The cats used to sleep with us. Now we have to close the doors at night so they don’t walk all over the baby. One of our four legged roommates can’t seem to figure out that the baby is alive. It just so happens that he’s the smallest of the three cats which is a good thing because whenever he does walk on the baby the baby doesn’t even flinch. It’s quite the opposite, actually. One morning I woke up to find Emory laughing because Murray had a paw against Emory’s side. (Before you call the ACS, we don’t actually let the cat walk all over the baby.) Unfortunately, Murray is starting to put on weight, which means we’re going to have to keep an closer eye on him whenever he’s near Emory. It also means I’m going to have to put him on a diet. And I hate that idea because living with Murray is like living an episode Fear Factor. Only he doesn’t do it to show off his enormous, fake tits. He eats everything just for fun.

Now we shut the folding doors that separate the living area with the bedrooms, a decision Murray is not very pleased with. And he lets us know about it each and every night repeatedly. It starts whenever we first close the doors. And I generally give in if we’re still reading or watching TV. I let him in just to prove that he’s not missing anything. Eventually, he either gets bored or we have to toss him out. But the cries do not stop. The cries return at least twice during the night and they come on strong at 5 AM. The cries are much more desperate at 5 AM.

Murray has always visited me at 5 AM. When he was a kitten and we first brought him home, he’d climb into bed and curl up on my ear or around my neck. One night, I had a dream I was having my teeth drilled and I haven’t ever even had my teeth drilled. I woke up to find Murray asleep and purring loudly against the right hand side of my face. I miss him a lot. But it has to be done.

A few days ago, we were sleeping soundly. At around 4 AM, Emory woke up and wanted something to eat. I fed him and changed him and we were asleep again by 4:30. At 5 AM Murray started. He cried and cried. I guess he wondered where we had gone. They were up a minute ago, where have they gone? Why have they locked me out again? He continued to cry and we continued to ignore him. This went on for roughly 15 minutes.

“MEOW! MEOW! MEOW!”

Silence.

SCRATCH. SCRATCH. DOOR HEADBUTT. SCRATCH. DOOR HEADBUTT.

“MEOW! MEOW!”

DOOR HEADBUTT

“MEOW!”

DOOR HEADBUTT. DOOR HEADBUTT.

“MEEEOWOOOWWW!!”

Silence.

At some point he realized that a simple MEOW wasn’t going to work and so he moved on to a more abrasive tactic.

This is what the tactic sounded like. (Click below.)

Murray is probably the only creature capable of making me laugh at 5 AM. And of course throwing the monkey against our door a few times not only woke me up, it brought him numerous early morning scritches as well.