Kitty Playland

I came home from work tonight to find cat toys scattered everywhere. It seems little miss Jelly Belly is a toy freak.

A few days ago I woke up and found a toy mouse in my bed. That's a first. Later I saw Jelly with a toy that I hadn't seen in eons. In fact, it's so old that it was one of Martin's early toys. I had no idea where she'd found it. The next day I saw another old mousie out on the floor that had never interested Baby.

I still wasn't sure where Jelly had found it until later when I was in my home office. Beyond the loveseat on the floor was a cat toy basket that I'd forgotten about, which had been stored on one of the lower shelves of my book case. I can picture Jelly standing up on her hind legs pulling it off the shelf. I'm sure that's exactly what happened.

Trust me, she's not destructive. She just loves her toys!

I wish she'd love Baby as much.

I am so proud of Baby. We've had Jelly for two weeks now. At first Baby gave her a hard time, chasing her down, and I felt sorry for Jelly. I was afraid that Baby would never give up the fight. But within 10 days Baby was like a new cat. She has tried several times to make friends with Jelly. And now Baby is literally falling over at Jelly's feet in an effort to be friends, but whenever Baby gets a tad too close, no matter how gentle and unagressive she is, Jelly hisses at her and walks away.

Earlier I gave them each some catnip on the kitty scratch pad. Jelly immediately started eating her pile of catnip; Baby started rolling in hers. (These are typical responses for each of them.) They were inches apart and all was fine for a minute until Jelly got hissy. Baby just looked at her as if to say, "Rats! I wish you'd play with me."

I'm still giving it time. Jelly is such a cute little girl. That squeak of hers makes me laugh. And the past three nights she's slept on my pillow just like Martin use to do, wrapped around my head.

Baby is really making an effort to be friends. When she gets in her playful mood at night she tries even harder to get Jelly's attention, but Jelly will have nothing to do with such foolishness.

We'll see. It could be that Jelly is better off as a single cat. Or, they might be best friends a couple weeks from now.