Those Pesky Cats

Now comes the challenge of being real without being a real complainer! I often wonder if my blog readers think "What happened to the cats once Carina came along?". Well, if you're wondering, they're just fine. They may get less attention but they generally don't mind. If we're stationary for any length of time we can usually count on a cat camping out in one of our laps. It's nice! They take very little interest in Carina but they aren't bothered by her at all. They even take a bop or a hair pulling from her now and then.

All that said - they are on my naughty list this morning. Peter would have me point out that it's really Kenny and not both of them on my list (Kenny tends to be MY cat and Nutmeg HIS cat) but anyway... Kenny makes a habit of waking us before our alarm at least a few times a week. He meows, walks all over us, scratches at the bed skirt and the electrical cords.

We would just shut him out of our room except that he would sit and scratch at our door and we worry that would wake Carina. We've tried spraying him with the squirt bottle but he keeps coming back to bother us. We've tried feeding the cats early or giving them a little dry food to hold them but as Peter says - this is giving in to the terrorists. We feel we're running out of options. We have a baby who sleeps peacefully through the night most nights and yet we're still awakened by a pesky cat as early as 4:30 some mornings!

And just so we're fair here "Mr.-my-cat-is-faultless", Nutmeg can also be a royal pain and meows at the top of her little lungs as soon as our alarm goes off. But in her defense she usually does wait till we're already awake and she does it from downstairs most of the time.

The new options we're considering:

1) Feed the cats later in the evening so they hopefully don't bother us as early in the morning. This has happened a few times accidentally when we're out for the evening and their dinner times is pushed back later than the usual 7 pm. Nornally we don't notice any difference in the annoying morning behavior, sadly.

2) Leave some dry food out overnight. Our cats typically only get half a can of wet food each at 7 am and 7 pm. They are thriving so I know they're not starving (Nutmeg is just a naturally thin cat - don't judge!). And I worry if we do that they'll scarf up the dry food right away, make themselves sick, still wake us early and then we'll just have an extra mess to clean. Which by the way happened this morning even without feeding them any dry food, sigh.

No option 3. I'm still researching. If you have any advice, leave a comment. We'd really love to sleep till our alarm goes off. Peter and I ask each other fairly often "Why do we have cats?" and really - the pictures below speak for themselves. Because they're so darn cute! I especially love Kenny peering past me into the pantry to look for food.