New Cat + Fox Update
Jan. 29th, 2020 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksSome few weeks ago, I was sitting with Rafael, our seventeen-year-old cat, in the living room, and no farther than six feet from me a mouse wandered by. Rafe did not get up. The mouse did not seem to worry about him. I, mind you, worried about both.
The mouse seems to have been a passing stranger, as we have had no signs since two days after that, and not for lack of looking, but this did bring us to the conclusion that possibly a seventeen-year-old cat is no longer much of a deterrent to various rodents etcetera. Also, ever since his brother died last April Rafe has taken to roaming about the house howling loudly and inconsolably, frequently in one's ear at three in the morning. So it seemed like we ought to get a second cat.
We applied to various shelters and so on, as you do, and then, as generally happens, the universe contrived us a cat. Which is to say we were offered one who was in a bad situation, and a bad situation, moreover, where taking her would both assist a lovely person who required assistance and thwart some people who had been being cruel to both the cat and said person.
Since I got to name Lucien (of beloved memory) and Ruth named Rafael, we thought Fox should name the new arrival.
We now have in isolation in Rax's bedroom a long-haired four-year-old queen, with black fur tipped with a silvery stipple like foam on water, and horizontal ear-tufts. Her name is Mariana Trench, "because," said Fox, "she is so dark, like the midnight zone." Oceanography is one of his things lately. Everyone is absolutely delighted with her name. Certainly none of the adults around would have thought of it.
True to her name, she spends quite a lot of time under things, but she has only been here a few days, and already one can pet her when one goes into the room, and she actively calls for company, including Fox's. She has to stay in isolation until the vet clears her and until she and Rafe get used to each other's scents, of course, but already Rafe has gone from I Will Break This Door Down to Look, You Know I Want To Go In Here, Dammit, which is a significant de-escalation, so I am hopeful.
If anyone has recommendations for litter which does not stick to the fur of long-hairs, and for brushes which work well for them, I would be happy to hear those, as I have never lived with a cat as floofy as Mari before.
Fox more generally: at three months past three, he has been in preschool three days a week since September, and loves it. Next year we are hoping to move him up to five-day. He's three feet something tall and I don't think has hit forty pounds yet? I mean I can still pick him up. The wild cloud of golden hair will now mostly lie down-- now it has reached the small of his back. Honestly one reason I am glad we keep it long is that it seems to have encountered an electrostatic generator most of the time. His eyes have settled on hazel, which is to say they are green in some lights, blue in others, gray in the dark, and yellow at random intervals. This is exactly like his mother, so it's probably permanent.
Gross motor-skill-wise, he's gotten to the point where I want to put him in a class (circus, martial arts, gymnastics, what have you) that will teach him how to fall well, as I think it's about time to start building those reflexes in. He does things like hurling himself down flights of stairs while spinning around and around. He can outrun me, but honestly he always could. He can mostly dress and undress himself, which is convenient. Fine-motor-wise, he's reached what I'm told is the tadpole stage of representational drawing, and drew a picture of me I am still quietly laughing at, as it depicts me as an amoeboid alien with an expression the epitome of the mood of :/ .
He can reliably count to thirteen, but tends to lose fourteen in the shuffle and emerge confused somewhere around twenty. He can recognize all the letters and say the alphabet, but is still working on the concept of sounding words out. He spends a lot of time reading to himself, which is to say he turns the pages of a book and recites a text which is a combination of the book's actual text (from memory), explanatory things he has heard people say when they read it to him, and stuff he has made up to add. The interesting part is that he recites the same texts for the same pages every time. I don't think he has the concept of silent reading at all yet. Miraculously, if he wakes up before his alarm clock changes color to tell him it's morning, he will now stay in his room and read until it goes off; it's adorable to hear him muttering away.
Fox's interests have changed somewhat. Construction equipment and dinosaurs loom less large; cooking, oceanography, and ghosts are the new in things. He is fascinated by cooking and wants to know when he can use the stove: when he is four? (No.) When he is a hundred? (Probably.) Won't that be directly after he's four? (Not quite.)
He is occasionally thwarted in his cooking adventures by his own biology, which is sad. About six weeks ago the grocery delivered us fresh broccoli instead of frozen, and a few days after that happened Fox told us that we should have it for dinner or it would go bad. He was right, so Ruth rubbed it in olive oil, let Fox pick the spices and spice quantities to dump on it, and roasted it on a sheet pan. He has a good nose for spices. It was some of the better broccoli ever to come out of our kitchen. However, he tried it, and he wanted to like it so badly, you could see, and he's just not designed to like broccoli right now. Hopefully later on. He has more of a tolerance for bitter than I had ever expected for his age-- his favorite chocolate is fifty-percent cacao dark-- but broccoli is over the line.
Ocean stuff mostly manifests as infinite toy sharks. And squid. There are a surprising diversity of stuffed cephalopods in the world.
