I’m guest posting today at Tina Gray {dot} Me. You can check it out here: I Think I Want a Divorce.

Personality. It’s a strange beast. Every day, a little bit more of Riley’s personality emerges. But it can be hard to tell what is actual personality and what is her being a toddler. It is hard to tell what she was born with and what she has learnt.

She’s extremely gregarious. But not around toddlers. Only around adults. Either way, gregarious is not something she learnt from me, or from Mr Goog. Now her reserve, quiet and tendency to play alone around other toddlers, that’s something that looks familiar. And then, every now and then, her enthusiasm will creep through with other children and she’ll chase somebody with reckless abandon. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my influence that holds her back, and if it wasn’t for the way I was, would she be like that all the time? I wonder if we, as parents, naturally foster those qualities that are similar to our own, and silence or devalue the ones that aren’t.

At the moment, Morgan (the cat) is a real object of determined, one-pointed and persistent affection. Even though she’s still too little to pick Morgan up, she tries. She becomes unbelievably excited when I pick Morgan up. She likes it when I crouch down, holding Morgan next to her chest, so it is as though she is cuddling her. I am lucky that Morgan is an extremely placid cat. Riley also held on to Morgan’s tail the other day with a vice-like grip while Morgan was attempting to escape. Morgan didn’t even make a sound. Apparenlty the affection is mutual.

I know that shyness is hereditary and not really a behavioural trait at all. But reserve? That’s definitely learnt. And more of a burden than anything else.

Here they are this morning, enjoying their special friendship. Which means that Riley can kick her (a little bit) and Morgan doesn’t mind. Riley is at the stage where she is very intent on hugging Morgan. She pursues her with the kind of intensity that makes me feel sorry for future objects of her affection.

Undeterred by the fact that it was, after all, a cat bed – she laid her claim

Several times:

Ironically it is this precise behaviour that has led to the bed becoming such a big hit with the cat, who has previously turned up her nose at all forms of cat beds:

It was somewhat of a shock to Morgan when she realised that the pleasant smelling blob was actually alive. And more than a few accusatory glances were thrown my way.But Morgan was soothed by the knowledge that although the blob was alive, she was incapable of actually moving. As Riley has moved through the milestones of rolling, commando crawling, actual crawling, walking and running, Morgan has managed to adapt despite her initial panic and more accusatory stares were directed at myself.

Riley is now big enough, strong enough and mobile enough that I’m no longer worried about her, I’m concerned about my poor cat. Yesterday I caught Riley attempting to stomp on Morgan with her shoes, and although her pats might start off gentle enough they soon escalate to hitting and tail pulling. I think she’s spoiled by the fact that Morgan is extremely passive and rarely reacts to these sudden displays of violence. Or perhaps Morgan is beguiled by Riley’s ritual of giving her eskimo kisses in bed in the morning.

I’ve heard that children don’t really fully develop empathy until they are five or six, so I suppose I have many years of this ahead of me. But I also don’t think I can really fathom the intricacies of their relationship, particularly in it’s current non-verbal incarnation. Morgan becomes extremely distressed whenever Riley is upset and will attempt to tickle her in order to distract her from whatever is bugging her. And the only books that Riley really enjoys are the ones with cats in them.

Morgan is 16 years old. I hope she lives long enough for Riley to remember what good friends they were.

She is scared of birds, and cockroaches, and spiders, and generally any creature that moves in a vaguely irregular manner. I should also note that she doesn’t climb trees. There has been only one time that she has actually climbed a tree and that was because she was running away from a bird, yes a bird, and a tree was in the way. It is truly sad the amount of times I’ve had to climb onto a roof to rescue her because she can’t get down.

Quite possibly the most amusing part of her skittish behaviour is when she put two and two together and worked out that Riley was an actual person. I don’t really think she had identified her as a person when Riley was in her newborn blob stage. And initially she seemed petrified every time Riley moved. Because as far as unpredictable movers go a baby takes the cake.

And quite possibly the most endearing quality of my non-cat cat (Morgan) is that her loyalty which was previously reserved for only myself has slowly transferred itself over to Riley. Morgan now becomes agitated when she cries, even looks at me with an accusatory stare every know and then as though it was my fault. She tickles her when she’s upset and puts up with an enormous amount of rough-housing. Example: Today she put up with Riley pushing her into a corner with a broom. All handled with utmost grace on her part.

And yet a small cockroach will still cause her to jump a mile in the air.