The many ways in which my four-year-old is like a cat, or what you get when you write a post in ten minutes.

Henry insists on walking in front of me around the house. “I’m the leader,” he tells me, and leaps ahead, although he’s not sure where I’m going. He veers toward the living room when ha ha, I was going to the kitchen all along. This is what amuses me these days. He turns around, screeches, “Hey!” and jumps in front of me. And then stops short to explain why, athough he had requested the red Power Ranger for Christmas, we managed to purchase the wrong kind of red Power Ranger. Not paying the least bit of attention, I run directly into him and step on his foot. He cries out. I bend down to check out the damage. “Which one did I hurt?” I ask him. “Marbretta,” he says. He has named his feet. The right one is Marbretta, the left one is Plops. (Cats would probably name their paws, if they had the power of speech. You know they would. Although I’d bet they have lousy imaginations and their foot names would be Paw, Paw-Paw, Pawl, and Pawla.) The foot appears undamaged. Meanwhile, Henry is batting at my hair . “This wouldn’t happen if you’d wear shoes,” I tell him, but he’s ignoring me as he stares, frozen in wonder, at something on the ground, in doing so blocking the kitchen doorway. “It’s just a mushroom,”I say. “I must have dropped it while I was cooking. Can you pick it up for me?” He looks at me as if I had smeared myself with my own feces. “I will not pick up a mushroom,” he declares. “Charlie will eat it.” He lunges toward Charlie, undoubtedly ready to haul him mushroom-ward, but Charlie takes off, as he usually does whenever Henry comes at him. “Charlie hates mushrooms,” Henry informs me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading down to the basement to crap in a box.”

(Good enough! Quick, Alice, post it before you return to your senses!)

Comments

[magicdrgn]

Good work, Alice! Glad to see you posting more often!

[Tammy]

I thought I was the only parent to let my kid crap in a box. Phew.

Way to power-post.

[Mom101]

Ha, this totally reminds me of an Onion Headline that someone just recited to me:

"Want a box of shit in your house? Get a cat."

[Merry Jennifer]

Great feet names. I'm not nearly as clever. Mine are just "Right" and "Left" - how boring.

Like at your house, our three year old daughter is our prime entertainment. Aren't they fun?

[chirky]

Oh, wow. Did he really say that? "Crap in a box" came out of his mouth? GACK. I fear my mother-in-law's response to that.

[alice]

No, that part--that was a joke.

[Elizabeth]

You're right, Henry IS a cat! That should make figuring out what to feed him a lot easier.

[Patty]

I find it as amusing when they're following me around to stop short, spin around and go in the opposite direction. Just to mess with their heads. And because I so rarely get to be the leader. Come to think of it, it's even less frequently than rarely.

[Karianna]

Time to turn on "Cats" on his iPod. "Marbretta" and "Plops" fit the names in that musical.

My son's blog-name is "TheCat." Sadly, it is for other reasons than what you have listed above.

What an interesting child you have.

[raine]

Oh boy. I can relate. My son is always leaping in front of me, declaring, "I'M FIRST!"Not so catlike though. Most days, he's a race car, revving up and peeling out. sometimes he pretends to be a kitty, and talks about himse (the kitty) in the third person. "the kitty can't talk, mommy. the kitty only meows!"i prefer the kitty to the race car.

[TSM-Terrifically Superiorily M]

How fabulous that he names his feet. Our youngest names her freckles. This is most likely because I was watching Beaches for the umpteenth time when she discovered she had them.

Also fabulous is the fact that, after walking through the house, you can discover a mushroom on the floor. At my home I would have stumbled over shoes, cheerios, cat and dog food and probably a piece of bread or two before reaching said mushroom. Still, it's good to know I'm not alone.

-Tracywww.tsm.serveblog.net

[Mary]

My 3-year old's alter ego is a cat named Blackie. Ho ho ho, so amusing. Except when not. Blackie likes to yowl: rowr rowr ROWR! Blackie also does not like: baths, food, washing hands, naps, wearing clothes. She's got a point, actually. Our cat does what he likes at every single moment of the day; Blackie, unfortunately, not so much.

[Meredith]

When you think about it, cats make great kids. They clean themselves, cover up their own crap, are not overly fussed about food as long as it smells like something that died, and really only want the occasional attention.

[Meredith]

I forgot to say that my kids are NOTHING like cats darnit!

[Vanessa]

My daughter would identify with Henry's desire to be first. Everything's a race with her: "Last one to the car is a rotten egg!" "First one to finish her drink loses!" Unfortunately, she also knows about reverse psychology and won't participate in races that I suggest, especially really fun ones like "Bet you can't clean up your room before the timer goes off!"

[teresa]

Just watch out when Henry starts to clean himself by licking "Flops" (or whatever it is he's undoubtably already named it).

[jaleh Teymourian]

Henry is a gem- Marbetta is an awesome foot name. And perhaps he'll outgrow that crapping in a box thing. One can hope.

[Monkee]

I can't wait for the post where he starts jumping from high places on to your head as you walk by, or hacking up hairballs. Why do I have cats, again? Oh, that's right I'm dumb. I should really get that tattooed on my face.

[Melle]

Don't know why that reminded me of this, and I'm not going to think about it too much...

"I'll admit that when I went to the pound, I was actually shopping for a never-ending box of shit, um, and the cat just came with it.

I brought the box home and made sure it was working and I was just gonna throw the cat away. But you get used to 'em. You know, the staring... the judging..."

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/11/post_8.html

[NG]

Named his feet... wha ha ha!

[slouching mom]

OK, naming his feet? That child is seriously precocious. I do believe that this question should be added to the preschool and kindergarten admissions interview protocol:

"Has your child named any of his or her body parts? If so, which ones?"

When my firstborn was 4, I heard him in the bathroom talking to himself. He was saying (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), "Hello, Mr. Penis, and how are you today?"

[Mauigirl52]

Alice, this really got me laughing. I totally understand what you mean about Henry being like a cat. Our cat looks at it as a challenge, if he sees me just starting to go up the stairs. He'll come from anywhere in the downstairs part of the house and leap ahead of me, doing his best to get under my feet, trip me, and cause me to fall on my head.

I haven't had too much problem with my cat's crap in his box lately...disgustingly, our dog has taken to looking at the cat's box as a snack bar. It's hard to imagine what goes through her mind...."Mmmm, look at this! Someone left Tootsie Rolls in this box just for me! Wow, and they're surrounded by crunchy stuff that tastes like peppermint! Yum!"

I'll tell ya what, it makes me clean out the cat's box REALLY regularly because I hate to think about the dog's snacking behavior.

Yet, like Charlie, she wouldn't touch a mushroom.

[Mrs. Kennedy]

Jackson is always competing with the dog to see who gets anywhere first. Hence the following, (when he loses):"First is worst, second is best,third one finds the treasure chest."

[angelfeet]

What great names for his feet! Do you have trouble remembering which one is which?

You know, I think cats can talk but they just don't deign to talk to humans - and they certainly wouldn't tell us what they have named their paws.

[clickmom]

I had a boyfriend once who named his manly part "Henry" (sorry!) and my womanly part "Wileminia". But, having less imagination than your Henry, our feet remained un-named.

Gotta love the sharing.