March 15, 2011
My Journey Into Mommihood
We started out so beautifully…you followed me around, you nudged me into your world, I played with you every day…watched you eat and as you slept next to me I listened as you breathed. The sounds that escaped your body, every little sound, movement, utterance…I was there for…you putting your little paw on my face or licking my arm as you soothed yourself to sleep. Then there were the times you woke me awake as you licked my cheek, or tickled my nose with your whiskers…at first I wasn’t sure…I wasn’t committed, but after 2.5 years I have watched myself love you each more every day.
I have seen us ebb and flow and us going deeper in surges. Each day you trust me more, each day I let you in more.
At first having to discipline you as you scratched on the couch or sat on the counter…turned into us coming to an agreement of what was and wasn’t important. I have grown to respond to you with love and kindness, removing you from the counter instead of reacting and pushing you off. You have touch me so much….to take time each day for love, to cuddle with you, and feel you.
We are so much the same and so different. We both love to cuddle, we only like to be touched in certain ways by the people who we want to be touched by, we both long for love and haven’t a clue on how to receive it. We both are fabulously soft to the touch and both have red in our hair. I love touching you….so soft with you Calico fur grown only from raw meat…yes I feed you what feels best for your little body.
What I didn’t know, was at night when we’d lay down to sleep, as a baby you’d purr so loudly I just couldn’t sleep, it was louder then any cat purr I’ve ever heard. But once you drifted off your purr would turn off…I hadn’t a clue that kitties could not purr and sleep at the same time.
I love that I know you…I know when I get up in the morning you will be waiting to go in the bathroom with me, rub against my legs, jump onto the sink and play with the screen in it as if you’ve never seen it before. You will walk onto the back of the toilet letting me pet you if I choose to reach around and then you’ll come back down to rub on me allowing me to give you all the love I want to pour into you. It’s one of my favorite parts of our day together.
You know that every morning I will sing to you…any tune that I can put your name too and sing your own personalized song all awhile doing our morning ritual…sometimes all throughout the day during feeding, my showers, the toilet visits, us eating, your sun bathing….any time
Then I walk with you part of the way to the kitchen after the toilet visits, picking you up for a little part of the way, open the curtains, feel your purr and fur on my arms and sometimes your tail on my leg as we walk. Then as I grow closer to the kitchen you push to get down with the excitement of going to be fed. I put you down, open the refrigerator door, get your food and put it in your bowl with a wet “swap” sound of meat hitting the ceramic bowl. You immediately head for it, only moments later to come back to me, rubbing against me, thanking me for feeding you. It took me so long to realize that is what you were doing. I thought you were asking for more for months and one day I realized I felt your gratitude in your caress of my leg and I loved you even more for that. Since when does a parent of a kitty get thanked so beautifully. I had no idea how beautiful that could be. Even if I go to the other room, you follow me in…sometimes wanting me to be with you while you eat. How precious. So coming back in I’d sit with you, petting you as you eat…I feel like you are saying “aren’t I such a good girl mom, I’m eating all my food you’ve given me”. Who knows if that is what you were saying but it sure felt like it.
I could almost always rely on after you eating you’d spring from your bowl and start running around the apartment with glee…full, happy and sassy! Well, until I get out the yogurt and then there you are, purring at my side, next to my computer wanting some yogurt. Not any yogurt, only the kind I like, Vanilla yogurt. I sometimes put down a spoon full or I put down the empty container, as you put your whole head in it, licking all the way to the bottom of the container, trying to get every drop. Later I’d find crusty yogurt on your ears.
I know that each day you will find a nice dark place in the middle of the day, make your way into your cave and have your afternoon siesta, either under the couch cover or the blanket that covers the massage table.
As a baby you would sleep under my chin, all curled up….my friends started to say I looked tired and thought it was from me sleeping with you, but I refused to accept that. So I allowed you to sleep with me…one day you just moved and slept at my feet, where I started sleeping more peacefully though I missed the closeness of our touch and cuddling, your fur against my skin. I enjoyed this up until you decided that at 4 or 5 in the morning was the perfect time to get up and play, rattle any kind of paper, plastic, toy you could and I’d get up and have to put you into the living room. One day I just decided to sleep through the night and put you out, feeling a bit bad about it. But the next morning felt splendid and almost every morning after that.
