the night.
That was great for Logan, at least. He’s been able to sleep soundly without cat interruptions ever since, for the most part. However, now I have an issue. I’m the one they want to sleep with/on. I’m the one who wakes up at 3 am with a cat on my stomach and one on my legs and I want to turn over so badly, but I just can’t bring myself to disturb them. Or I’ll wake up and I’ll have Logan pinning the blankets on one side of my leg and a cat sleeping quite happily on the other and there is no moving that leg for anything. This all makes sleeping positions a little difficult. I’m a side sleeper, usually, but somehow they always catch me on my back, then I’m stuck. Or they take over the middle of my sleeping space, leaving me to sleep awkwardly around or above them.
Last night they were snuggled between Logan and I and somehow they’d managed to steal my half of the blankets. I had a little corner to work with and they had a nest of the rest. At least I could move freely, though, and I did have enough bed space to work with. Still, when you want to flop around, any restrictions are incredibly inconvenient. And yet, every night I think “Hey, maybe the cat’s will sleep with us tonight!” and it’s a happy thought. Why? Why do I enjoy this? Why do I look forward to awkwardly sleeping around cats, and not getting as much rest as I could otherwise? I asked my brother that question this morning as I took him to the bus stop. His answer? “Because you’re a cat owner.” Well, there you have it. Have a lovely day, my friends.
‹ A Little Like Spring Oops Friday Ramble ›