Rookie Dad: The quirks

Watching The Youngling grow up for the past 13+ months has let me witness her strange tendencies develop and flourish. One of her more recent quirks is paying a lot of attention to one of our two cats. She quickly grew sick of simply petting the cat and moved on to using the cat as a sort of pillow to lean back on. This action took the cat by surprise but she must have decided that some attention - regardless of the pain involved - is better than none.

The newest quirk involving that same cat is The Youngling chasing it. Even though she's still a crawler she keeps pace nicely with this fast but fat cat. She even nudges the cat's progress forward sometimes. Call it headbutting or bulldozing but she has a habit of putting her head down and pushing the cat with it no matter what part of the cat she makes contact with. This is particularly disturbing when she plants her head squarely against the cat's butt and pushes like the little 20-pound bulldozer she thinks she is. That part of the act has been discouraged which is greeted with her latest quirk.

Shaking her head "no". That one came about early last week while her mom was getting her dressed for the day and, well, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then The Youngling's mom should be flattered for life as the little mimmick endlessly shakes her head "no" sometimes. I wonder if it makes her dizzy or if she realizes what the action she's mimicking really means. I'm guessing no on both accounts.