Sleeping Beauties

News flash: cats sleep a lot.

Ok, not actually news at all.  As I sit here writing, I am surrounded by sleeping kitties and it made me think about how funny they are about where and when they sleep.

Of course, there are daytime sleeping spots and nighttime sleeping spots.  And while in some ways it seems like they will sleep anywhere, Anabel and Sally can be fairly particular about their nighttime sleeping spot.

Both kittens come to bed with us at night.  Sally knows when bedtime is and he will sometimes beat me there.  Anabel likes to wait until no one is looking and then she comes to bed too.  Neither of them snuggle with us though.  They both sleep down by my feet. 

I used to have a blanket on top of the duvet.  One night, Sally started going crazy and was attacking the blanket.  He would scratch and bite at it.  I kept throwing him off of the bed and throwing him out of the bedroom, but he kept coming back (no, I didn’t close the door because…cats) and raging at it.  Mr. Man was not happy.  Finally, I took the blanket off of the bed and then he was fine.  He had just been upset with the blanket.

The kittens resumed their nighttime sleeping position.  It was a tenuous detente because I was worried that at any moment Sally would get mad at the duvet and attack my new down comforter.  At some point during the next few days a sweatshirt or something wound up on the foot of the bed.  The kittens made a point of sleeping on top of it; Anabel seemed especially happy about it, so I left it.

After a bit, Sally started getting mad at that shirt too.  Yikes!  Ok, let’s put that in the hamper.  How about if I get a clean shirt out of the drawer?  Oh, he likes it!  Happy kittens, phew.

So, now we have a system where I leave a t-shirt out on the foot of the bed for the kittens to sleep on.  Every few days I switch it out for a clean shirt.  The kittens love their spot and we haven’t had any more incidents with trying to kill the bedding.

On one hand, I really would like to be able to sleep with my legs stretched out.  One the other hand, when I wake up in the morning, I find adorable snuggling kitten vignettes that make my heart overflow with happiness like the bubble run-off of a poorly opened bottle of champagne.