Playing Kitty

One of Ane’s new pretend plays is to “be a kitty.” She will crawl around on hands and knees, meow, purr, and rub up against my leg in an effort to be acknowledged as a kitty.

Her impression of a cat is so convincing that Tad even patted her on the head the other day and said, “Hi, kitty!”

Last Thursday, Ane built herself a “kitty bed” in the middle of the living room out of couch cushions and blankets. Immediately, Tad was jumping on it and “messing it up,” according to the “kitty” who was trying to take a nap.

“Mommy, tell Tad to leave my kitty bed alone!” Ane demanded.

I contemplated my options, then decided to try and open my child’s mind a bit. “Ane, do you know what kitties do when kids bother them?” She shook her head. “They run away.”

She stared at me. “But this is MY kitty bed! I made it, and he needs to leave me alone!”

“When you guys are bothering Wicket (Grandma and Gichan’s cat), does he tell you to go away? No! He just gets up and runs! It doesn’t matter to him that it’s his house and you’re bugging him! He just runs off and gets away from you!”

I could see the wheels turning in Ane’s head, and I thought her head might explode. One of my biggest issues with the kids right now is how Ane cannot walk away from a fight with her brother. Tad generally doesn’t pick fights with Ane, but when she tries to boss him around, he retaliates… and then it becomes an all-out war. We have been trying to pound into her head the fact that she can CHOOSE to not have a fight with him – because most of the time, he’s totally ignoring her and doing his own thing with his own toys.

Anyway, my observations about what cats actually do left her dumbstruck. Sadly, it didn’t last. But I might be encouraging the pretend kitty play more often.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 2:38 am and is filed under Children.
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