Myrtle

In July of 1998 I decided I wanted a kitten. I combed through the classified and found someone nearby selling them for $5. I took my friend Caren with me and we picked out Myrtle. Most cats march to the beat of their own drummer, but Myrtle took that saying to a whole new level. She was weird, to say the least, but she was a loving cat!! I had to leave Myrtle in California when I moved to Utah, but I loved seeing her every time I went home. No matter how long since my last visit, she always knew who I was. Devon became quite the Myrtle fan, he even wanted to bring her back to Utah with us, but Myrtle was old and set in her ways, so we figured it best to let her stay in the place she knew.

Well, my Myrtle died this week. As a tribute to my kitty, here are some of my favorite memories of her...

* Every time you pet her, she wanted you to pet her, she didn't want you to pet her or just because, she would let out a VERY loud 'RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROW.'
*She always had her spot, a place she would lay all day and all night. Her spot would last for about 3 weeks, then she would choose another spot. Some of these spots included; a chair at the dining room table, the corner of my mom's closet, the rug under the toilet, the bottom of the stairs (this was, by far, the most dangerous spot) and my drawers.
*She had dry patch of skin on her back that she loved to have scratched. When you scratched it she would do this licking/biting thing. One of my favorite things to do was bring her to my mom saying that Myrtle wanted to give her kisses, so my mom would put out her cheek. I, in turn, would scratch her spot and she would start biting my mom's cheek. About the 100th time I did this my mom started to catch on.
*She LOVED to be loved! She would come and sit on your lap and you could squeeze her so hard and she would just sit there loving every second of it.
*Once I realized I hadn't seen her all day. Thinking she was just hanging out somewhere weird, I didn't think much about it. Later that night I was in bed and I kept hearing this faint 'rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrow.' I opened my drawer and out she popped. That was her new spot, but I didn't know it and shut the drawer. She had spent most of the day in that drawer.
*She loved to lay on you, no matter how inconvenient it was...

You could move her off 100 times, but she would always come right back. At night she would try to balance on my side (she was pretty big, so this was a difficult task), whenever she lost her balance, she would dig her claws into me. I found it was safer to just sleep on my stomach, so she could sleep on my back.

Going home to California just isn't going to be the same any more. I'm going to miss my little Myrdles!!!

Thoughts on Motherhood

I was listening to Dr. Laura the other day while cleaning my house. I was a tad bit annoyed because I just had a few things left to do and every time West couldn't see me (even if for a sec), he would scream. Instead of it taking me the 10 minutes it should have to finish up, it took about an hour. Just then a lady called in and was talking to Dr. Laura about some issues she was having. Dr. Laura asked her what she was doing right then and the caller said she was feeding her baby. Dr. Laura asked her to tell her one annoying thing about what was going on at that moment. The caller had trouble thinking of anything and finally said that every time she said something her baby would stop eating and look up at her. Dr. Laura pointed out that her baby was doing that because he loved her. He was overpowering his natural instinct to eat, to receive life sustaining nourishment, to look at his mom, because he loved her more than food.  WOW, I, along with the caller, started to cry. I immediately thought of the times, while feeding West, that he would just look up at me and smile. Yes, it took a little longer to feed him, but it sure was worth it. At that moment I realized it didn't matter if it took me two additional years to finish up my housework. All that matters is that my baby loves me now and needs me now. I know it won't always be this way! Once he's a teenager (if not before) he's going to whine when I come into a room, instead of whining when I leave one. And I'm pretty sure once he's a teenager, he will no longer love me more than food ;). So, for right now I'm going to soak up every second of my baby needing me!!!