At 4 a.m., Obi was bored. He started his usual bored routine, pulling the cupboard open in the bathroom and – because we installed baby locks the day after he locked Oliver in the cupboard – letting it bumpbumpbump closed again.
“Obi, stop.”
At 4:20 a.m., Obi was bored. BumpBumpBump.
“Obi. Stop.” BumpBumpBump.
He could not be convinced, verbally, to stop playing with the cupboard. I got up, removed him from the bathroom, and shut the door. Now everyone with cats is thinking that THIS didn’t work. You just can’t have closed doors in a house with cats. But, surprisingly, no one cared.
At 4:45 a.m., Obi was bored. He went to his secondary bored action of playing with the blinds over our headboard. After the strings hit me in the head the tenth time I reached up, grabbed the brown kitten, kissed his head and sent him on his way.
At 5 a.m., Oliver was hungry.
At 5:05 a.m., Oliver was hungry.
At 5:10 a.m., Oliver was hungry.
At 5:15 a.m., Oliver was hungry.
At 5:18 a.m., Oliver was hungry.
At 5:30 a.m., Oliver was hungry. He jumped onto my should to see why I wasn’t paying attention to him. “It isn’t time yet,” I said. As he turned to leave, his foot slipped and jammed into my eye. His grey body went thump against the wall and then thump on the floor when instinct made my arm flail and send him flying.
At 5:32 a.m., I had a sore, watering eye. And a lot of guilt.
At 5:35 a.m., Oliver was hungry. This actually made me feel better because it meant I didn’t hurt him.
At 5:42 a.m., I decided I might as well get up because I needed to be downtown at 6:30 a.m., anyway.
At 5:45 a.m., moving slowly and picking up both kittehs to deliver passive-aggressive kisses, I arrived in the kitchen to feed them.
At 6:15 a.m., I was out the door.
There were meetings all day. And there was work to do.
At 4:45 p.m., Oliver and I finally met on the couch for the post-breakfast snuggle. Then there was more work to do.
At 10:13 p.m., I will publish this post.
At 10:17 p.m., I will be in bed. Asleep. And hoping for a better start to tomorrow.
Kitten Thunder: Life lessons and cat tales 
Lately my cats have been conspiring against me. They’ve figured out that if Thunder does his super-loud “I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored” cry in the middle of the night, and Seffie doesn’t go play with him, then I’ll eventually get up and we’ll all play together.
Do you follow Bertrum Thumbcat on Facebook? Evidently this is part of the Human Sleep Deprivation Plan. https://www.facebook.com/bertrumthumbcat/posts/277702352263983
That explains a lot. The worst thing abut middle of the night cat playtime is that about five minutes after it’s over, when I’m back in bed, wide awake and reading, I’ll notice that the cats are in bed with me, sound asleep. That’s just not fair.
So? How was it today?
Purrs
The Boy got up at around 4 a.m. to FIRMLY shut the bathroom door. Honestly, I was a little concerned that he’d just left Obi inside because he got up so quickly (Obi had run away in time). And Oliver was tired too – he slept until the breakfast bell went off.
Oh the life of a pet owner.
If they weren’t so darn cute, there would definitely be a problem.