Unfortunately, without at least eight hours of sleep a night, I don't do so well. I'd like to keep my job, for one thing, and I can't do that if I'm so sleepy I can't pay attention at work. (I'm a chemist. I work with chemicals and glassware and data. It's important not to drop or inadvertantly combine these things, you know?)
Well, Ginger had recommended putting him in the carrier at night whenever I woke up and he behaved in such a way as to keep me from getting back to sleep. One thing he'd do is "dig" in the covers. I am still not sure if he was trying to get underneath them, or if he was trying to bury a toy. It might have been both. Sometimes I wake up and roll over onto my back, and have this momentary puzzlement of "why do I have a huge knot in the middle of my back?" before I realize what it must be and reach underneath to pull out whichever toy they brought to bed that night.
Thimble carrying an old feather toy.
I am not used to cats who walk around with toys in their mouths, carrying the toy to where they want to play with it this time. And sometimes Colby brings a toy to bed so we can play with it in the morning, but more about that development later.
My original carrier is a soft-sided one, and after one night in that, Thimble had chewed his way almost through the mesh of the front door. So I asked Ginger what carrier she used, since I figured she'd have decided on a nice sturdy one that accommodated Maine Coon size, and I'd need a new carrier once they reached full size anyway. (I was tossing Thimble in the nursery room by himself and closing the door, but I wanted something to make him sleep the night through as well, not just have fun with the cat trees and the windows.)
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| Colby tries out the carrier the day I put it together. |
When I got it, I was really surprised at how flimsy it seemed. It was hard to put together, but once I had it together, the whole was much sturdier than the parts. Apparently it's like an arch, where the keystone makes the structure be supportive, but if it's not all together, it just falls apart. The carrier is also nicely balanced so that the clear plastic door is heavier than the rest of it combined, which means when you've got a cat in it, the carrier doesn't tilt forward or backward. Kind of cool. (It's not going to be balanced well enough for a Maine Coon's final weight, but at a normal adult cat weight, which is what they are now, it works quite perfectly.)
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| Apricot makes sure Thimble is still okay after Thimble voluntarily climbed into the carrier. |
Colby and Thimble were instantly thrilled with it, and their enthusiasm got Apricot to like it too. In fact, the first night when I put the carrier in my room with the front door open, so as not to have to maneuver the door in the middle of the night twice ... Something made me check inside before I stuffed Thimble into it.
Colby was sleeping in it! So Thimble got put in the nursery without the carrier that night.
Okay, technically speaking that was the second night. The first night I put it in my room with the top open, and discovered I have to wake up too much to close the top. I managed it, and Thimble-in-carrier went into the nursery room with the door shut, but I tried leaving the front door of it open the second night and that's when Colby decided he wanted to sleep in the little "den" I'd provided.
I'm going to have to get a second carrier.
At one point, early on, before the carrier came, I had been getting up and letting Thimble out and then going back to bed for my half-hour wake up play-with-my-phone time. Thimble managed, one morning, to shut the door to the nursery again, only this time with himself and Apricot inside. Apricot did not appreciate being shut in one (relatively small) room with a very enthusiastic playful Thimble. He was shook up when I let them out, (a half hour later), and he was still shook up at the end of the day when I got home. This, too, was part of the reason I decided to get the carrier and use that approach. That way if I accidentally shut the two of them in the nursery together, at least Thimble would be locked in the carrier.
(Note from the future: Apricot made very sure he never was in a position to get shut in the room with Thimble in the middle of the night again!)
Well, things have settled into a pattern. I put the carrier in the open closet in my bedroom with the carrier door shut. I wake up in the middle of the night. Thimble refuses to settle down. I gather him up and put him in the carrier (after opening the door, of course), close the carrier door being careful to scoop his tail inside with him, and then put the carrier in the nursery room and shut that door, too.
(If I leave the carrier out in my bedroom, Colby sits on top of it and taunts Thimble. He did this with the soft-sided carrier and it subsided under his weight, squishing Thimble as well as taunting him. I haven't given him a chance to do it with the hard-sided new carrier.)
Then I go back to bed and back to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning to my alarm clock brightening the room, I have Colby in bed with me. Colby and I then spend a half hour together with no other cats, just the two of us. Colby quite likes this.
Cuddling Colby
Sometimes he cuddles up with me, and sometimes he brings a toy to play with, and sometimes he brings a toy for me to play fetch with. This is how I learned, to my astonishment, that Colby knows how to play fetch very well thank you. He just won't do it with Thimble around.
I like spending time with Colby, too. He's so reticent that it's hard to spend time with him when the others are demanding I pay attention to them first. I don't really mind putting Thimble in the carrier in the middle of the night. It doesn't wake me up any more than going to the bathroom does, and I'm used to doing that and going back to sleep.
Thus I'm not sure I even want Thimble to learn how to sleep through the night with me.
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