When I’m not busy saving the world creating bumper stickers, I sometimes contemplate important philosophical questions, such as “Who’s more annoying, my cat or my kids?” It’s not immediately apparent, since they really are annoying in many of the same ways. For example, they both demand my attention, walk around whining, poop a lot, wake me up in the middle of night (often by jumping on my head), knock shit over, dart around the house recklessly, and require feeding and playing and cuddling.
But after careful consideration, I’ve discovered that my cat is indeed less annoying than my kids. Here’s why.
- The cat poops in her litter box, as opposed to her diaper.
- The cat cleans herself. Without arguing.
- When the cat doesn’t like her dinner, she just walks away, as opposed to flailing on the ground exclaiming for 15 minutes that we never eat anything good and she’s just SOOOO starving she’s going to die.
- When the cat knocks something over, she runs away startled rather than playing in the mess and blaming her brother.
- I can chuck the cat off the bed in the middle of the night when she irritates me.
- The cat will be entertained with a wadded up piece of paper for 12+ hours, unlike my kids, who have at least 75,000 toys but STILL can’t find ANYTHING to do.
- I can punish the cat by squirting it in the head with water and not feel guilty about it.
- The cat’s clothes are already on her and she doesn’t outgrow them, complain about them, need new ones or clean ones.
- The cat sleeps in a ball at the foot of the bed, as opposed to horizontally across the mattress with her feet in my face.
- The cat doesn’t talk.
AND, that brings us to the one I forgot: The cat can be left with a bowl of water, some food and a scratch post for many hours or even a day or two at a time, while I go on vacation. The last time I did that with one of my kids, I got in BIG trouble.
Which reminds me, dear friends who refer to their pets as “fur babies” or just “babies,” your cat is not your baby. Incidentally, neither is your dog.
Please stop saying that to people with actual kids. It just makes us jealous.
THE CAT IN QUESTION
Kateri Von Steal
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 8:43I LOVE THE PICTURE! YOUR CAT IS SOOO CUTE!
As for #7… you can spray your kids with a spray bottle and not feel bad about it!
I did it with the sprayer from the Kitchen sink to Emry one day… when he wouldn’t stop whining.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore, so I called him into the kitchen… and I dosed him with it.
Yeah the floor was wet, and he looked shocked.. but I felt great.
And, it stopped the whining instantaneously (sp?)… replaced it with laughter…
Then he helped me clean up.
Sometimes you need that nervous system jolt to realize you’re being a BRAT.
ROFL… Grade A Parenting advice from NY.
Summer K.
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:14Oh my goodness I literally just “LOL”ed, haha! I can definitely seeing myself doing that when my son gets older, haha!
renegademama
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:27I LOL’d too, Summer. I LOVE this, Kateri, and I’m pretty sure you deserve the badass mom of the month award. That is just SO Awesome. You took a tense moment and just injected fun and humor, AND got the kid to stop whining. Awesome.
renegademama
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:30And btw, thanks for the compliment on the cat. Her name is Daisy and I love her so much (we all do) that she could ALMOST turn me into a “cat person.” Almost.
But not quite. 🙂
Sara
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:08I absolutely laughed out loud to “Please stop saying that to people with actual kids. It just makes us jealous.” And then I locked the puppy in her crate for several hours while I unpacked my house.
renegademama
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:28HAHAHAHAHA! Exactly my point! There is no crate-locking when it comes to kids, EVEN IF they deserve it. 🙂
Summer K.
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:16I wish I could say the same for my dog, but he’s quite needy, haha! When we moved to Montana, he got all depressed and threw up all the time for several weeks. And if we leave him outside for too long, he starts doing that pitiful hound dog howl (he’s a basset hound/beagle mix). He sheds worse than Chewbacca on Star Wars and he’s extrememly shy until he gets to know you. But we love him anyway 🙂
renegademama
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 11:29Okay that’s only funny because it happened to you and not me, but this made me laugh. I can totally picture the high-needs dog all stressed out – “but MAMA, I want my OLD HOUSE back. I’m so upset I’m going to vomit all over. To teach you a lesson.”
Drama Queen. Or King, as the case may be.
🙂
Shar
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 12:26Thanks for the laugh! I have too kids and agree with all of your reasons!
renegademama
Wednesday, 28 September, 2011 at 10:56Yeah, I needed to write something goofy and ridiculous. I think this post fit the bill.
Annie
Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 21:51This is why I prefer my boyfriend’s dog over children. He’s about 12 years old, trained very well, and isn’t at all energetic. He’s a hound dog, so he just sits there and watches you with his droopy beagle eyes and his big floppy ears that only move when you say “car ride”, “outside”, “rabbit!” or “walk?”.
Meanwhile, my 9 year old sister won’t leave my side for 10 minutes while I’m on the computer, no matter what kind of boring homework I’m pretending to do. So I can’t even look at anything vaguely interesting, because it usually involves naked people.
My mom found your blog, she reads it on her kindle, cause she is cool like that. She told me to take a look at you. You are hilarious!
renegademama
Thursday, 6 October, 2011 at 20:58You cracked me up.
And I have to say I am honored that you read my blog. I’m always WAY impressed when people who don’t have kids read my this drivel.
I also checked out your blog and like it very much.
That is one damn cute dog.
kim
Wednesday, 28 September, 2011 at 17:28I hate cats but I love this post. And you. Meow.
renegademama
Thursday, 6 October, 2011 at 20:59*sexy purring sound*
or something.
Lisa
Friday, 30 September, 2011 at 15:35Oh, one more thought….you can put your cat in a crate but they really frown on that with your kids….
renegademama
Thursday, 6 October, 2011 at 20:59even big crates?
Carrie
Thursday, 28 March, 2013 at 21:41We used to have a very large crate for Annie, one of our German Shepherds. A certain niece of ours always loved crawling into it…
It isn’t considered mean if kids put themselves in the crate, right???
Leslie
Tuesday, 4 October, 2011 at 10:23100% so totally true!
renegademama
Thursday, 6 October, 2011 at 21:00I know. I was amazed. My cat (almost) never annoys me anymore.
Except today when she knocked the water over on the homeschool table. Why was there water on the homeschool table? Yeah. I dunno.
Bad cat.
Meg
Friday, 16 December, 2011 at 14:00One time I posted on FB “Who do I love more, my cat or my kid? Tough call.” No said ANYTHING as if it was psychotic. But sometimes it really is a tough call.
Sarah52181
Friday, 14 February, 2014 at 7:06I’m seriously late to this party, but I’d also like to admit I tried the whole “spray bottle” approach with my preschooler once. He had been in full on tantrum mode for like an hour, and none of the shit I was “supposed” to do (as guided by various books, magazines and TV shows) had worked, but I thought “hey, if this works on the cat, I bet it will work on my kid!” For the first few seconds, I was very pleased with the results. The screaming was replaced with a shocked silence. …..Then more screaming. Much, much louder screaming. “MOMMY I PEE PEED MYSELF!!!!” Great. I literally scared the pee out of him. Incidentally, that was also the day I decided my “time out chair” should not be an antique wingback.