plonq | I want to be like that "Ding! Fries are done!" guy when I grow up

I had trouble sleeping last night. Between the cats, indigestion, the last vestiges of this throat/chest cold and too much tea late in the evening, I obviously had a variety of factors working against me. I didn't have that much trouble getting to sleep initially, but I was awakened at about 1 this morning by the "SLURP SLURP SLURP" sound of the kitten sucking on her own teat. I kicked her off the bed, but she simply curled up on the floor nearby and kept sucking and purring loudly. I tried to block it out for as long as I could, but I finally gave up, reached down and forcibly detached her from the nipple. It turned into a game for the next half-minute or so; she would reattach herself to the nipple, and I'd grab her head and pull her free again. I eventually won the battle of wills, and she darted out to the other room where she began playing and thumping about noisily. We'll call it a Pyrrhic victory.

Seeing as I'd already been forced to move, I fetched a couple of Tums from the bedside table to still the indigestion and tried to find my way back to sleep. I very nearly succeeded, and might have pulled it off if I had not heard a pathetic, protracted "mewwww..." from somewhere near the foot of the bed. It wasn't very loud, but it was enough to bring me back from the brink of slumber. For a moment I wasn't sure if I'd really heard it, or if it had been one of those random, phantom sounds that I will sometimes here when I am dozing off, but suddenly there it was again. "Mewwww..." It was pretty faint, but it was definitely a cat, and there was no doubt that it was coming from near the foot of our bed. My first thought was that the kitten had pulled her stitches while playing in the other room. "Mewwww..." Then I heard a thump in the other room and realized that it wasn't the kitten at all.

It was Belladonna - the middle cat. She was curled up at the foot of the bed. Was she sick? Was she hurt? wait a minute...

"Mewwww..."
"Mewwww..."
"Mewwww..."

She wasn't sick or hurt; she was snoring (or perhaps talking in her sleep). Just to be sure, I sat up and teased her ears. She jumped, and then immediately started purring. Crisis averted.

I didn't get back to sleep until almost 3 though.