I’d sometimes soften when you’d purposely come in, curl up on my bed, right as I’d come into my room and you’d look at me as if to say “please mom”….and I’d melt and say “ok”. And hope you’d let me sleep in until at least 7am. But invariably I’d wake up with you sitting on my chest staring at me, as if you were saying “ok it’s time for me to go out now” or with you sitting next to me staring, or playing with some plastic bag I left out and you decided this was the perfect time to climb into. I’d get up and put you into the living room, only to go back to sleep.
I have grown more and more to love you….though I do feel some day, one day, my heart will break when we will part ways. As my sister told me once “I knew one day we’d have to say good bye, either by death or by them leaving, so I let them go”….she gave away her twins at 3 months old knowing this was the best for her. Oh the pain she must have felt and the pain I know I will feel when this time comes.
But my life is of a traveler, and you are not a traveling kitty. You were born on July 22nd at 12 noon….a Cancer on the cusp of Leo…not a real traveler, though have a bit in your blood. You like stability though crave to be an outdoor kitty…staring out the window fantasizing about how many bugs and birds you could kill if I’d ever let you out. And I know you’d be a wild and great huntress. Part of the reason I know I’ll need to let you go one day. I need to let you fulfill that dream, I want you to. Oh I hope to get to see that. You being wild, maybe if we go some where else, I can show you into the outdoors more then the few times I have been able to in your little life. But the freedom I know that you will feel to be out in the wild, to be free…only to hope you’ll come back home.
I remember the day you some how got out of the house not too long ago, only for me to come home and feel you not in the house. I looked for you, I tried to tell myself “she’s just hiding”. But something said “no she’s not in here”. I heard your voice when I called for you and after the second time around found you at the front door hunkered down, scared to be out on your own and as I opened the door you slowly, crouched down walked into our home. I’d never had you walk in before, typically I have to pick you up hissing at me for you telling me “how dare you take me from where I’m to be” at least that is my translation. But I realized this is your home and you love me. What a beautiful feeling to know you stayed near and wanted to come in.
Thank you for being in my life, thank you for bringing so much joy and shedding life importances on me. After all who would have taught me to stop each day, take time for the ones we love, to lay with you on the floor and look at you, pet you, oh and smell you…something so divinely heaven. To just put my face into your belly or bury my nose into your neck…I know that sent of you…that is my kitty. You showed me that you need love your way…..that you need to be played with “this way”…that “this” is too much. Never ever come to you to pet you in fear as you will attack…so I never have. I’ve never feared you but I have seen many fear you and get your claw.
I’ve seen you in fear when I take things out to have a garage sale but you think I’m leaving you, you hiss and paw at me and I get down to your level, and softly tell you, I’ll be back. I’ll show you, I’ll be back. It’s ok, be mad, but I’m right out there. You hissed each time, new scents coming in with me and going back out, more boxes and then once I came back in, you were relaxed and relieved that I was back to stay. I know I am your home, just as you are my home, for now.
You chose me, heaven knows why you did, but you chose me. I thought us so different but now I see we are so the same. I love you my precious one. We both needed someone. I needed your company, your presence, someone to talk to, someone to love and I needed you to teach me and love me too.
You are my baby, the one I raised since 5 weeks old with your tiny green eyes that turned yellow as you got older.
I felt the pain the day I had to drop you off to get your surgery, the pain of “my baby is going to be hurt and what if I don’t see her again”. And then having to trust. Taking care of you with your little cone around your neck afterward, having to give you pain pills that made you all dopey and drunk but kept you pain free. Then you were with me only weeks later for my surgery….though I have to say you weren’t so gentle on me when I came home….jumping right on my incision and causing me the most excoriating pain of my life…feeling your little needle like paws going right into my flesh, I felt my incision open and your feet go in and come back out as I jumped and lurched in pain. I know you meant no harm. I was gone for 2 days and you were probably upset that I wasn’t there…but it wasn’t quite the welcome home I was looking for. But oddly enough that side of my scar healed far better then the other side. So maybe it was a blessing.
I love you my little tot. You will always be my little puss….and I will always forever sing to you, even after one of us is gone. Thank you for being such a precious part of my heart.
