Offspring
I eventually want children, and my body is beginning to tell me that I’d better get a move on, as I’m getting on a bit, and I do want to be able to play with my kids without the aid of a zimmer frame*.
However, Gordon has said (with increasing firmness, the more time we spend with friends who have more than one child of toddler age) that we should probably check that we’d make good parents first, by getting a kitten and practising on it.
So, we have a kitten. We haven’t named it yet as no names really seem to stick, apart from Kitten. It’s been four days, and I’m wondering whether we would make good parents. For example, is it wise to let your six week old (as yet unnamed) child hurtle up and down the stairs, stick its head through the bannisters, fall backwards off the sofa onto the wooden floor, and play delightedly with a small pile of gravel in which it has just buried its own excrement? I even lost her the other day, only to find she’d got stuck in the cupboard under the sink while investigating our bleach collection.
I admit I’m trying to give her the care and sustenance she needs. She likes to try and suck on my eyeball, which I’m trying to dissuade her from doing, as it is a) uncomfortable and b) unhygenic. I mean, she’s usually just licked her bum clean. Conjunctivitis anyone?
I also let her sleep in our bed, which I understand can be comforting for young children. However, waking up at 5.30 am with a cat on your head isn’t the best way to ease yourself into your day. Particularly when she generally attacks anything that moves, which includes your bleary, blinking eyelid.
She is very, very cute, which is why people get kittens in the first place, I imagine. She’s also completely insane. She stalks us eveywhere we go. Our toes have puncture wounds that would be the envy of a bevy of lorikeets. Nothing is safe.
We bumped into the neighbours from whom we got her yesterday, and he asked us how it was going.
“Bonkers isn’t she?” he said, with a certain degree of schadenfreude. I thought all kittens were bonkers, but he assures us that of the litter of six, this one was particularly nuts. I expect to come home to find her swinging from the light fittings one day very soon, and like most mothers, I like to think that this is merely a reflection of her extraordinary brilliance.
On a weirdly serious note though, it struck me that cats live for 14 or 15 years. I hadn’t really thought about this before. She’s probably going to be our cat for a very long time. For the first time, I’ve actually had to consider the very real nature of our commitment to each other, which has been somewhat overshadowed by the excitement of moving in with Gordon and planning our wedding. It’s bizarre that it’s taken something as tiny as a kitten to bring this home.
Naturally it hasn’t changed anything – just clarified a few things to my satisfaction. However, it’s also made me consider our relationship through a further layer of understanding. It does make me wonder whether anyone really knows what they are getting into when they say ‘I do’, or when they get a kitten together.
Above all, spending time together with the kitten has made me realise that we’re really going to have to do the dusting a bit more often. If anyone sees the amount of fluff on Kitten’s whiskers, we’ll soon be getting a visit from the RSPCA, and I’m not ready to start the recrimination stage of our partnership just yet.
*Although they can do wonders with science these days, so I might just store my eggs and wait til I’m 60.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:11 am
You need to get this child thing sorted before you get marrried. If You want a child and he (implacably) does not then do not get married. However my guess is that like most men and many women he is not sure that he wants a child, but When the child does arrive he and you will make good parents. I wonder how many people are denied the priviledge of parenthood just becuase they “weren’t sure”, particularly when their decision is made on no evidence at all. – very few people make ‘bad’ parents.
Do not be fobbed off by the kitten, it is the oldest trick in the book. “Get her a kitten – it will fulfill her maternal instincts” – it won’t
May 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Hi ph – thanks for your concern. It’s ok – believe it or not, we have discussed children, and we both want them at some stage. The above is meant to be a little tongue in cheek.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
With a cat instead of a kid, you might become a grandmother much quicker than you imagined.
Granny Rachie, that sounds lovely.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
After watching you and Gordon with Nikhil during Christmas time, I know you two will make fabulous parents! If we lived closer together, I would have left the baby in your care so you could have first hand experience.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
welcome home sweetheart (have just received and completed yet another reference request by the way…..fortunately you now have your very own file on the computer and i just top and tail, add a bit more pazzazz and churn them out, tee hee).
so. i fear we may have contributed to your kiddy concerns with our overexuberant and excessively noisy offspring!!
i kind of understand the kitten thing (actually i don’t. cats terrify me – my ageing piano teacher had hundreds of them, all mangy, miaowing and tiptoeing across the keyboard whilst i tried my best with fur elise..). i also know full well that kids can sometimes be exhausting/exasperating/bewildering/ relentless in their noise etc. etc.
HOWEVER.. and this is a big HOWEVER. i feel compelled to say (don’t know why, none of my bloody business really) that having m and j is the most amazing/surprising/love-inspiring/comedic rollercoaster of an experience and i wouldn’t change any of it for the world. you’d be a great mum rach, don’t ‘at some stage’ it for too long, eh?? mxxxxxx
ps that being said, i did once say i’d pay thousands of pounds for a lazy sunday afternoon with coffee and cake and the observer, possibly jules et jim in the background, bit of stevie and a boogie, some quiet, a glass of vino tinto, a long bath………
instead, it’ll be 6am roll call, lining up of all the cars with lengthy explanation of their brand (j’s latest obsession) a spot of colouring in of ballerinas, lots of toast all with different things on top (’can i have a blue/pink/green like shrek plate), read winnie the witch, perhaps singing along to high school musical.. by now it’ll be about 6.37am, the start of another long, long day..
pps hhmmmm…kitten, you say….
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:13 am
At one point I had 3 young children and 5 new-born kittens – The kittems were worse I can tell you. But then you can sell kittens at 12 weeks, children you can’t – can you!!!!
June 6th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Graham, although he laughs at me when I get clucky (which is often) is quite often the one to actually bring up the whole ‘children’ issue. Last night’s offering started off with how much of a sucker I am for puppy dog eyes and mutated into how I’m not going to be able to resist loving a puppy and won’t a puppy go well with children? Then there was suggestion of tampering with my pills…I think I should hide them somewhere safe!
You’ll be a fantastic mother, how could you be anything else?
June 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
P and I tried this. Our first cat had feline leukaemia, crawled under our bed and died. The second was a rescue cat and had some kind of psychosis. She would hide until we went to bed and then creep into the living room and crap on the sofa. Then it was back to hiding and scratching anyone that went near. She was taken into care.
We don’t have kids.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Commenting usually isnt my thing, but ive spent an hour on the site, so thanks for the info