Where’s the baby? Or operation get the cat
24 Jul 2010
Unlike ‘where’s the baby?’ where you wake up hallucinating that you’ve lost the baby, dropped the baby, squashed the baby or worse, where’s the baby version two, is when you put the baby somewhere and then return to the same spot and the baby isn’t there! Cue hysterical shouting ‘where’s the baby?’
In your absence the baby has flicked over and rolled or commando crawled to behind the couch – out of plain sight. It is enough to give you a serious heart attack the first and second time. By the third time you know that you better first of all locate the cat because wherever she is, the baby has surely followed.
Benedict now is focused on ‘operation get the cat’ pretty much from the moment he lays eyes on Sylvie in the morning til he goes to bed. I’m sure he sits in the car seat wondering where she can be hiding.
Sylvie will be the reason that Benedict started to crawl so soon – he is absolutely determined to get her and grab hold of a handful of fur and skin! Unfortunately, Sylvie, being a cat, is just as curious about Benedict and it seems is taunting him. She sits just barely out of his reach and then slowly creeps away from him as he lunges toward her. She sits on the arm of the chair where he is sitting on my lap. She sits on the outer limit of his playmat – just out of his immediate reach.
We all know where this will end. Indeed I know better than most. I bear the scars to this day from our enormous ginger tom Orlando from the time I hit him with the bannister brush age three. After the cat scratched me, my mother whacked me for whacking the cat! Far out it is complicated. Sylvie, of course, views Benedict as an interloper who in vying for my affection, for my lap and my free time. She insists on asking to be let in and let out and in and out about 32 times a morning as punishment for my divided attention.
If she doesn’t get her way he climbs the fly screen outside the kitchen and clings there mewing piteously – until I let her in again, for the 57th time that day. Benedict employs a much more direct method. Having failed, usually, to get the cat, he just cries until I come and rescue him from behind the couch or under the table or wherever Sylvie has led him. It is the beginning of a long long relationship.
Feb 27, 2011 @ 22:23:20
I’ve just spent the weekend in a house with a cat – and my two boys, who ran shrieking from the room every time the cat entered it. Trying. At least Benedict has some basic animal skills down pat!
Thanks for Rewinding at the Fibro!
Feb 27, 2011 @ 07:11:36
Smart cat. Amazing how they hover just beyond the baby’s reach as if to taunt them. We have a Burmese (Bert) who has adopted similar taunting techniques to your Sylvie. I am still amazed how well he has coped with children in the house. So much so, he has even befriended our neighbour T (3) and is often found trying to sleep on T’s bed.
Feb 27, 2011 @ 14:08:20
Sylvie is an amazing cat. Before B was born, she took up residence on the chair in his room. She used to keep a vigil next to his cot, when he was tiny.
She is very tolerant of him – pulling tail, firm patting (also know as whacking) and fingers in ears. Only once has she shown her teeth. He cried, a lot.
I think they will get on just fine.