How do you solve a problem like Carly?

That cat is driving me NUTS!

When we got back on Tuesday afternoon she was unsurprisingly glad to be let out of the room she had been shut in for a week. But then the whining started. No matter where she was, that was not where she wanted to be. Put her on the fridge – the minute you made eye contact she’d whine. Put her in the living room by the legos – don’t look at her or she’ll whine. Set her on the couch – whine. Take her in the computer room – whine. Put her back in the cat room – whine. You get the idea. This was ok since I’m sure she just wanted attention. Fine.

I rearranged the cat room back to normal, meaning I put all the litter boxes and food back in the one room and cleaned up the office. So when Carly decided to wake me up every two hours on Tuesday night I was not happy. I couldn’t just throw her (gently) in the cat room and shut the door. So I dealt with the repeated disturbances. But when she started doing the same thing last night (I hadn’t even fallen asleep before she started jumping on me) I found it hard to be nice. I moved two litter boxes back into the office, grabbed the big food bowl and water dish, and shut Carly in the cat room. Then I went back to bed, hopefully cat-prancing-on-top-of-me free.

At around 5 this morning Adam wakes me up to ask how long Carly has been in the room. All night. That’s how long. I need my sleep. He went and brought her back into our room.

Yes, to some extent I feel bad that we shut her in a room for a week. But she had food, she had water, she had litter. She had some toys, she had the cat scratcher. She had a window. And when she insists on being annoying all night long, I think I’m ok with putting her in there some more. In reality, I don’t think it really makes a difference to her. I mean, she spends her days on top of the fridge, coming down for a little while when I come home for lunch. If I thought it was really that inhumane I wouldn’t do it. But for now, I’m going to try having her sleep by my head, but if she wakes me up before 3, she goes in the cat room for the rest of the night.

< /rant>