If you were to ask me two years ago if I would ever own a cat, it would have been a hard no. I wasn’t too fond of cats, and would have considered myself a dog person. I do not know what changed in me. Maybe it was my friend’s cat who was absolutely obsessed with me and would never leave my side when I visited. I warmed up to the idea of owning a cat one day. They were less responsibility than a dog, and with my busy college schedule it seemed more reasonable. I had been looking for a cat since I was living in the dorms. I had this dream that one day I would own an orange cat and name it Otis. My roommate at the time even got me a stuffed orange cat as a joke because I talked about my future orange cat so frequently.
I was counting down the days until I got to bring home my kitten. She was a “little black bear” according to the person who was taking care of her at the time. Now I know you might be wondering, what happened to the orange cat dream? Well, you see, I saw this little black kitten for the first time and I had to bring her home with me. So in the week prior to picking her up, I had kitten-proofed my entire apartment. This also meant rehoming my house plants. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a little sad over this. I was proud of my plants and it made my apartment seem homier since moving in. I guess there are some sacrifices we have to make when it comes to becoming a cat mom. I went to the pet store with a list of the essentials I would need and somehow I spent more than an hour trying to pick out matching food bowls and fun toys, along with all the other things that come with getting a new pet. My cat would be spoiled. Even the lady checking me out said that too.
Although I had cats growing up, they were never my own so I did not do much with them. Because of this, I did not know what to expect when getting a kitten. I did a lot of research about kittens so I knew all the tips and tricks going into it. I am the kind of person that has a list in my notes app of names for my future pets. However, none of these names seemed to fit the little black kitten I was going to get. I turned to my next best option, Google. Of course, there are the common names of Shadow and Midnight for black cats, but I wanted something more original. During my many searches I stumbled across the name Minnie, it felt right.
The first week of having a new kitten is always hard. You are both learning about each other and they’re getting comfortable in your new home. The biggest thing I learned from Minnie’s first week at home was that too many toys at first are overwhelming. I made the mistake of giving Minnie all of the new toys at first. I soon realized that it was a lot for her along with being in her new home with a stranger. Introducing her toys to her one at a time seemed to be less overwhelming for her.
Minnie has acquired the nickname Minnie the Menace, for good reason of course. She always seemed so sweet and innocent until she decided your leg was her new scratching post. Or when she would unroll and shred the entire toilet paper roll, tear apart an important piece of paper that you needed for class the next day, or knock everything you had on top of the fridge off in the middle of the night. The list goes on and on, but I think you get my point. When people ask me how having a kitten is going, I usually respond with, “Well it’s like living with a toddler.”
I have learned a lot about being a cat mom in the past two months. For starters, kittens seem to think that you starve them. I wake up in the morning to her staring at me waiting for her breakfast. I don’t dare do anything else before she gets fed. Secondly, you can never have enough toys. Minnie has destroyed so many I have lost count. I learned to keep a stockpile so that when she got bored with her other toys, I could give her a new one and keep her occupied for a while. And lastly, I love being a new cat mom. It’s a refreshing feeling to go home to a cat who loves to cuddle and play with you. She’s my bug killer and catnip lover forever.