Sage advice not found in “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”

My father’s a witty, intelligent, observant and perceptive man, mostly a man of few words, still-waters-run-deep character and enriching wisdom if only people would see past his gruffness and listen.

Example. Once during my adolescence he remarked: “You’ll think you must marry your first love. If you’re smart, you won’t.”

Another time: “Every married couple should have a dog before they have children.” His point was that it reveals styles of discipline or lack thereof, attitudes and handling of responsibility and commitment or again lack thereof.

My father’s thought was that if the responsibility of a dog was too much, you had no real business being a parent. My parallel thought is: Better to discover with a dog that you’re woefully incompatible than after the kid comes.

Though I was young when he made these offhanded remarks, and others, the old soul within recognized the wisdom even then and they’ve remained with me through the decades to be passed on (usually to no avail) to others.

To my father’s comment about dogs and marriage, I’d like to add:

Any woman thinking of having a child should first have a kitten.

They are terrors on four paws! Four cute lil’ fluffy furry tickle-’em paws perhaps but terrors nonetheless.

Kittens bounce off walls. Children bounce off walls. Kittens force you to face the music or walk away; unlike with children, you can’t hurry them to doctors for a mainstream diagnosis of ADD and medications.

P.S. When did America’s kids stop being kids and become victims of mental disorders for their every hyperactive turn for Christ’s sake?! Get over yourselves, parents, and take a look in the mirror. The vast majority of problems with your children lies not in their wiring but in your lack of discipline and parenting techniques! So get a grip and assume some responsibility for rearing the children you brought into the world instead of tossing it upon the medical community (and schools, for that matter)!

Better yet, don’t have kids!!!! {Unrealistic I realize but still worth the printed space.}

Rant subsided for now.

Kittens ascend and fall, rip chairs, tear and pull curtains, shred antique ottomans and release stuffing for midair play like so many butterflies and dandelion puffs in the breeze.

Granted, they don’t write on walls with bold black markers. Rest assured they would if they could manipulate their digits thusly.

Kids are different how?

Little felines wake you in the middle of the night OR they won’t let you sleep, pushing you to play play play until they collapse from exhaustion.

Kids and cats are selfish creatures.

They attack, they climb, they dash about like dervishes, they sneak their way into places of risk or danger, they discover spots where they ought not be.

Their infinitely abounding curiosity makes me dangers unto themselves. And others.

And yes, I’m talkin’ about kittens. Aren’t I?

When the house falls silent, that’s when you know trouble’s brewing and the creature’s up to no good.

A feline tests your patience, boy oh boy do they! Those with offspring know of what I speak.

Then they please and are restored into your good graces when their adrenalin-fueled frenzies and activated growth spurts subside. They paws, err, pause. They come to rest.
They smile, coo, purr and slumber for moments sublime, moments of peace …

until the next storm blasts through your area.

So yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with my father’s assessments about young love and dogs-before-children.

My sage contribution to humankind is directed to women considering motherhood:

Have a kitten before a kid.

Test the waters. You DON’T need a man either just as you don’t need a spouse or lover to produce infants. Feline life cycles occur at 100x the rate and speed of their human counterparts. Cats advance from infancy into toddler to juvenile to young adulthood and upward in a blink of an eye — though it won’t seem so when you examine the healing time required for the scratch marks up and down your ankle and across your hand.

If you’re smart, you won’t marry your first love … wait, that one’s taken … you’ll learn from the kitten-raising experience and be grateful that it is a fast-forward cycle when it’s not kit-kat but YOU climbing the walls!

And if you haven’t already, you’ll perhaps come to recognize and appreciate my wisdom as I did my father’s lo those decades ago.

Last but not least (and not unlike with kids), every kitten should come with one of these:

from the high tower he plots a sneak attack

an entirely free shot, no setup what.so.ever! …

proving that with camera sometimes the (dervish) force is with you …

and sometimes he’s all sweetness and light …

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