One of my cats, Moo Cow, just can’t figure out why she no longer fits places she could go when she was tiny.

When she was little kitten, she liked to sleep at night curled up in my shoulder with her head tucked under my ear. It was cute, so I let her do it even though it pissed the other cats off. Phoebe thinks she owns the bed. Moo knows she owns the house. They coexist under an armed truce. Captain Kidd wants the window sill, but since he is #3 on the Becker cat hierarchy he gives in gracefully to whoever argues with him about it.

So tiny Moo, queen of the house, slept on my shoulder and was cute. After a few weeks, I noticed that my arm was damn near paralyzed when I woke up. Moo was growing. Quickly. It was about to the point where Moo was going to get kicked off the bed whether she liked it or not when Moo decided that she was really #1 Son’s cat and moved in with him. My shoulder was spared.

Moo grew up to be a big girl. She weighs 15lbs, and she’s not fat.

After we got back from vacation, Moo decided that for some unknown queenly reason #1 Son was no longer the apple of her eye. She still likes him, mind you, but she demands attention from me too now.

The other night I woke up, and Moo was on the bed trying to figure out how she used to curl up on my shoulder. She circled around one way a few times and plopped down. Didn’t fit. Circled the other way and plopped down. Didn’t fit. Came at it from the headboard. Didn’t fit. Tried sneaking up from my feet. Didn’t fit.

Rather than being annoyed at being woken up, I had to laugh, because I could just hear her thinking, “I know I used to do this. How did I used to do this?”

I called a halt when she tried tucking her head under my ear while draping herself across my neck. 15lbs of cat on my neck? uh… no.