el Gato...

My cat, lovingly named "Cat" or "El Gato" by Everly and Beau, respectively, thinks he owns the

world. Really. The Christmas tree was his home, his own private hideout, and if you came near it, he would attack you. You should have seen him the day we took the tree down. He mourned it. Literally. He attacked me the whole time i took the ornaments off the tree, and then the lights... and then with Beau holding the tree steady, I crawled under and unscrewed it from the stand... all the while, Cat was gnawing on my hands. We put him in the room while Beau took the tree out, and when we let him out again, he was so confused, and so sad. He found another hiding place in the room off the living room (previously called the "manroom" but will soon be the "workout room")... and then got upset when I cleaned that room to make room for the weight bench that will soon move in there. He was just distraught. He laid around the house the rest of the day, just not himself. Poor guy.

The other day, I was sitting on the couch, reading, and I heard Cat hitting something around the floor. Happy he found a new toy to play with, I looked to see what it was. As I looked over my shoulder, he came zooming by, batting a fortune cookie around in front of him. We'd had Chinese food the night before and have given up on eating the stale cookies. He found one (either got on the table--a big no-no, or it'd fallen off the table and he found it) and was fascinated by the noise it made and how it flew across the floor. He hit it across the room, and it started to go under the couch, so he grabbed it in his mouth and carried it, like a prize, like he was bigtime, back to the front room. Hilarious!! So cute!

I grabbed my camera and started to take pictures. He saw that and wanted the camera instead, so he came running toward me and started biting and swatting at me... oh little one... :) I just laugh at him, he's a sweetie, but can be rough... my hands have the marks to prove it. But when he gets what's he's trying to get (fortune cookie, his fuzzy toys, even clothes that have been left on the floor), he carries it across the floor like he's the King and he's come back from his latest hunt... makes me laugh.

Yesterday, Beau came to me with Cat tucked in one arm and what looked like a claw (with a bloody end (not pointy end, the other end)... Both of us thought he must have ripped a claw out somehow... but I checked, and he had the claws he is supposed to have (he's had the front claws removed). We looked closer, and Beau said, "maybe it's a tooth..." and sure enough, his bottom left fang was missing... turns out kittens lose their baby teeth like little kids do! So... His bites don't hurt as bad right now, which is nice...

He's growing so much right now. I was gone in California for only a weekend, and when I got back, he'd grown probably an inch or so. It's crazy. He takes up so much more space now. When he lays on me while I'm typing now, he makes it really difficult to type, because he likes the warmth of the keyboard, and likes to chew fingers, and he's just getting big... :) But I love him, the little rascal.