Ghosts and spooky-scary stuff are because his favorite holiday is Halloween. Halloween is his favorite because it is two weeks from his birthday, so the two blend together, and he insists that next year's birthday party will be Halloween-themed. He has no conception that ghosts are dead people; for him right now they are a fantasy race, like elves, who float around wearing sheets and trying to scare the unwary. He spends a lot of time rewatching 'This is Halloween' from The Nightmare Before Christmas, although we are not doing the rest of the movie yet. In desperation to get that song out of my head I showed him the 'Night on Bald Mountain' sequence from Fantasia and he said it looked like a great party. He wanted to know why they all stopped dancing when the churchbells rang and I said, truthfully, that that meant it was morning so they all had to go home and go to bed.
He has seen two feature films, actually, My Neighbor Totoro (twice) and Ponyo. And Ruth took him to the movies for a kids' screening of short films on and about Martin Luther King Day. He wandered around the aisles a bit, as did the rest of the audience, but he definitely picked up something, as the last short was a simplified adaptation of Hidden Figures and he is still talking about "the space one".
He's having a little trouble with Ruth's pronouns right now, possibly because everyone else in the world refers to people called Mama as she, but I came home once to hear him saying to our sitter about me, "Dad is, she not a she, she a they," which warms my heart immensely.
And he picked up how to meet a new cat very well, and has been so polite to Mari that she really does like him already. Which is enough to be going on with, I think.
The mouse seems to have been a passing stranger, as we have had no signs since two days after that, and not for lack of looking, but this did bring us to the conclusion that possibly a seventeen-year-old cat is no longer much of a deterrent to various rodents etcetera. Also, ever since his brother died last April Rafe has taken to roaming about the house howling loudly and inconsolably, frequently in one's ear at three in the morning. So it seemed like we ought to get a second cat.
We applied to various shelters and so on, as you do, and then, as generally happens, the universe contrived us a cat. Which is to say we were offered one who was in a bad situation, and a bad situation, moreover, where taking her would both assist a lovely person who required assistance and thwart some people who had been being cruel to both the cat and said person.
Since I got to name Lucien (of beloved memory) and Ruth named Rafael, we thought Fox should name the new arrival.
We now have in isolation in Rax's bedroom a long-haired four-year-old queen, with black fur tipped with a silvery stipple like foam on water, and horizontal ear-tufts. Her name is Mariana Trench, "because," said Fox, "she is so dark, like the midnight zone." Oceanography is one of his things lately. Everyone is absolutely delighted with her name. Certainly none of the adults around would have thought of it.
True to her name, she spends quite a lot of time under things, but she has only been here a few days, and already one can pet her when one goes into the room, and she actively calls for company, including Fox's. She has to stay in isolation until the vet clears her and until she and Rafe get used to each other's scents, of course, but already Rafe has gone from I Will Break This Door Down to Look, You Know I Want To Go In Here, Dammit, which is a significant de-escalation, so I am hopeful.
If anyone has recommendations for litter which does not stick to the fur of long-hairs, and for brushes which work well for them, I would be happy to hear those, as I have never lived with a cat as floofy as Mari before.
Fox more generally: at three months past three, he has been in preschool three days a week since September, and loves it. Next year we are hoping to move him up to five-day. He's three feet something tall and I don't think has hit forty pounds yet? I mean I can still pick him up. The wild cloud of golden hair will now mostly lie down-- now it has reached the small of his back. Honestly one reason I am glad we keep it long is that it seems to have encountered an electrostatic generator most of the time. His eyes have settled on hazel, which is to say they are green in some lights, blue in others, gray in the dark, and yellow at random intervals. This is exactly like his mother, so it's probably permanent.
Gross motor-skill-wise, he's gotten to the point where I want to put him in a class (circus, martial arts, gymnastics, what have you) that will teach him how to fall well, as I think it's about time to start building those reflexes in. He does things like hurling himself down flights of stairs while spinning around and around. He can outrun me, but honestly he always could. He can mostly dress and undress himself, which is convenient. Fine-motor-wise, he's reached what I'm told is the tadpole stage of representational drawing, and drew a picture of me I am still quietly laughing at, as it depicts me as an amoeboid alien with an expression the epitome of the mood of :/ .
He can reliably count to thirteen, but tends to lose fourteen in the shuffle and emerge confused somewhere around twenty. He can recognize all the letters and say the alphabet, but is still working on the concept of sounding words out. He spends a lot of time reading to himself, which is to say he turns the pages of a book and recites a text which is a combination of the book's actual text (from memory), explanatory things he has heard people say when they read it to him, and stuff he has made up to add. The interesting part is that he recites the same texts for the same pages every time. I don't think he has the concept of silent reading at all yet. Miraculously, if he wakes up before his alarm clock changes color to tell him it's morning, he will now stay in his room and read until it goes off; it's adorable to hear him muttering away.
Fox's interests have changed somewhat. Construction equipment and dinosaurs loom less large; cooking, oceanography, and ghosts are the new in things. He is fascinated by cooking and wants to know when he can use the stove: when he is four? (No.) When he is a hundred? (Probably.) Won't that be directly after he's four? (Not quite.)
