Our kitten, like most small children, has two speeds: full tilt and sleeping. There is a brief in-between stage of seeking a lap in which to purr, but that invariably gives way to sleep within a matter of five minutes. Also like many small children whose parents would like to sleep, she is most active late at night. Fortunately, her human-mama needn’t stay up with her. I leave that for her feline mama.
So last night, when I woke up at midnight for my usual expedition to the bathroom I could hear that she was playing right outside the bedroom door. She knows my habits, and she was lying in wait for an opportunity to explore the forbidden Land of Bedroom. But being a baby, stealth is not her distinguishing characteristic, and she was playing in loose paper on the floor as she waited, thus telegraphing her intent. This was interspersed, lest I miss the point, with intervals of pawing at the door. She intended, when the sleepy and half-blind human opened the door, to use speed rather than stealth, shooting into the bedroom like a small black rocket.
Age and planning beats youth and enthusiasm every time. I put on my glasses (taking care of the “half-blind” part of the equation), and opened the door with a hand set to scoop kitten up as soon as she presented her face by the opening. That worked nicely; she rocketed right into the waiting hand, which lifted her up into the air, depriving her feet of floor from which to accomplish launching. Ok, we’re good; I shut the door behind me and put her down.
She wasn’t done. She chose a secondary target: the bathroom. As soon as she had four on the floor, she shifted into overdrive and shot around the corner, on destination intent. That was fine until she hit the tile floor in the kitchen. She immediately skidded. She was going so fast that she slid clear across the room and bumped into the stove in a mad scrabble of claws. Ok; new trajectory! She launched again, this time attaining the bathroom a little before the plodding human managed it.
That was when I discovered she had a new trick; jumping up on the seat and balancing there. I brushed her off in preparation for seating myself. Before I could complete the action, she had jumped up again, coming appallingly close to being knocked into the water by my descending anatomy. That time I picked her up, holding her in one hand while I completed my mission, then putting her down after the lid was shut. She glared at me; I had thwarted her desire to watch swirling water. But you know? She’s a baby. She has the mindfulness of a mayfly. She’d forgotten her pique and was winding my ankles before my hands were washed. So I picked her up again, lest she tangle my feet, and held her as I walked back toward the bedroom. She purred through the kitchen, and was asleep on my arm by the time I got to my bedroom door. So I put her beside her mother on the recliner and went back to bed myself, leaving Sophia to deal with kitten-antics the next time baby woke up.
I see Sophia-cat has fulfilled her desire to become a housecat. And she’s been training you well!
You’re right. She can report successful completion of her mission to the Queen of the Cats.
Just wait for the next trick. One of my fur pursons is very shy (shes a shelter cat and I suspect prior abuse) But at any rate she vehimantly avoids being picked up or cuddlying in any form when the human is “mobile” hense her trick is to demand laptime when one is “stationary”. usually best accomplished when one is “busy in the bathroom”