Furry Wake Up Call

NOTE: This article is from an old blog Golden wrote on from 2017 to 2019. It was called Mama Wants an RV. The blog has since expired but the memories remain. Thanks for reading!

Original Post from July 15, 2017

The cat can sleep anywhere, why not me?

I don’t know about you, but Mama likes her sleep! I work hard, play hard, and rest hard. Since bedtime isn’t until almost midnight, I don’t feel guilty for sleeping in until 7:30 or 8. My husband can do the five hours of sleep thing, but I can’t. Between cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, teaching, mediating, shopping, and therapy I just happen to lose my gusto!

As much help as the kids can be at times, managing their “helpfulness” can be a full-time job by itself. I have let so many things go in the last seven years! I don’t know what clean even means anymore, or how food ends up in places that can’t be seen until you have a guest over. Yes, friend, that round grease stain on the wall up there – it’s a bagel imprint. I don’t dare mention the slop of butter right above their head clinging to the popcorn ceiling, waiting for the perfect moment to let go.

Does anybody hear me?

We used to homeschool. Need I say more? 24/7 on-call duty that doesn’t end when you go to sleep, because the lesson plans haunt you in your sleep, along with the nagging feeling that you forgot to call someone or pay the credit card bill. The lists can go on and on and on. Falling asleep may be a chore, but once I’m out, I’m out. There isn’t much that will wake me once I’m in that merciful state of slumber.

Dad likes his sleep too!

Enter one light-weight tabby that doesn’t look like she could hold her own in a fight. This delicate and proper female cat has endured countless hours of little hands grabbing and pulling and stretching her poor little body for more than half her life. Yet she remains faithful, coming at the call of a whistle, and standing expectantly at her master’s arrival. She is one of three cats that has endured great challenges and secondary trauma. I had no idea pets could be affected so greatly by the turmoil in our home until after adopting children. I also had no idea how much these animals would come to mean to wounded hearts, making it all the harder to even think about giving them up.

Let’s just say, our cats have been a bit spoiled because we know what they have put up with in their lives. So, this twelve-year-old gray tabby likes to sleep under the covers when she is cold, which is all the time. We let her do just that for a couple years, and it was no problem. Turmoil in our home increased, and our cat has become more senile. Now she doesn’t know what she wants, and after countless trips in and out from the covers, I was done!

What have you done for your pet?

Enough was enough. I was exhausted and I couldn’t handle another night of sleep interrupted every half hour! So, Tigger got her own bedroom. It’s called the master bathroom. We would have just closed our bedroom door, but we have a second cat that won’t use the litter box if she isn’t allowed to sleep on our floor!

Cozy cat bed with a blanket too!

A small cat bed, litter box, food, water, and carpeted toilet seat provide this feline with a pleasant residence away from our precious bed. The transition went very well after we got over the initial whining. I can fall asleep to whining, just not a dirty paw in my eyeball, or sharp claws pulling out my hair! (That was the cat’s signal to me to let her under the covers, because she wouldn’t nudge her way through respectably as our third cat would.)

These animals may be small, but they are smart! A few days later the cat figured out the closet led to our bedroom and the door didn’t latch properly. That animal used her paw to pry it open and before I knew it, there she was again walking on top of me! Really!

Okay, now we block the door with a heavy trash can, because we don’t have a free moment to just fix the latch. When do adoptive parents have extra time to do much of anything, especially when it comes to attending to little nuisances? We get creative, make an immediate fix, and move on.

Beautiful sleep! It was time to catch up after a long day of connected parenting and negotiating needs. Oh, how sweet it is to rest without interruption. Day after day turned into week after week, and we became spoiled as the cat obediently went to her room each night.

A rare moment when all three are caught together

Oh, wait, that is until she became savvy (like our kids) and waited for the opportune time to make her move. That’s right, the little escape artist was waiting for that perfect moment of forgetfulness on our part, that night when we failed to put the trash can in place. She even waited until the early morning hours, making us think all was well. But no, five-thirty in the morning, that conniving creature was back on top of me. I woke up with a start.

After letting her under the covers, she quickly proceeded to get out, then repeated the process two more times. That was it! Now I was wide awake. I carried the cat back to her humble abode, used the restroom, while the cat took care of her own business. Thing is, after the cat takes care of her business, she feels she must run a marathon, because she’s free of something. She shoots out of the box and straight into the door, then meows at me like I’m supposed to feel sorry for her. Well, I did, so I opened the door. She lapped the house, carefully looking back at me, and I’m thinking, “She just got me to let her out!”

I tracked her down at the water bowl, while our fat black cat plops on the floor, meowing, “Feed me, feed me.”

“Whatever, that’s not the normal routine, but I’ll do it, just let me sleep!” I picked up Tigger in one arm and an extra bowl of food in the other. After dropping them off in the bathroom and carefully placing the protective trash can, I proceeded back to bed in an effort to get another hour of sleep.

Really? The clean laundry now!

Too late, though. The sun was up. Might as well wake up my husband too, and ask him to fix the door latch for good!

Do you have a funny pet story? I would love to hear it! Let me know about it in the comments below.