He is occasionally thwarted in his cooking adventures by his own biology, which is sad. About six weeks ago the grocery delivered us fresh broccoli instead of frozen, and a few days after that happened Fox told us that we should have it for dinner or it would go bad. He was right, so Ruth rubbed it in olive oil, let Fox pick the spices and spice quantities to dump on it, and roasted it on a sheet pan. He has a good nose for spices. It was some of the better broccoli ever to come out of our kitchen. However, he tried it, and he wanted to like it so badly, you could see, and he's just not designed to like broccoli right now. Hopefully later on. He has more of a tolerance for bitter than I had ever expected for his age-- his favorite chocolate is fifty-percent cacao dark-- but broccoli is over the line.
Ocean stuff mostly manifests as infinite toy sharks. And squid. There are a surprising diversity of stuffed cephalopods in the world.
Ghosts and spooky-scary stuff are because his favorite holiday is Halloween. Halloween is his favorite because it is two weeks from his birthday, so the two blend together, and he insists that next year's birthday party will be Halloween-themed. He has no conception that ghosts are dead people; for him right now they are a fantasy race, like elves, who float around wearing sheets and trying to scare the unwary. He spends a lot of time rewatching 'This is Halloween' from The Nightmare Before Christmas, although we are not doing the rest of the movie yet. In desperation to get that song out of my head I showed him the 'Night on Bald Mountain' sequence from Fantasia and he said it looked like a great party. He wanted to know why they all stopped dancing when the churchbells rang and I said, truthfully, that that meant it was morning so they all had to go home and go to bed.
He has seen two feature films, actually, My Neighbor Totoro (twice) and Ponyo. And Ruth took him to the movies for a kids' screening of short films on and about Martin Luther King Day. He wandered around the aisles a bit, as did the rest of the audience, but he definitely picked up something, as the last short was a simplified adaptation of Hidden Figures and he is still talking about "the space one".
He's having a little trouble with Ruth's pronouns right now, possibly because everyone else in the world refers to people called Mama as she, but I came home once to hear him saying to our sitter about me, "Dad is, she not a she, she a they," which warms my heart immensely.
And he picked up how to meet a new cat very well, and has been so polite to Mari that she really does like him already. Which is enough to be going on with, I think.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 04:37 am (UTC)My birthday is also two weeks from Halloween (which is my sister's birthday), but I don't know if it's two weeks in the same direction as Fox's two weeks.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:21 am (UTC)... I am a good HALF CENTURY his senior, though.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 06:03 am (UTC)For our long-furred monster we use the Naturally Fresh quick-clumping walnut litter-- green bag-- and it works pretty well by us. Really odor-absorbent, great clumping, reasonably fur-proof.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:27 pm (UTC)Here’s the level of floof we deal with, for level-setting.
Also, Mariana Trench is an excellent name.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 09:10 am (UTC)I look forward to meeting this hadopelagic cat!
Ocean stuff mostly manifests as infinite toy sharks. And squid. There are a surprising diversity of stuffed cephalopods in the world.
I am delighted.
You have a good kid.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 01:08 pm (UTC)I am using a brush with the brand name "Shiny Cat" printed on the green-and-white handle. I selected it on the basis of having an actual handle, after getting tired of using one that lacked a handle.
When I got to the part of this about letting four-year-old Fox name the cat, I was reminded of John Scalzi's regret at letting his then-four-year-old daughter name the cat, and her picking "Fluffy." Also, we once had a cat almost as old as Rafael who let us (and the local rodent population) know that she was not too old to hunt, here's the dead mouse to prove it. But Rafael is entitled to a comfortable retirement that we had assumed Artemis was enjoying.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 03:10 pm (UTC)Fox reads aloud with marginalia and commentary!
no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-30 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-31 12:35 am (UTC)Some long-haired cats like to be brushed while they're eating, weird as that sounds. So you might give that a try and see how Mari takes to it.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-31 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-31 10:41 pm (UTC)I am staggered by the brilliance of the name Mariana Trench. At that age Chun Woo was naming stuffed animals by their species. He'd got past it by the time we acquired and he named Garlic and Gingersnap, and they're live, of course, but I'm impressed.
I loved hearing about him generally.
Chun Woo got a lot lot lot more screen time as a child. Some of it remarkably inappropriate, as Sheeyun was always angry when he drove to Rock Springs, and wanted to watch a lot of explosions and rapes, and among my choices, I went with letting hm watch what he wanted and figuring it meant nothing to Chun Woo. No evident damage as yet, and he's fifteen.
Has Fox a brilliant snout? Chun Woo does, and it was particularly evident when he was a child, and happily brought me to pay more attention to what my snout was telling me.
The bitterness thing is kind of come-a-dn-go with littles. At the age of not quite two Chun Woo was devouring dark chocolate while Sheeyun and I watched and marveled like complete idiots and Chun Woo, charmed by our wonderment, kept going until he made himself sick.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-01 07:47 am (UTC)Fox has a lovely feeling for language, and for metaphor. On making a joke: "Just kitting. Just catting." On being told that Goldfish are made with all-natural dyes, not artificial: “No, they’re arty-fishy colors.” On seeing a bright gibbous moon: “I see a jelly bean in space!” But "Mariana Trench" is a masterpiece.
Nine
no subject
Date: 2020-02-02 03:14 pm (UTC)