Oh, Oliver...

Okay, I need to preface this post with a little footnote about Oliver's behavior since I acquired him as a wee kitten...

He's broken everything he could reach. And when I say "reach", I mean any cupboard he could climb into. Nothing on the counter top is safe. He takes sponges out of the sink - dry or wet - and with a growl, runs off with them. He pulls the sink and tub plugs - items I can barely remove, myself - out and hides them from me at night. He climbs under the covers at 3 in the morning and bites my feet...relentlessly.

I'm sure there's more, but...yeah.

So, after one late-night "crash!" where a glass was removed from its spot in the cupboard and batted onto the kitchen floor, I began the harrowing half-asleep, late night clean up. I remember collecting the bigger glass particles into a baggy, leaving only the smallest to vacuum. I don't remember the details closely, but I must have got distracted; I sealed the baggy and it went under the sink, for whatever reason...

It was late, and as a "patch" for the situation, I taped all of my cupboard doors shut. It's a method I use to this day, just out of habit. Buuuut, likely not so much anymore..

Fast forward months later...I'm in bed last night and hear a jingling sound, something that I would think normally wouldn't wake me, but I get up and go toward the bathroom, and there's that baggy of broken glass. Holes poked in it. Small tears, big enough for the smaller shards. Oh, Oliver...

Threw the baggy away, vacuumed, gave everyone the once over, checking paws, looking for weird behavior, unusual mouth gestures, etc. Found a small pile of wee shards right in my bedroom doorway; how they got off-line from the path between the kitchen and bathroom, I don't know. Don't want to know, I guess. Obsessively vacuumed some more.

Everyone seems fine. They're under close observation today, obviously; but I'm pretty sure we skirted disaster.

There's a lesson here somewhere; the primary one being that I'm an idiot. But just remember that if you have an Oliver of your own...if there's trouble to be caused, he'll find it.

Oh, Oliver...

And how could you possibly stay angry when he has a face like that?!?

Elliott is the trouble maker here with his cubbard opening abilities. I don't know how many times we've come home from work or woken up in the morning to find every cubbard open and all of the contents on the floor. He's a funny one though, if you hear him doing something and you yell at him, he comes running right to you and sucks up as if to say "What Mom, I wasn't doing anything, see what a good boy I am?!?"

Sounds a little like Flambe.

But he's not usually destructive. He does knock stuff over, and goes where we don't want him. Again, how can you stay angry at a face like that?

Just so no one gets the wrong idea, Ollie is very much spoiled and adored mightily, regardless of his actions. Maybe I should have also posted this, so you can see the sort of relationship that Mr. T(rouble) and I share.

He looks like he's wearing a Batman ears mask.... What a cutie!

Oliver's lovely. That first pic, the look says it all "Who me? I wouldn't do SUCH a thing!!!"

I have 2 kitties just like that.... and love them to pieces, too.
Kiko and Ducky are the little get-into-everything boys, in this house.

I always try to stay a step ahead of them, which is not always possible.

A tip for solid surface areas where glass has been broken: after you sweep, then take a wet paper towel and go over the whole area to try to get the tiniest of pieces, then vacuum. It is amazing how far glass can go, too.

My little wild boys are so loving, too like your Oliver

I had to put baby locks on my cupboards. Pesky aminals .

Mazy is my relocator of objects. She puts the strangest things under my desk, on a daily basis. Vacuum cleaner attachments, screw drivers, my rain coat....

Both Mazy and Tolly enjoy gravity experiments. Mazy has her own special receptacle that I keep filled with varying items, set on a high book shelf so she can fish and drop to her hearts content. Sometimes Jennie sits underneath and waits for Mazy to knock things out, and then she chases them.

I had to tape cupboard doors closed when Mazy first came because Tolly taught her how to bang them at night and she really took it to heart. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! pause. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Like you I don't think well in the middle of the night. At first I got up and shut her in the bathroom. Well when I got up the next morning she was sleeping peacefully on my neck.

In the bathroom I found....everything on the vanity cabinet was now on the floor and the toilet paper roll had grown to ten times it's size by little miss paper shredder. I could just picture her making it spin as she clawed at it, take THAT and THAT!

I just sat down and laughed and laughed.

That was when I started taping the doors with duct tape. Well, then she found my roll top bread box....

She found that if she pushed it up, and let go, it made a lovely noise.

Rattle rattle BANG! Rattle rattle BANG!

LOL! She doesn't do any of the banging at night any more, she comes to bed with me and sleeps through the night on my neck.

I enjoyed your story about Oliver very much, and he looks as sweet as he can be. His fur looks very soft.

Love these stories, and Oliver is a real sweet boy!

Pixie is my little devil - now it's light at 5am she is all go. She gets up on the ledge over our bed and systematically paws at various objects to wake us up. I'm getting used to having my sleep cut now