Living with Emma

One of the things which concerned us most prior to Caleb's birth was how our cat Emma would react to having him in the house. Some in our family were worried that Emma would be downright hostile to Caleb, maybe even to the point of harming him. I was hoping that her maternal instincts would kick in and she would embrace him, maybe even to the point of mothering him and watching over him. I was basing this hope on what TuTu and Poppy told me about how our cat reacted to my older brother's birth. However, our cat was just a kitten at the time and Emma is about 8 years old. We did have some reason to be concerned because Emma did not react well when MB (Mom's friend "Bug") was here with her children. I rationalized that she would treat Caleb different because Caleb would not be running around the house and would not be as loud.

Well, reality turns out to be somewhere in the middle. Emma has shown a little fear of Caleb and mostly steered clear of him. She did hiss at him a couple of times, but that was right after we brought him home. She has shown some curiosity about him. She will peek into his bouncy seat or she might come check him out when he is in my lap, much like she is doing in this picture. Mostly, she sniffs for a few seconds and then walks away. But she does seem to be getting more comfortable with him. At least I hope she is.

Caleb has recently developed the habit of grabbing things as he sleeps or as he eats. In this first picture, he is asleep on my chest and has a fisftul of my t-shirt. We took him to the grocery store and, of course, Mom carried him around in his sling. He always seems to sleep in there. That sling is one of the greatest inventions ever. Anyway, we were standing in line to check out when we peeked in at him and realized he had reached up and grabbed hold of the edge of the sling.