THE LITTLE SHITHEAD IS WALKING VOLUNTARILY!!!
And the more fuss we make (we make a lot of fuss) the more she walks, and I'm so happy I could poo. Maybe the tendonitis in my 'good' wrist from lifting her will go away some time in the next year. I'm so happy.
Happy about the walking thing, anyway. However I do have a lesson for all of you:
Never take painkillers and try to cast on anything. It's not going to end well. Ever. Don't bother trying. Don't tell yourself you'll count real careful this time. JUST. DON'T. DO. IT.
For those of you who have cats, I'm having a problem with mine and I need to know what the cat response would be. (I've never lived with groups of cats, so I've never had a chance to observe them.) When the cat's been sleeping on me for a long time (four hours or more) and I move, she bites me. I know she's biting to keep me still, but I'm damn tired of being bitten. (We're not talking mean nasty stuff here. I'm sure if I had fur, it wouldn't leave a mark. Unfortunately, I DON'T have fur, and it HURTS.) So what would the cat response be? What do they do in these situations when they're sleeping all jumbled together in a pile? 'Cause I'm pretty sure my response last night (grab cat by scruff, shake vigorously, and throw), isn't quite getting the message across. It just assures we're both pissed.
And in a case of saving the best news for last (okay, the almost-best news, I'm sorry, but The Baby walking is better than just about everything, possibly even chocolate), Bells has given me the honor of naming me as a Thinking Blogger. To paraphrase, I say smart things and give people food for thought. I'm very flattered, thank you. (Bells' post about it can be read here, and the original start of the award system can be read here.) I want to say something profound about blogging and the internet and community, and I get to name my own five favorite thought-provoking blogs, but I'm going to do it another day - probably tomorrow. Profundity isn't happening tonight. But thank you very much, Bells, for making me feel like I have my act together.
22 comments:
I had named you, too. I pretty much named everyone in my sidebar, 'cause I don't like to pick & choose, but you do make me think. Mainly I think, "How in the hell does she DO all that??" I've since updated my sidebar, but still, you make me think.
No insight on the cat problem, though. We have one. I don't let him sleep on me for hours, since we co-sleep and I've had one kid or another doing that for 5+ years now. If the cat behaves, he can sleep at the end of the bed. I'm pretty sure he's still pissed at getting thrown off the bed for repeatedly puking on it, since we never throw the kids off the bed for the same behavior...
Here's what happened when I opened your blog.
Me: Oh look! The baby's walking!
Sean: Uh-oh.
Then he asked me to pass that on.
But he's very happy that you have a walking baby. :-)
Looking forward to your profundity.
cats probably hiss and stare at the offender with their eyes wide open, but then when i do that to my own cat it never has much of an effect...
to be honest i'm not sure yours is the most thought-provoking blog around, but it's definitely the most funny, which i prefer by far :)
Yay, baby!!! She's just been waiting for the right moment.
My own strategy for dealing with cat bites probably won't work for you. I just accept that I am the subordinate in this relationship and sit still until I am allowed to move. Not really a big deal. I hate moving anyway...
I made it clear to my cat from day 1 that I am alpha cat, but that doesn't stop him from sitting on my knitting...
Anyway, I normally lock eyes with him, bare the teeth and hiss loudly. If that doesn't work I tumble him off me, and pin him on his back with my fingernails around his neck so they feel like teeth. That normally works, but over a longer term.
Hmmmm, not sure about the cat. My cat refuses to sleep on either my husband's or my own lap. She will however sit for only a few minutes then decides it's not to her liking. But I have moved her whilst asleep and she lets me do that. Maybe it depends on the cat!
Love your blog, you put a smile on my face.
Congratulations on the award! Well deserved. As for the cat problem, I am not sure of the correct solution. I no longer have kitties but when I did and this occurred, my response was a loud "no!" after which I would grab him by the scruff of the neck and dump him on the floor. It didn't cure the biting but it became less frequent.
This doesn't work for all cats, but it works for some very well. Anytime that my cat does anything she's not suppose to I just hiss at her. It scares the shit out of her and she runs away. Once in a while that doesn't work and I scruff her. She HATES that but it always tunes her manners up nicely.
Don't spray her with water. I have read that this makes cats upset because it confuses them about grooming behavior. Also, while it might be tempting to give them a little slap when they bite you, I have read that hitting cats is totally ineffective.
This is why I always go for the behaviors that assert your dominance, but don't hurt them.
