While preparing for our annual New Year’s Eve party, I decided to move Meadow’s crate into our bedroom - so that she could enjoy a relatively stress free holiday away from the large crowd that would be converging in our tiny kitchen-living room combo. Although I planned to allow Toby the freedom to mingle with our guests, I decided to move his crate as well, in order to make more seating space available. This meant that Toby and Meadow needed to sleep in crates the night before the party instead of in their usual beds.
Most nights, Toby wakes us up at three, four, and five AM, either digging at the flooring, pacing, or whining for no determinable reason. Out of desperation for sleep, Nick has recently threatened to banish him from the bedroom if he did not stop his bizarre nighttime behaviors - which neither of us have been able to come up with a solution to. However, when we confined Toby to a crate at bedtime (for the first time in approximately five years), he slept straight through until ten in the morning without so much as a grumble.
Ten in the morning!
Speaking of crates, after our guests arrived, I closed Leah behind the bedroom door, her customary place when small children are present, since she has no tolerance for miniature humans. (This year, we had four of various ages in attendance.) In the past, whenever we have locked Leah away in such a manner, our guests have been subjected to her desperate whines and barks as she pled her case for freedom. This year, when she began clawing at the door, I returned to the bedroom on a whim and tried securing Leah inside Toby’s crate, since he was keeping the children occupied and had no need for it. Surprisingly content in the confines of the crate, Leah remained silent for the entirety of the event.
Little Miss Meadow also managed the fiasco better than we imagined, even though the first time she stepped out into the kitchen and saw the rearranged furniture, she did a second take, and then spun her head around in slow, dazed circles as she surveyed the scenario. Then she sped from the room.
Yet, a moment later she was back, enticed by the aroma of meatballs frying on the stove.
Just when she got used to the new arrangement, we moved it around again on New Year’s Day, and instead of putting it back the way it originally was, we changed it to allow Toby’s crate to remain permanently in the bedroom. To mess with her mind even more, I placed a bouquet of flowers that one of our guests had given me on the kitchen table, causing Meadow to ponder the horrifying possibility of vegetation taking over her home. She again fled the scene. However, the scent of frying eggplant emboldened her to reenter the room, make a wide berth around the table, and then settle onto her mat to watch me prepare a platter of eggplant Parmesan.
As we entered the New Year, we discovered that if we crate Toby at bedtime, we will be able to sleep in, if we crate Leah when small children visit, she will remain content in captivity, and if I fry up a little Italian food, Meadow will face her wildest fears. Additionally, Toby’s leg appears to be on the mend, and I look forward to his paper shredding, slipper stealing, digging, whining, and general disobedience soon subsiding to pre-injury levels. I wonder what other good tidings 2011 might bring?
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