I haven’t written about my cats in a while, but lately I’ve been thinking about how funny they are.
We tried potty training them, as I mentioned several years ago. It sort of worked. Boris still uses the toilet, which is awesome. I’ve been asked if I taught them to flush. We considered it, but then decided nothing good would come of it. If we tried, it might scare the cats, which would undo the potty training. If it didn’t scare them, they might enjoy it, and then we’d end up with a huge water bill every month! Oliver used the toilet for a short time – maybe a week, but one day he refused to use it anymore. Nothing will change his mind. I came up with the idea of buying him a potty chair – the kind used to potty train children. It worked, but if we didn’t clean it between uses, he’d use the floor or the bathroom sink. He wouldn’t re-use his potty chair. So, I finally decided to buy a second potty chair, and that’s working well. We check several times a day, and dump anything in them into the toilet. We had to use litter at first (which I hate), but finally got him to use them by just placing a small amount of toilet paper in each. It’s nice when he goes on top, because then it falls right out into the toilet when we dump it. So now, we have a potty chair on both sides of the toilet.
A sister of mine said we don’t have cats – we have kids disguised as cats! We actually have kids, too, and there are some things about the cats that remind me of when the children were young (the youngest is 16 now). For example, my cats will play peek-a-boo with me! One day, I was leaving the bathroom, and saw Oliver looking at me from the top of the stairs. He was standing with his head cocked to one side, staring down at me. I decided to step back into the bathroom and then stick my head out again and say “peek-a-boo”. He looked at me more intently, so I repeated it. Each time, he looked more excited, and eventually he started walking toward me, a little at a time. It turns out that Boris also likes to play peek-a-boo, but you have to be careful – he might attack! I make sure to only play peek-a-boo with him if my face isn’t anywhere he can reach.
One day, I was watching tv, and I noticed that Oliver was watching it, too! Since then, I’ve caught him watching tv frequently. He likes to watch Bob Ross, nature programs, and sometimes even commercials. It was funny to see him watching a show called Dancing Birds. He tried to get closer and closer, and eventually tried to jump up onto the shelves under the tv, so we had to turn it off so he didn’t break anything.
When they were younger, my children would sometimes sit on me. Not just on my lap, either! There were times I was so tired, I’d fall asleep on the couch. They sometimes would crawl up and sit on my side while I was lying down. It’s a good thing they don’t do that now! Oliver does, though. He sits on our feet, laps, and even on our sides.
The best part of having cats around is when they want to cuddle up next to you. Right now, I’m sitting on the couch, typing, and Oliver is close by, napping. Sometimes, I’ll have one cat on each side, which is really nice. Recently, that happened, and I was able to pet both of them at the same time.
Adding kitties to our home was a good idea!
