We have a cat. A psychotic, lazy, fat, unpredictable cat named Lizzy Borden. (Despite the fact that the real Lizzy Borden doesn't quite fit into the category, all of our pets are named after serial killers. It's a long story. Don't judge me.)

The Dormouse and Lizzy have a strained relationship, to put it mildly. For the most, part Lizzy ignores The Dormouse. The Dormouse gives Lizzy a wide berth. And by wide berth, I mean that literally. If Lizzy is lying in the middle of the floor and The Dormouse wants to pass through the room, she will inch by her, side stepping with her back against the wall, never taking her eyes off those lethal claws, just in case the cat might decide to lash out.

The truth is, the cat seldom lashes out unprovoked (at anyone but me, that is) but every once in awhile, when The Dormouse doesn't realize she's there and runs through the room a little too close to the cat's personal space, Lizzy will reach out and scratch at her ankles. Nine times out of ten, it's just a warning and she misses, but every so often, she actually makes contact with those tiny ankles draws blood. So even the misses are traumatic events where The Dormouse is concerned. Suddenly, we'll hear a blood curdling scream from the other room and run to her aid, only to witness the cat, wide eyed and cowering under the coffee table with The Dormouse crying big, fat tears and pointing back in that general direction but with no blood having actually having been spilled.

"What's happened?" we say.

"LIZZIE HURT MY FEELINGS!!!"

As The Dormouse has gotten older, she's developed a number of fail-safes to ensure her dominance over the cat. For example, in recent months, she's started closing her bedroom door to ensure that Lizzie does not manage to get into her room unknown and participate in a repeat performance of this incident.

Maybe it's the upcoming baby, but lately, she's taken to tattling on Lizzy like a sibling for one thing or another that she'll do:

"You're not allowed on that table, Lizzy. GET DOWN. Moooo-ooom, Lizzy's on the table."

*familiar hacking of a cat coughing up a fur ball comes from the kitchen* "Momma, I think Lizzy's sick, we need to take her to the vet."

"Mooooommma, Lizzy's looking at me."

I think this may be a dark foreshadowing of times when the baby sister starts getting a little older and more mobile and I can't decide whether to squelch the urge now, or let it go and use it to my advantage later.

Lizzie's basically an indoor cat and we don't let her outside much. For the most part, she's okay with that. But one thing she never tires of is trying to escape out the front door when someone goes in or out... usually company who are none the wiser and aren't as quick with the Automatic Foot Block Maneuver as we have become. She never goes past the front steps and it wouldn't bother me at all if she didn't immediately run to the edge of the lawn and obsessively start chowing down on grass. Which also wouldn't bother me if she didn't immediately go back inside and throw up all the half-chewed, half-swallowed-whole pieces grass onto the floor in a puddle. So the grass eating? We've tried very hard to discourage it.



The other day, we were sitting on the front stoop talking to a neighbor and The Dormouse opened the door to come out and join us. As she came out, Lizzy escaped out the front door and made a beeline for the delicious grass carpet.

Dormouse: *at the top of her lungs* "DING, DING, DING, DING DING!!!! CAT'S OUTSIDE!! DING, DING, DING!!"

I guess it would be wrong to think of this as a babysitting possibility for the new child?