Playtime Grows Up

Thimble and Colby have passed the nine pound mark. They aren't even five months old yet. It's hard to remember that they are still babies despite their size.

And then sometimes it's not hard at all, when they act silly and crazy.

They've graduated to having their before-bedtime play session in the living room instead of the nursery. The pink room (that's the nursery) is just too small now for them to run full-out, and Colby, who never has the best judgement at the best of times, was bowling himself into the furniture and the walls. He never seemed fazed but it sounded quite painful, the sudden thump as he tried to stop, went head over heels, and catapulted (ha ha) himself into the wooden storage bin structure.

So I got out the big-cat wand toys, the ones where I stand instead of sitting because the wand is longer and the string down to the toy is longer, and played with them with that. I have some from when Pippin was a kitten that have glittery streamers at the end, and that was the first one I played with in the living room.

They absolutely adored it. Colby still managed to run into the walls but at least not quite as often, and I learned to keep the toy end far away from the fireplace hearth (which is four bricks high and made out of bricks, so it's the least forgiving thing in the house to run into).

Sometimes they will run after it in tandem, as if they are racing in harness. Most of the time that sort of thing rapidly deteriorates as one goes faster than the other, or one decides to make a sharp turn without warning the other first. Sometimes that ends up with two kittens in a pile and sometimes it doesn't. Even if it does, they just untangle themselves and go after the toy again. This is apparently not the time for playfights.

I don't have video or pictures. It's very difficult to take video or pictures when you're in the center of the action and you're having to keep the toy ahead of the cats.

And that plural means all three cats, because Apricot participates too, more than he did in the pink room. He doesn't usually run after it full-blast like they do, but if the toy just so happens to come by him he will reach out a paw and trap it. Apricot doesn't like being run into by the kittens and knocked over.

Plus, he also knows that after the kittens get put in the nursery for the night, I will continue playing with him by himself with the same wand toy. And then he runs after it and makes flying leaps and acts just like the kittens only for a shorter amount of time. I think there might also be dignity involved--he doesn't want to do these crazy play moves in front of the kittens. He has his grownup position to think about, after all. So he waits until we're alone.

The kittens, despite my efforts to not create situations for high-flying acrobatics, sometimes indulge in them anyway. A wand toy naturally goes up at the end of its flight, and they'll leap after it, snatching it out of the air sometimes, and sometimes missing it.

I've seen them do in-air twists and flips and stuff that would make an Olympic high-diver or gymnast turn green with envy. Of course, the kittens don't always stick the landings, either ...

And last night, the 27th of February (mark your calendars, people!) Colby objected to being put in the nursery for the night for the first time. After I kissed them goodnight he ran out of the room, giving me a deliberate look to make sure I saw him leave. Thimble followed but more on the fact that I walked after Colby and he didn't want to be left alone.

Luckily, Thimble also followed me back into the nursery when I had Colby in my arms, on the same basis of not wanting to be left alone. Because I can't carry both of them at the same time anymore, even with Thimble over my shoulder (I tried, the day before, actually).

Perhaps Colby wasn't done playing. Last night we played with Apricot's Bird wand toy. It was the second time I'd gotten that one out.

You should have seen the look on Apricot's face the first time I got it out with the kittens in the room. It was like he was saying to himself, "Oh boy, you guys are going to love this one!" combined with "Cool, I know how to play with this one!" And he did have more runs and jump-catches with it than he normally does around the kittens, and after I tucked them into their room for the night, he really went to town with it.

That toy just flies better than the other wand toys I have. It has four feathers and they are bigger than my old wand toy with two, and the wand seems to be more flexible. Last night Colby managed to "break" it twice. Once the stretchy string came off the end of the feathers, and I had to tie it (it originally comes attached with apparently not-so-strong glue) and then the other end came loose and I had to tie that one. It took Apricot months to do the same thing (pull the ends loose, not the part where they get tied back on. Obviously.)

Colby likes to bite down on the feathers and he obviously can bite very hard. Thimble manages the same thing but not quite as often. Colby also loves the toy to the point where he growls at the others and wants to keep it all to himself. He still hasn't put together the fact that the toy gets pulled away from him when he growls more often than when he doesn't, but he's in the middle of play and his brain isn't exactly occupied with cause and effect at that point, just instinctive attack and kill.

The Bird flies to the top of the cat tree in the middle of the room but not the one in the corner, not after the first time where Colby fell off it and hit his back against the brick edge of the hearth. He was up and after the toy instantly, and even when I checked him over later seemed to have taken no harm from the fall and more importantly, the impact, but I decided I wasn't going to risk him breaking his spine just for a toy.

The feathers might go over on the far side of that cat tree, away from the hearth, and up to the first level, which can be reached by standing on the hind legs and grabbing with the front legs, but that is as far as I will take it now.

At one point poor Apricot apparently needed to pee and didn't want to go all the way to the bedroom to do it, so he went into the litter box's box in the living room. I didn't realize he was in there, and the feathers were going round and round and Colby lost traction and went head over heels, thump into the side of the box. Apricot's head poked out the entrance like a jack-in-the-box on its side, and although I managed not to laugh, I felt very guilty about the impulse!

It's a good thing you can get replacement feathers (and I have a box of them) because apparently, even non-destructive Maine Coons are rather hard on their toys just because of the size thing. And they do like variety in their toys, something that I find challenging to accommodate due to my love of routine. But I'm trying to vary the wand toys each night--at least, not use the same one two nights in a row. The rabbit on a stick toy that they were so fond of is now on too short of a wand for adequate play.

Well, they don't mind scrambling over me to get to the toy, but I rather do. They're getting a bit heavy for that, plus, even though it's during play and they really have no concept of where they are, I don't want to encourage launching off of me. It was bad enough when a fourteen pound Pippin launched off my lap (my oof would be audible); I don't really want to find out what happens when a twenty-five pound cat with adult musculature and strength does the same thing.