Toddlers vs. Pets
I have come to the conclusion that toddlers are very much like cats. Now I’m not saying I should treat my toddler like a pet, although I do believe in treating my pet well and with lots of love, nor do I think I should push my toddler off the couch when he puts his little butt in my face, but there have been many moments since the birth of my son when I have thought to myself, these two, the cat and the kid, are shockingly alike. I feel that I must reiterate, I do not think I can leave my child unsupervised while I go to the store or say, to Europe, but on a daily basis, it turns out that the years of taking care of my cat were pretty good preparation for taking care of my son.
Let me give you some examples to back up my logic. I learned, over the years, that my cat does not want me to tell her when to eat. She wants her food left out so she can graze at her leisure throughout the day. With my son, this is slightly altered, but for the most part, he’s a grazer. He doesn’t want to sit still for a meal; he is in perpetual motion. So, if kids need three meals and two snacks a day, a nap and lots of entertainment, those meals and snacks seem to be best administered by leaving a bowl of food out and accessible at all times, so he can grab at it between our laps around the house or the yard or the neighborhood.
When my cat was younger, she used to like to bat at the roll of toilet paper, pull it off the holder and tear it apart. Hmm, suspiciously, just like my son. Now, kitty cat outgrew this behavior long before my son in grew it or grew into it, or something like that. So it’s not a learned behavior; both cat and kid seem to be instinctively from the same school of thought. Unfortunately for the grown people in the house, that means the roll of paper stays off the holder and up on the counter, annoyingly out of reach from the sitting position on the toilet.
My son likes stickers but gets crazy, screaming mad and jumps up and down when they get stuck to him, almost like my cat. Instead, she runs in circles when they get stuck to her paws. My son sometimes snuggles tightly in my arms when he wants to feel cozy, my cat snuggles up on my head while I’m trying to sleep when she needs to feel the same way. You see, different, but not really.
If you are not familiar with cat behavior, I can tell you that they love you all the time but they only show it when they are in the mood. Suspiciously, when I ask for a hug or a kiss from my son and he is not in the mood, he tells me ‘way’, as in get out of my.... Of course, when I least expect it, I’ll get a big hug and a juicy kiss for no reason at all, from my son, not from my cat.
I used to joke that my cat understood the word ‘no’ but would pretend that she didn’t just because she could. She’s very smart and will stop in her tracks when I say ‘no’, but then she seems to quickly realize that she doesn’t actually need to listen. She understands that she can pretend to not know what I mean when I say ‘no’. My son does exactly the same thing. So, I do exactly the same thing with both my son and my cat. I remove the little being from the situation that required a ‘no’ in the first place. There is usually much hissing and moaning, but they both seem to get over it pretty quickly. Which leads me to my next comparison, grudges. I’ve heard people say that cats punish their people for bad behavior, like not cleaning the little box or not refilling the water bowl, but I’ve never found cat poop in my shoe. I’ve just never had that issue with my cat, or my son. My boy is happy to walk around all day with a poopy diaper if it means he doesn’t have to stop moving. But if I do insist on a diaper change, there is much hissing and moaning, however as soon as I place him back onto the floor, my son is off and running. The incident is forgotten as he leads me by the finger into the next room he’d like to tear apart. I guess I’m pretty lucky that my cat responds the same way, although she might not if she was wearing a diaper that had to be changed, but she seems to forgive and forget pretty quickly.
My son used to claw his way up my husband’s body as soon as I said the word bath, as if daddy could save him from the dreaded ritual of washing. Oddly, bath is also a word that my cat recognizes, and when I used to try to give her a bath, she clawed her way up anyone or any piece of furniture that she thought could save her from the dreaded tub. I’ve since given up on trying to bathe my cat myself, but you’ll be happy to hear that I have not given up on trying to bathe my son.
I feel I need to promise you that my son is my world and I spend countless hours just staring at him in amazement, so please don’t call child protective services because you think I have left him alone at home with an open refrigerator and a litter box in the corner. I would also like to say that my husband does not like my comparison of cat and kid, and he just recently pointed out that we have not had to treat our son for worms. Now, I know you are thinking exactly what I’m thinking, we have not had to treat our son for worms, yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment