Lessons From a Cat, (Or, Lessons From a Baby)

   

Addy, my brave tub cat relaxing on her favorite perches (see number 2!)

You have to admit, babies and cats (or I guess any pet at all- I've only ever owned cats so I can't speak for dogs or hamsters or birds or velociraptors) are very similar.  In fact, this was the topic of conversation at last year's family Christmas gathering.  My sister and I were watching one of my baby nephews (I swear, my family has like a whole army of babies.. or at least a soccer team! There are currently 12 with number 13 coming anytime now!) He was doing as babies do, gurgling and slobbering all over himself, playing on the floor.  My sister brought up that he was much like a cat.  which, if you think about it, makes sense.  What do babies do? They eat, sleep, use the bathroom, and their little version of playing that includes waving a teething ring around and poking out your eyes.  And what do cats do? They eat, sleep, use the bathroom, and their version of playing that includes attacking your ankles and protecting you from that evil shadow on your ceiling. See? Basically the same thing. 

Not that I'm saying that being the mother of a fur baby is exactly the same thing as being a mother of a real human baby.  Although there are some babies I've seen that I think look more like animals than humans.. but anyway. 

Being around human babies and my fur baby so much, I've started to pick up on a few things that they do that I think are great lessons from us all!

1. Know what you want and go after it!

Up until maybe a week ago, whenever someone would ask "Oh, you're majoring in communications, what do you want to do with that?" I would panic.  I had no idea what I wanted.  Honestly, I don't even really want to have like a real career.  Once Blake and I are both done with school and really established, I want to have kids and be a happy little homemaker.  My mom was a "housewife" (or as I like to call it, Domestic Diva!) and was always there to make us snacks after school or let us cry on her shoulder when an evil 8th grade boy broke our hearts (here's to you, middle school crushes!)  I want to be able to always be there for my kids.  But at the same time, I don't want Blake to be the sole worker.  Solution? Work from home! But what job could I do from home? WRITING. My collection of notebooks with started stories from when I was little are proof enough that I knew I wanted to write- I just never accepted it! 

When Addy wants something, she makes it known.  Blake and I put up her food bowl at night so we don't have to hear her constant crunching while we sleep, but when she's ready for her food in the morning, she goes after it! She's been known to drag her little mat that houses her food and water bowls over to the area where we keep the big bag of her food.  And if the sound of that dragging doesn't wake us up, she starts scratching on the mat as loudly as possible. 

Babies cry. When I was in high school and would babysit, I would get so frustrated that the babies would just cry and cry instead of saying "HEY! I'm hungry! Feed me!" I wouldn't know what to do, so I would have to go through everything I could think of until I got to what they really wanted. 

2. Face your fears, even if just one step at a time

I'm terrified of failure.  I freak out if I get a B on papers.  But the scariest thing I have done is put my writings online for all you lovely folks to see and read and judge.  I was so scared, it took me over a week to actually write anything because I was scared of being judged.  But eventually I did it, one word at a time.  

When I was little, my biggest fear was taking the training wheels off my bike (I think I was like 11 when we finally took them off? HA!) I mean, I didn't exactly have the best history with bikes anyway.  One time I was riding around in the yard when I fell off and my face landed right in a pile of dog mess left by the neighbor's demon dog. Thanks Maggie.  So maybe that fear was justified, right? 

I promise I don't still have training wheels on my bike.

Addy is great at facing her fears.  We all know cats hate water, right? Well. We gave Addy a bath a couple weeks after we adopted her and thought she would never go near the tub again.  Boy, I was wrong.  When I take my bubble baths, she gets on top of the cart with towels and stares at me the whole time.  Then she gets down and sits on the little edge of the tub, like in the picture.  And she dunks her tail in the water.  One time she even ventured out to stand on my chest.  She's facing her fears! she's faced trash bags, candles, (she even singed off some of the fur on her tail.. maybe she just doesn't know she has it?) even the mountain of boxes we have in the living room from packing up all the wedding gifts.  The only fear we have to work on is the vacuum.

When a baby is learning to walk, they tend to cling to things like couches or people's toes or the cat's tails.. But they're facing their fears, literally one step at a time (Ha! I'm so punny!) I mean, it's got to be terrifying going from being three inches off the ground to being like two feet up! But they still do it, even if they fall sometimes and make those cute little confused faces. 

3. Know when it's time to take a break

In today's world, we are taught that to be successful, we always have to be going.  I can't think of a time that was more stressful than finals week, when I was trying to balance getting all the plans for the wedding finished, studying for finals, going to the premarital class we had to attend, and working.  I was frazzled.  And the more stressed I got, the more I was getting grumpy and even turned into a Bridezilla for a few days.  But thankfully, I would have these moments when someone, usually either Blake or my mom, would remind me that it's ok to stop for a moment and just breathe. Much like Addy.  Addy loves to play. Her list of favorite things goes like this: 1. Playing 2. Eating 3. Waking up mommy and daddy at 3 am to get petted 4. sleeping.  But sometimes, after a really good play session, when she's panting and a little dizzy, she just stops.  You can tell she wants to keep playing, but she knows she needs to take a break for a while to catch up on energy and keep her little heart from exploding out of her chest. 

