Twilight Ritual

Everyday in the wee morning hours, around 4:00AM Neelix starts to roam around the house and yell. There is never a reason for this. He has eaten, has fresh water, companionship, toys, and is always more than welcome to hop into bed to sleep on my feet. But everyday he yells at least several times. It's a 50:50 chance he'll wake the baby.

He's decided to increase those odds. Lately, not only does he start yelling but he walks right up to the nursery and opens the door. Then continues to yell. This is a 100% chance to wake the baby. I can only assume he is in fact yelling every night because he spends all day with Jude and actually wants to wake him up. Which is super adorable, but also super not cool.

Sometimes I just get up in a rush, stumble out half awake into the kitchen and give both Intruder and him an extra scoop of cat food. Food distracts everyone and this seems no different. Sometimes I just get up in a rush, stumble out into the hall and pluck all 25 lb of cat off of the floor and bring him back to bed with me like the world's most inconvenient teddy bear. He never turns down free cuddles.

Last night was exceptionally bad. I hear him start to yell as per usual, a few seconds later I hear Jude start to stir. Now, these days thanks to self-soothing Jude can actually fall back to sleep all on his own during a middle of the night wake up half of the time; the other half of the time he has just been woken a bit too much and still needs Mommy to come soothe him. I knew if I quieted Neelix quickly enough, by the sound of it, Jude would fall back to sleep by himself, I could go directly back to sleep myself, and we'd both wake more refreshed in the morning. Neelix didn't like this idea.

He not only proceeds to push open the nursery door, creating more super interesting sounds to waken the baby, but also meows a few more times just to be sure. If that wouldn't do it, what he did next certainly would: he galloped out into the kitchen where Jude had left several of his toys, and proceeded to activate them. So now there is meowing, singing, sound effects, and a guy shouting shapes. Jude is well awake now.

So I go in and nurse him because by now not only is he awake but he's awake enough that he's realized he hasn't eaten since 7:00PM and surely that will kill him. Then I rock him a little and let him settle comfortably in my lap until he's out once again and stealthily slip him into the crib and sneak out -- where Neelix awaits hopeful that I'll emerge Jude-in-hand like I do every morning around 8:00AM when it's actually wake-up time. I give him a stern look and, defeated, he goes out and flops over in the middle of the living room.

I'm going to have to start making rounds before bed to make sure every single toy is switched to off now. We'll not have that again! Smartass giant cat.