Things La Doof Kitton loves

as a counterpoint to the hate for things like paper towels and mailmen, I think I need to list things La Doof Kitton loves:

-Wool.  He  is, at this moment, making sweet sweet love to a diaper cover.  He made out with a hat of mine earlier today.  He only likes 100% wool and as such, was actually given a WWII era army hat by his uncle because he adored it so much

-Tackling El Gato.  She out-weighs him by, er, a lot.  So he tackles her, she fights back, she wins, she struts away and he tackles again.  She can win 15 times but he still wins the war because he's ready for round 16.

-Chewing on Mr G's ankles when the mailman scares him.  It makes him feel safer  better.  (by 'him', I mean La Doof Kitton.  Mr. G's ankles don't feel better.  They look a bit red and bleedy)

-Mom's hair brush.  This is good to cuddle, unlike the cat hair brush which is apparently made of owies and kitton death wish.

-The Microwave cart.  This is where one can hide behind the toaster and pop out, pretending to be toast, scaring mommy half to death.

-Boots.  An entire La Doof Kitton can more or less fit in mommy's cowboy boots.  Not only are these a great place to hide cat toys, they're also fun to chew on (grr)

-Nylons/pantyhose.  To be fair, I may be giving him credit for something that was El Gato's doing, but the first 3 pair I pulled out of my drawer this weekend had holes chewed in them.  (note to self, buy a lock for the drawer)

-Buffy's failure to use a sippy-cup properly.  I'm not sure Buffy is a 'favorite thing' (although her crib, when she's not in it, may be), but poorly handled sippy cups lead to delicious puddles of whole-milk scattered around and on the high chair. 

-The High chair.  These things were MADE for cats.  There's a (somewhat) cushion-y seat.  They're high up.  And the tray doubles as a bed.  And occasionally, they're covered with tasty bits of food/milk

mmm, cat treats.

Every morning and every evening, the pets in the G household get treats.

Some people think we spoil our pets.  Really, we just want to ake sure none of them have done anything incredibly stupid--giving treats is how we eliminate reduce the odds that one of the critters spends the night/day on a shelf locked in the linen closet, in the dryer, locked outside, trapped in the garage, etc.

For those who don't know, Buffy recently became mobile.  She doesn't crawl but she does a scooting that moves her faster than her parents realise.
This makes feeding the pets in the morning extra challenging.  Remember the old 'items and a boat' (The Simpsons do it best, but I suppose the traditional 'fox, goose, bag o' beans' is more classic)?  It's like that.  Buffy wants to steal the treats/hug/otherwise bother all the pets.  Dawg wants to steal the treats of all the cats.  The cats won't EAT Dawg's treats, but wll bother the bejeebes out of her.  La Doof Kitton tries to steal El Gato's treats and El Gato is the world's slowest eater.  You have 1 high chair and 3 pets in the living room...

Normally, I put Buff in her high chair while arranging all of this--because of the above mentioned issues.  This particular day, I forgot.  I put Buffy down on the kitchen floor, went in the living room where I gave El Gato her treats and, on the other end of the living room (closer to the kitchen) gave La Doof Kitton his treats.  Then I gave Dawg HER treats in the hallway, after dragging her away from stealing El Gato's treats.

At that moment, I see Buffy scooting her wee butt across the living room with a look on her face that resembles a cat that ate the canary.  It looks closer to 'the baby who ate the cat treat' though and I realise that La Doof Kitton looks PIIIIISSSSSED.

I pick up Buffy, take her to the kitchen were I have better lighting, and pry her mouth open.  I stick a finger in (which promptly gets bitten) and 'finger sweep' until the Pounce treat, now resembling chicken-flavored-play dough, falls on the floor.  El Gato appears, sniffs it...and eats it.  La Doof Kitton glowers from the corner and Buffy screams that I took away 'her' treat.
I consider telling El Gato that it belongs to La Doof Kitton, but I figure that he has stolen a gazillion of El Gato's treats in the past few years, he deserves to loose this one.

I think La Doof Kitton is having to learn hard lessons about the new pecking order--and so am I.  Buffy must be in the high chair when treating pets.

A new enemy awaits, lurking in shadows...

(For the record, I wish I had pictures.  I do not, because Mr. G, being the fastidious man he is, keeps cleaning them up before I dig out the camera.  I'd complain about that but grousing about someone cleaning up is just foolishness personified.)

For the past several years, the kittehs have been oblivious to a mortal enemy that has stalked them as they enjoyed the relative  peace and tranquility of their home.

This month...La Doof Kitton discovered this fiend.  He has battled with this assailiant no fewer than 5 timssince midsummer's eve--maybe several other pitched battles have taken place that the household members are yet unaware of.

Now nightly, La Doof Kitton and this towering terror match wits and battle with fang and claw.  Thus far, though the battles have been hard fought and fraught with danger, the Kitton has sustained only minor wounds while inflicting serious damage on the enemy.
But the enemy is clever and powerful and, disguised as a necessary part of home life, he resurrects whenever the 2 legged creatures in the home approach him.  He comes back from the grave, his near demise never becomes permanent.

La Doof Kitton even took to dragging his kill out of the kitchen and into other rooms in the house to finish the job--quite a struggle when the fiend is mounted to a kitchen cabinet.   But still, the demise never remains permanent--like a phoenix from the ashes, a new dastardly villain takes up residence once the humans approach.

