Needy Kittens

Daddy has been away the past week and everyone’s missing him. To deal with it, Abang decided he would rather stay at Ant J’s the entire weekend (from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning), further subjecting her to early morning wake-up calls (note the time stamp on the picture). Adik, on the other hand, has been shouting, “Dah! Dah!” from the bottom of the stairs, fully expecting Daddy to answer him from his workstation at the upstairs lounge area.

Even Harun has been extra-super needy these days. Usually once he’s fed he’d be all quiet and happy. These days, he’s meowing starts off as a mellow, “Meow..” and woe-be-tide if I don’t attend to him. It gets louder (“MEOW”) and louder (“MEOW!”) and eventually it becomes a really loud, heart-wrenching “MEEE-OOWWWW……”. One might think he hadn’t been fed in 3 days, when in actual fact it’s more like 3 minutes.

Thomas, on the other hand, remains the more ‘normal’ of the 2 cats by being aloof and pretending not to realise that anything is different.

Still, we take it all in stride and get on with what we have to do – except Harun, who still insists on getting underfoot until I accidentally kicked him, tripped and then landed on his foot. He gave me a really offended look.

Adik, while not exactly getting underfoot, has also been extra clingy. I suppose he, too, realises Daddy’s not around and deals with it the only way he knows how.

On Monday, when I fetched Abang from kindergarten the first thing he said to me was he wanted to talk to Ant J because he wanted to tell her that class is over and that he’s on the way home. I agreed, although by the time she answered her phone we were already home so he basically gave her a status update of his day so far.

I guessed he didn’t really know how to say “I miss you” but he was obviously feeling it.

Later that afternoon, we went to fetch Cuz from school (his mom needed a favour) and on the way there he asked to speak to Daddy.

“Hi Dad!” was Abang’s opening line. I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, because Abang was using my headset. The monologue went something like this.

“I’m in the car, on the way to fetch Cuz with Mummy.”

Pause.

“Yes.” Another pause.

Another quick “yes” answer. I guessed his Daddy must have asked him if he’s been well behaved, because that’s exactly how he answers that question. And then:

“I miss you dad.” Pause. “I want you to come back.”

“I love you, Dad! Ok, BYE!” and he handed me the headset.

Obviously I was wrong – he does know how to say it!