Kitty Disease

When I was little I desperately wanted a cat. One of my first entries in my childhood journal -- the pink-and-white one with ballet slippers on the cover and a little gold lock -- explained that I had the "Kitty Disease." In said journal, I wrote that the "Kitty Disease" is when you REALLY REALLY REALLY want a kitty, and you look at pictures of kitties and they make you cry, and you go to pet stores and pet the kitties, and then go sit on the curb outside the pet store and cry and cry and cry because you can't take a kitty home with you. It was a very tough time in my childhood, but eventually I outgrew the Kitty Disease. In fact, I've since become a dog person.

I'm a bit worried though. Symptoms of the Kitty Disease are beginning to rear their ugly head around here. Not with me, but with Tralee. I thought this "disease" was just a childhood drama for me, but lately I've been consumed with the thought that it might actually have some merit. I've even toyed with the conclusion that I've genetically passed down the "Kitty Disease" to Tralee! Could this be possible? Let me explain my concerns:

• We've never really brought cats up around Tralee, yet she's still drawn to all-things-cat.

• When we pull up anywhere near Petco Tralee starts meow-ing like crazy. When we go into Petco, she runs right up to the cats that need to be adopted, and won't leave without a heavy bit of persuasion and bribery on our part.

• The other other day I opened up a bag of fruit snacks for Tralee, and one fruit snack was a cat. She ate all the others, but walked around saying "M-EEE-OOOO-WWW" while gazing at her pink kitty fruit snack. As hard as I tried to get Tralee to eat the last fruit snack, she refused. Eventually I found it laying on the carpet and threw it away. This has occurred with every bag of said fruit snacks.

• We have some farm animal, and other books with cats in them. Tralee will turn to the page with the cat and keep it there, all the while gazing at the cat
  

• We have puzzles with kitties on them. Tralee will put every piece of the puzzle back together, but the kitty stays out. She won't put it back, and instead carries it around meowing.

• My sister-in-law and brother sent Tralee an orange kitty stuffy for Christmas. That thing WILL NOT leave Tralee's side. It calms her down when she's sad, she FREAKS if we take it away, and I consistently find her sitting with "Kitty" talking in her garbled babble to him. She even tries to take him in the tub at bath time, but I can usually get it away as long as he stays where Tralee can see him. When her bath is over, Kitty is the first thing Tralee wants after drying off.
  

• The other day I snuck Kitty into the washer when Tralee wasn't watching. She discovered me putting Kitty into the dryer though. I shut the door as quickly as I could, and explained that Kitty needed to dry off from his "bath," but Tralee stayed by the dryer door, pounding on it, and crying for Kitty. This lasted about ten minutes, and then I gave in and got a very damp Kitty out for Tralee to play with. She sighed a sigh of relief, and ran far away (from me) into a safe corner of the house while she comforted her fuzzy friend.

There are other symptoms which very much tell me Tralee has come down with a serious case of the Kitty Disease. I'm afraid that with a softy like Jim (seriously, Tralee has him wrapped around her little finger) we might have a cat in the not-so-distant future. All it will take will be for Tralee to look up at him with her big brown eyes, brimming with tears, and asking her Daddy if she could PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE have a kitty. He'll be a goner for sure. The thing is, I REALLY don't want to have another animal. I might make a deal that once Corky has found her way to doggy heaven, we can get another animal.

This is my only other concern, I REALLY don't want Tralee to turn into a crazy cat lady. I'll put my foot down at ONE! Only ONE! It's my opinion that people with copious amounts of cats (more than three) living with them are a little (or a lot) off their rocker. It might be cute that my daughter has the Kitty Disease, but I'll be damned if I let it escalate into Crazy-cat-lady-ites.