Mr. G, foolish mortal that he is, even had the audacity to place this creature-of-darkness out of the reach of Kittehs, in the "La Doof Kitton proof box".  Mr. G may have become a Thrall of the powerful enemy, hence extending his protection as he entombs the Kitton's rival away from the Kitton's teeth.

And that ^^ is why I found a roll of paper-towel in the microwave today.  Apparently it's the only way we don't loose half a roll of it, nightly, to the Kitton's new found desire to shred it.  He can pull it out of the holder, take it to other rooms, and dissect it very carefully.  So now, at bedtime, the pets get treats, and the paper towel is removed from the holder and joins the baked goods in the microwave

Flowers for the Kitton

Buffy is learning how to 'fish for kittons":

You start with appropriate 'bait'.  Flags are excellent

Then you wave the bait around a lot.

It helps if you do this for the 'right' kitteh.  El Gato is not interested in flags when they are attached to loud, moving Buffy.

Eventually, the kitton, who has been waiting, just out of reach for ages, will be unable to resist and will come barreling out of nowhere to attack the bait.

Do you remember "Who framed Roger Rabbit"?  Where they tap 'shave and a hair cut' and the poor rabbit is trying DESPERATELY not to come bursting out but eventually can't stop himself?  Yep.  It looks a lot like that.
Buffy LOVES it when she finally wins.

You can also fish using a flower on a stick

Lookout behind you!  Lasers!

Conversations in our house..

These are recent conversations in the GB house (between the 2 grown-up humans who live here):

"What happened to the paper towel?"
"La Doof Kitton"
"oh. Why?"
"because he's a *expletive deleted because we try to be PG around here*. Apparently he just plain got pissy and managed to get on the counter last night, pull the roll of toweling off of the holder, and take it to the living room. Where he shredded it"
*La Doof Kitton strolls into the room*
"what did towels ever do to YOU?"
*he looks at us, jumps onto the counter where he isn't allowed, makes a claw-swipe at the towels, and then runs to the basement*
"bastard."
^I could add names to who said what but...I think it's interchangeable for us on this one. You can assume the EXACT same conversation was repeated about what happened to the stuff in my work bag I left on the kitchen table recently.

-----
Conversation at 4 am
Me: "what's that noise?"
Mr G: "what noise?"
*rustling noise*
Me: "That noise"
*Horrible crash followed by skittering of claws/paws and baby crying from scary noises*
Me: "I got the baby, you figure out what La Doof Kitton has"
*Mr G. walks into the nursery where I'm comforting/feeding Buffy*
Mr G: "I forgot to put the cookies into the Kitton proof box. But I brought you a cookie!" *sharing cookie*
Me, to La Doof Kitton: "You know you're a bastard"
La Doof Kitton: *looks smug*
Me:

just a photo-update of the pets and their new addition....

I apologize if the pictures aren't great--do you have any idea how hard it is to herd cats and Dawg and a baby into one frame?   THis is what we have though:



Defeated by kitteh!





Confused by how this happened...

 


Even the big Kitteh loves toys!  Kinda.




La Doof Kitton mostly likes the strings.  And stealing toys from babies.
Baby is learning how to use strings to 'fish for kittehs'



Dawgs get in trouble for stealing toys so they just have to settle for
stealing Boppy pillows.

La Doof Kitton keeps trying to feed himself to the baby.  Not quite sure why :)

They say cats aren't capable of plitting revenge......

They lie.

Earlier this week, the family had a morning with some family togetherness.  I was sitting in the rocking chair, feeding Buffy.  Mr. G was sitting on the ottoman next to us, and the pets were busy doing their thing.

Mr. G brought me a bagel because he's a nice guy and I had a migraine.  However, because I had a migraine, after a few bites, I had to move the bagel out of 'smell range' for a few; I asked him to set it on the nursery night-stand, just out of reach while we finished planning our day.

A moment later a small white and gray paw appeared over the top of the night stand.  Remember those cartoons where a cat (Sylvester) is under the table and his paw walks to the food?  Yep, just like that.  There was a claw trying desperately to hook my bagel.

Mr. G was quick on the draw and snagged the plate o' bagel out of reach and then made several comments about winning the battle, cats not being able to take over the world because they don't have opposable  thumbs, and 'HA, no bagel for you!'.  And then we went back to planning our day.

Quick as thought, La Doof Kitton appeared on the night stand.  The Mr. repeated a comment about "ha, see, no bagel for you; I have it here".  La Doof Kitton walked across where the bagel had been, over to my rather heavy water bottle, and head butted it.  Hard.

There was a slow motion sequence as the water bottle tipped, fell and spiraled downward...with the heavy part of the base landing square on the bony part of the Mr.'s bare foot.

Buffy woke up because I was laughing so hard I cried (sorry.  yes, I'm a jerk).  The Mr. actually fell off the ottoman in pain (Dawg promptly rushed over to help lick him off and El Gato got panicky and ran away).
La Doof Kitton spent a few moments looking smug before dropping off the night stand walking over to where the plate o' bagel was on the floor (the Mr, in his pain, had set it down/dropped it), and commencing to lick off the butter.

La Doof Kitton 1, humans 0