ARCHIE likes attention.
Lots and lots of attention. He can't speak but he makes a cracking cacophony.
The day starts around 7am when Archie clamours for breakfast. He's 18 weeks old and dammit, he wants to eat. It looks pretty disgusting to me but his mother assures me this is what they eat at that age and Archie laps it up.
As a woman who enjoys her independence, it is difficult to concede the day's routine to someone so tiny but this little chap is boss. I find I have to take him to the loo with me because he cries when I sit him in the hall and shut the door.
Television has become a thing of the past. Christmas to me means Law & Order SVU on a continous loop on the Universal channel. I have no idea what Detective Olivia Benson is up to because Archie insists on being the sole focus of my attention. In just four months he has accumulated a ludicrous pile of toys that are of equal and excessive value in his affection. As soon as the Law & Order theme tune rings out, Archie wants to play.
Archie has no comprehension of personal space. He climbs in with me when I have a bath and sits on my collarbone, high enough both to be out of the water and to leave claw marks on my shoulder. Sometimes he is a little too chill about the whole affair and lets his white tipped tail dip in the bath water. This he flicks to dry it off - right in my eye.
Archie, of course, is a kitten. Occasionally it feels like living with 10 kittens. Despite having seen him just moments before in the living room, he's in the kitchen on top of the stove. Having just lifted him off the stove, with a half-hearted scold, he's six rungs up a ladder, knocking my bowl of cereal on to the floor, making a beeline for the washing machine drum, scooting towards the open fire and eating his big brother Dexter's dinner.
Being so small he has not yet learned how to manage his claws, which are 20 miniature scythes swishing through unexpecting human skin. He likes to sit in ball in the sink when I clean my teeth, leaving nowhere to spit. He likes to grab at pens when I write or roll in the wrapping paper for presents or sit on the keyboard when I type.
I regale my friends with tales of Archie misadventure. They come to see for themselves and Archie sits beautifully, tail elegantly ribboned round pristine pink paws.
He's only little but he's worked out I am soft because I love him, has Archie, and that is going to be a problem.
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