Hastings is the one cat in our house who seems to “get” the whole baby thing. He figured out early on that Conrad was one of our young and thus immediately leaped to the top of the attention chain, and that if he himself wanted to get any action at all he needed to toe the line. And he has. Hastings will lie with us when we’re all on the floor, and stoically accept it when Conrad grabs a big hank of kitty fur and tries to take it with him.
Tuesday night Hastings proved an even more sophisticated level of understanding of the new priorities in our household. About an hour after Conrad had fallen asleep, Jean and I went in to have a last look at him before we went to bed. When we opened the door, Hastings hurried out. He’d been trapped in Conrad’s room for more than an hour, but rather than meowing or throwing himself against the door “which he’ll do instantly if I dare to shut the bathroom door behind me” he sat quietly and waited.
Is it really possible that a cat could understand how important it is not to wake the baby? Seems unlikely. But I have no other explanation.