Random Wednesday

I've finished 3 Christmas Knitting Projects now and I have one more to go! This means that Friday (Caleb has an appointment tomorrow morning, so no blog), I should have actual pictures of something I can show you!

To distract you from a complete lack of blog content, I will share something about Ramius. He can talk. Not just meow, meep, purr and normal cat sounds, he can actually say words - or rather, one word: "Mom." I guess Mom is close enough to Meow (and normal cat noises) that it's not too hard for a cat to say. The funny thing is, he says it exactly like Caleb says it.

Caleb's room is farther from our bedroom in this house than it's ever been in previous houses and while we can easily hear him if he calls, it's a bit of a hike for us to get to him. When he does call, one or both of us jumps out of bed and runs to him to see what's wrong. (Caleb isn't a "cry wolf" kind of kid, so if he calls us in the middle of the night, he's had a nightmare or is sick and he needs us there immediately.) Ramius was apparently paying attention to this and one night, in the middle of the night, I heard, "Mom!" So I jumped out of bed and was racing to Caleb's room. Running next to me, purring more than he usually does on the way to check on Caleb, was Ramius. When we got to Caleb's room, he was sprawled out in a tangle of covers, snoring happily, completely asleep. Ramius, I noticed, was rubbing against me and purring ecstatically. That's when it hit me - it was the cat, not the kid, calling me. Unfortunately, Ramius had figured out how to get me up at night if he wanted some attention and he now does this periodically. Not every night, not even every week, but a couple of times a month or so, he feels that in the wee morning hours, he needs a human awake to play with him. Fortunately for me, I've figured this out and knowing both Ramius and Caleb the way I do, I've gotten a little bit smarter. When Caleb needs us, he calls and keeps calling - the kid has no patience and doesn't even give us a chance to get to him from his first call. Ramius on the other hand has infinite patience and will call and then wait. I've figured out that if I get a second "Mom!", I'll know if it's Caleb or Ramius before I jump out of bed and race through the house. The first couple times it happened, it took me a while to figure things out though. It just goes to show that not teaching animals to talk is probably a good thing, although Ramius figured this out all by himself.