4. Speak your mind, and always be honest!

I remember back in the day when there was a TV show called "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and while I don't really remember details, I remember that Bill Cosby was always asking them questions and they always answered honestly, no matter how mean the answers were. 

I'm not saying to be mean all the time, but we can learn a great lesson from kids.  If you ask a toddler if they like something, they won't spare your feelings in answering.  I've always been scared of offending people.  I'm a people pleaser.  I can't even tell salespeople in stores if I think something is the wrong color for me.  I just can't.  But I'm trying to be more like my toddler nieces.  Because I'm a people pleaser, I'm also a pushover.  This has led to many people taking advantage of me, but I'm determined to start speaking my mind. As long as my opinion and your opinion are the same. ;)

And last but not least, 

5. Personal grooming is important, but doesn't have to be fancy

We've all spoken to the guy who doesn't brush his teeth before coming to work or the girl who hasn't showered in a few days and looks like a wet mouse.  I'm not saying I'm one to have my hair perfectly coiffed and a full face of makeup on to go to the store, but hygiene is important. When I get lucky enough to be on the schedule for showing up at work at the bright, beautiful time of 7 am, I wake up as late as possible, brush my teeth,  throw my hair in a messy bun, and leave.  I rock the lazy look as much as I can.  

One day, when Blake and I had been dating for a few months, I went over to his place before class to study and hang out.  He saw me in my norts and almost oversized tee with my hair in a messy ponytail tucked under a hat and said "That's what you're wearing to class?" I felt perfectly fine in my decision, I only had one class that day and wasn't anticipating any TV crews to be filming me. His answer? "You never know who you might run into.  You should look more professional." 

Well.  That was the last time Blake insulted what I was wearing, but the message got to me.  It's ok to be lazy and have comfortable days.  But at least do the basics.  Shower every day.  Brush your hair. And teeth.  And one that I've learned a lot of people struggle to do on a daily basis, wear deodorant! I mean, one time my niece was told to brush her hair and she ran a Barbie sized brush through her hair a couple times.  That's not so hard, is it?

B and I give Addy monthly baths, because first of all she sheds like a freaking yeti and second, she gets gross and stinky.  I mean, her method of grooming is licking herself, for heaven's sake! And just as it's important for her to clean herself and us to brush her so she doesn't get giant hairballs of thick gray fur, it's important for us to take care of ourselves.  Even if it wasn't, is there really anything better than a hot shower at the end of the day? 

First Impressions

According to psychology, it takes .1 seconds to make a first impression on someone.  I recently learned I am one of those people who could be referred to as "prejudiced".  I judge people entirely on the first impressions they leave on me.  It's bad, I know.  And I wonder what effect admitting this will have on your impression of me. Let me see if I can take you past your first impression of me and tell you a little about myself.  I'm a 19-year old student studying communications.  I recently (as in 8 days ago) got married to a man who I'm convinced is the most perfect person I've ever met.

Aren't we just so cute? Especially him!

And the crazy part about that? Our first impressions of each other were horrible.  Well, maybe not horrible.  But definitely not good.  Let me share the story of how we met (trust me, every married couple LOVES telling the story of how they met).
It was my first day of college.  I was in a new town, I knew exactly 3 people in the surrounding area and they were not even in any of my classes at all.  I was a deer in the headlights, trying to seem like the interesting new girl while at the same time appearing as if college was nothing new and I wasn't absolutely terrified.  I made it through my first class and confidently strutted into my second class, Intro to Philosophy.  This class was basically a big group therapy session- the professor assigned us to groups and we were given certain philosophers to discuss.  My group always just had "therapy time" until the professor came around and we pretended to be talking about Kent or Plato or whoever the dead guy was.  Anyway, on the first day, we had to do the necessary ice breakers.  We were given the question "what is your personal philosophy" and not wanting to seem super shallow or stuck in the middle school phase of "shopping fixes everything," I said the first and only thing that came to my mind: Hakuna Matata. Needless to say, I got weird looks.  Especially from the guy I concluded was a frat jerk who just partied and didn't care about anyone else.  Oh, first impressions.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, and the people in my group had become a sort of family to me.  There was me, the girl I originally thought was an attention whore and turned into my best friend, two potheads (who actually were potheads, at least I was right about two people!) the guy I originally had a crush on but who I soon realized was only acceptable until he opened his mouth, and the frat jerk who I now affectionately call "husband".

How did our minds about each other change? Simple. We actually got to know each other. While Blake's original thought of me was that I was immature and still stuck in my childhood, he soon realized that while I am stuck in my childhood (I think I maxed out at growing up to be 5 forever) that made me fun, with a sort of childlike innocence.  And I found out that the guy who just seemed to want to party actually just liked having fun- which includes binge watching Boston Legal while eating oreos.

The first night we hung out, after we had started to break out of our shells, we had a real, deep conversation.  We had been hanging out with a group of people at his frat house, and we went off to the store by ourselves to buy pie. (Always up for adventures; him!) That night, we talked about our families, our goals, and to top it all off, he bought me cookie dough.

When I got home that night, I tweeted "he bought me cookie dough <3 he's a keeper!"

Yeah, I called it from the beginning.  But not what I thought was the beginning- the actual beginning.  The beginning where we both put aside our prejudices and actually got to know someone before permanently deciding how to judge them.