Universal motherhood..

Sam and Amelia love to pretend they are cats and kittens. Please do not refer to them by their names whenever they are in cat mode, by the way. Anyway, they love to learn all about animals and what they do and eat and are they gentle, etc. I can tell Amelia is getting confused between the true attributes of animals verses their portrayal in fictional stories ( " Wolves are mean , right mama?What do they eat? Pigs, right?" after reading The Three Little Pigs), and so we try to read lots of non-fiction or based on reality fiction about animals too.

So, the other morning we were reading two such books about cats. This one,

and this one.


They are both great little books that took me straight back to my childhood experiences with dozens of beloved kittens, but two quotes stood out from all the rest,

..." They (kittens) play with everything they can find.
They run after mother cat.
They jump on her.
They lick her face.
They bite her tail.
Sometimes the playing gets too rough. Then mother cat jumps away from the kittens. She jumps on a high stool, or up to a shelf.
Sometimes she swats the kittens."

In the next book,

.." At first the kittens seemed to sleep all day. But in a few weeks they were tumbling all over one another.
When the mother cat wanted a little peace, she crouched under the drawer."

I got such a laugh out of these two statements. Sam and Amelia didn't quite understand what was so funny, but that's because you have to be a mama I think to understand the need to "jump on a high stool or crouch under the drawer" every now and then. Oh, it makes me smile even now.

Jen