"How I Helped Prepare Mama for Motherhood" - Featuring Pepe the Cat

My Strategies:

1) Weave in and out of mom's legs when she's trying to walk from the refrigerator to the sink
2) Make the most disturbing yakking noises at 3 am and all hours of the night, whilst running around frantically trying to spit up a furball or other inedible item.
3) Pee on the bed in the middle of the night
4) Have an assortment of health issues that mom has to solve and do millions of hours of research on on the internet (chronic constipation, sick stomach, flea infestations that take over the whole house and self, etc.)
5) Have mom buy me an array of fancy toys because I am her only child - most of which end up hidden under the furniture which mom has to dig out later
6) Mess up the furniture and scratch up the floors

Eerily similar to her mothering Paul:
1) Circle around mom's legs when she's trying to walk from the refrigerator to the sink.
2) Wake up screaming at 3 am for no apparent reason. Then again, at 5 am, then again at 8 am.
3) Pee on the crib (and self) in the middle of the night. Even with 2 diapers on.
4) Have an assortment of health issues requiring research (why is his medication giving him chronic diarrhea, why is he now constipated, how do I help heal his many cuts, scrapes and bruises from being a super active toddler, what IS that rash that just won't go away???)
5) Have mom buy me an array of fancy toys because I am her only child - most of which end up hidden under the furniture which mom has to dig out later with a Swiffer.
6) Mess up the furniture with slobber, sippie cups, and other mysterious gunk, and scratch up the floors.

Aren't I just the best cat in the world for doing all this? Mom should thank me.

More another time...

Learning to speak.... well, sort of

Although Paul can say about 15 human words (the latest acquisition being "Grandma"), his favorite 2 words these days are "Gock" and "Schnap".... pronounced "GGGGGoCKKK" and "Schhhhhnapppp". We have no idea what these words mean, but they mean something to him, as they are said with such enthusiasm, and usually accompanied with a pointer finger pointing in the air at some invisible force.

Our "Sshh" Adventure

Took Paul to Petsmart today on an errand. He went crazy over the tanks of fish everywhere. He would just stand in front of them and screech and giggle and say "Wwwwowww". When I said "Fish", he just kept repeating "Sshh". He does that a lot lately. Hat is "ttt". What a cutie.

We ate lunch at a Japanese/Korean buffet and whattya know, again there are 3 huge tanks of fish swimming around -right next to our table. Again, he repeated the screeching, pointing and giggling in front of the tanks, even dancing with joy. The entire restaurant was his captive audience, unlike at Petsmart. Do I see a homegrown"shhh" tank in our future?

The Quilt

This is Paul's gift from Aunt Sandy, a beautiful quilt. Here is a grumpy Paul, having just woken up from his nap, sitting on it.

Of course, this is not one of Paul's finer moments. But the kid did sit still long enough at least for me to take these!

He also likes playing with the stuffed kitty Aunt Sandy bought him for Christmas. He likes to pretend it's Pepe and to torment "him" the way he's not allowed to with Pepe. He even puts him on top of Pepe's scratching post and starts babbling away at it. He/She/It doesn't have a name yet, but Pepe has claimed her as his toy (he, too, likes to wrestle with her, we've found).

More later... it's getting late and the brain is shutting down.