Living With a Two-Year-Old

One thing we learned long ago is that our furbabies have the mental and emotional maturity of two-year-olds. And, being kitties, there's no hope that they'll ever grow up.

While this can be a lot of fun at times (ready to play, anyone?), it can also be a real pain when bits of jealousy, selfishness and bad attitude spring up.

On stay-at-home days, Bridget refuses to sleep. Absolutely refuses. A real problem when you consider that cats typically sleep for 80% of the day. Mix a two-year-old and no sleep and you get real problems.

This isn't to say that she doesn't try to sleep every now and then, but it's usually just a 5-minute rest while she thinks of new trouble to cause:


The weekend's naughtiness included climbing on the fridge, attacking Ben, crying at the laundry room door and attempting to steal food from the kitchen. The last activity is Strictly Forbidden in the Hayley House. After multiple shooings and chasings, we had to resort to a strategy we'd not employed since our days in the UK: timeout.

There's a Bridget locked in that bathroom. We found it best to keep her there until she cries. Otherwise, she's not learned her lesson. (And it's very tough to not laugh at the little paw attempts to open the door!)

She was properly humble when released, snuggling for forgiveness on mama. But she still couldn't sleep.

Nope, she couldn't go to sleep until about 3:30 in the afternoon. Then she was dead to the world for the rest of the night!