Carolyne

New Bath and Carolyne’s Defender

So we tried the new bath routine at home tonight. Pretty much the same result from Carolyne, who didn’t enjoy it until she was hoisted from the water and deposited onto her familiar froggy towel for drying. One thing that was different from the first real bath in Mansfield was Lill Kitty’s presence. To fully explain, I need to digress a bit.

Some weeks ago, Carolyne woke up around 11:30 p.m. one night and clearly wasn’t happy. There was much crying and protesting no matter what we tried, so it ended up being one of those times when you just hold her and wait for things to get better. Nothing too unusual about that, except that both of us noted that while she was really howling, the Lill was pacing back and forth in Carolyne’s room, adding her gravely meows. When I sat down with Carolyne in the rocker, Lill jumped up to check on her. When I walked to one side of the room, Lill came along. She was … involved.

Eventually I sent Leslye back to bed and took a seat with Carolyne, who was still crying. And the Lill was still crying, too. And then - and this is very unusual for the Lill - she bit me on the leg. I swear she thought that we were hurting Carolyne somehow, and there wasn’t anything else she could do but fight back on Carolyne’s behalf. I called to Leslye, who came and got the Lill and tried to calm her down.

Back to the bath tonight. The Lill isn’t one for spending time in the bathroom - that’s Tuna’s territory - but when Carolyne first touched the water and started to cry, the Lill came right in, jumped up on the toilet seat and started crying, too. She craned her neck to try and see Carolyne and I thought for a moment that she might try to jump on one of us in order to help her. That didn’t happen, but after the bath she followed us into Carolyne’s room to make sure that she was ok, and the Lill was very displeased to be asked to leave when it was time for bed. Let’s hope that Carolyne adjusts to her new bath routine, or we might have to deal with her big sister.