If I seem like I know a freakishly large amount about cat training it's because my cat was a little psycho when I got her and I had to take her to the vet to learn how to get her to stop attacking everything that moved.
WOW! Awsome that she is walking, and drinking and casting on doesn' twork either....at all ll
The cat thinks she's alpha and you're her sleeping pad. When I ran the fosterhome for cats, I would first "tap" (continuing on to a "flicker") on a cat's nose, followed by totally ignoring their existence - every time they misbehaved. (A mother cat will do that to her kittens.) I doesn't take long before they get the message. My cat certainly do, I'll I have to do is point my finger at him and he'll "roll over and play dead".
I agree, painkiller+knitting=redo later.
I would name you if I had a blog!
Seriously: since starting to read your blog, oh back around the time of the Kid Kimono, I have a) made steeked-jacket socks b) made up an EPS yoke sweater AND a plain one from your knitty article, and c) thought profoundly about a lot of profound issues (the muelsing of sheep in Australia, the idiosyncrasies of the Armed Forces, babies, color theory, and koala bear cookies).
Thanks for the tasty thought-food, Julie! (Sorry, I have no cats.)
Yaa Baby!
I use canned air for cat discipline.
It works great.
I think any problem can be solved with duct tape, even those that involve cats.
Jeff's cat was biting my feet Sat. night--I had slept on the couch because he was snoring and I couldn't breathe anyway. I kicked the damned thing, it just returned. I hate cats.
Boowahahaha, she's walking. You think you're happy about that now... I can't wait for you to complain that she is so we can laugh.
Trish J.
Okay...if everybody's naming you, how can I name you? (Not that I won't anyway...)
Go baby, go!!! (I can not wait to see what happens of this voluntary walking thing... you have SOOOOO much fun ahead of you...)
And about the cat thing...I have no idea. I wouldn't let her sleep that long on me, mostly--Dennis Quaid keeps sticking his claws into my yarn when I knit and that gets him a trip to the ejection seat...
Go, baby!
Look out, world!
LOL on Bell's post. I opened the blog and saw the baby walking! And then I saw a tangled mass of yarn and put the two pictures together. Of course, words CAN shed light on things. ;) Hope you're feeling better.
I think you deserve the thinking blogger award! I didn't know it existed before seeing it on ONE OTHER SITE (AMY LANE!), but I couldn't think of two other bloggers I read who deserve it more.
We have four cats. I can ship all of them to you. Happily. Think Fed Ex would mind??
Anyway, they hit each other back. In the face. A swat with a paw on the nose. They also bite (nip) each other on the neck. In other words, they communicate. A lot.
So my advice (if you don't think of it as animal cruelty) is to bonk the cat on the nose. Not hard, of course. Just firmly enough to let him know you don't like that. Of course I would never bonk my child on the nose, but this is a cat. Cats don't talk or reason with me.
My wrist didn't get better until my youngest was walking, but I haven't had any pain since, so I think you should be quite optimistic.
(I had to have 4 cortisone shots before that)
Ooh, yeah, I had the hand specialist tell me what to expect (as in, "You WILL get tendonitis.") and when it was officially bad enough to go back to him.
Very odd silver lining: Due to all the broken bones that were set weirdly in my right wrist, the joint won't bend enough in the right direction to get tendonitis. At least not from this. Glad it's good for something.
PS: And I don't think communicating physically with animals is animal cruelty - it's how they do it to each other. Not to mention bonking the idiot on the nose, or anything else suggested, can't be meaner than the way I shook and threw her. I've got some serious upper body strength from Baby hauling. She FLEW.
Congratulations on the award! Though I do appreciate the "food for thought", I'm really here for the swearing =D
The biting cat problem may take a while to cure, but if you make a fuss about being bitten they usually get the idea. My newest cat did the same thing when we first got her (she was adopted as an adult), and I made it a point to thoroughly disturb her, usually yank her out from under the covers and toss her across the bed. She doesn't do it anymore. Now if I could just get her to stop making biscuits on bare skin...
Cats dislike loud, sudden noises - that's probably why shouting "NO" is mostly effective. For biting, try short-circuiting it, like by grabbing her by the scruff of the neck when you're ready for her to move. That way, if she's startled, she can't bite. When my cats were across the room, I'd flip a TV guide (the old one, those new ones are worthless) in the general direction. As it opens up, and makes this loud whirring noise, it's guaranteed to stop whatever they're doing. An empty soda can with a small rock, marble, whatever in it works good to. Just rememeber, no hurting cats, just throw it close, it's the noise that does it.
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