Dewey, the Semi-Siamese

WANTED: A mamma. Species irrelevant. Must love me and
protect me. Lactation a plus.

Once upon a time, I was quite pregnant with Eleanor. I walked out into the garage, looked out across the alley, and saw a Siamese kitten. Our eyes locked. He began meowing, sensing that I was, if not exactly his lost mamma cat, somebody's mamma, which was close enough. He had clearly never been inside a building before (the ceiling freaked him out for hours), but without hesitation, he walked in and made himself at home.

Best. Bath. Ever.

Really at home. One night a month or two later, I was on my side, sleeping the uncomfortable sleep of the very pregnant when I felt a cold, wet nose nuzzling me. Awww, how sweet!
Then I felt some cold, sharp teeth biting me in a very sensitive area: Dewey was trying to latch on for a midnight snack. This was probably the first time my obstetrician had ever been asked whether a late-night nipple bite would cause any future problems with breastfeeding.

Although he was unsuccessful at nursing, Dewey still enjoyed some benefits of my pregnancy. For one, Eleanor as a fetus was very insistent about getting regular chocolate milkshakes from Whataburger. I was also getting pretty clumsy, and one night I dropped an entire milkshake on Dewey, who was in my lap. It was probably the highlight of his life.

Things only got better for Dewey when the baby arrived. For one thing, there was all the baby gear to try out.

And try it out he did, every single baby item. You'll notice it didn't take him long to reveal that he was not a pure Siamese. He was very clearly part Siamese and part something very big and very white. There were several white strays around that could've been his daddy. But no matter how big he got, he never gave up on being a baby. We named him Dewey, not as some sort of bibliophile reference to his suave intelligence and sophistication, because he had none of those things. He was the biggest goofball ever. Nope, we named him after the youngest child in the TV series Malcolm in the Middle--the not-so-innocent little brother who somehow manages to skate out of trouble on the strength of pure adorableness. That was Dewey.

It looked like this, only
significantly less healthy
because it spend most of its
time on the kitchen floor.

There was one other baby item that Dewey was particularly fond of...baby formula. He stalked us as we made up the bottles, licking stray granules of powder from the counter tops. If you left a bottle lying around, he'd start nursing from it. And he wasn't overly picky about whether his formula was fresh or...recycled. See, Eleanor had a bad reflux problem. So he would wait at the foot of the rocking chair for us to burp her. As soon as she spit up, he would run to lick it up off the carpet...at last getting the milk he had been denied.

Eleanor was not a big fan of the pacifier--but Dewey was. Every time she spat one out, he'd find it and carry it around in his mouth (usually backwards).

When he began teething, Dewey chewed on my cactus. I brought it home from work when I went on maternity leave because I was afraid it would die of neglect while I was gone. As it turns out, it died from slow torture and profound abuse at the jaws of Dewey. Cacti have rather shallow root systems, because who'd want to grab a giant ball of spikes? Dewey would. He would climb up to the kitchen window, wrap his jaws around it, pull it out of its pot, and carry it around the room, usually depositing it in the middle of the kitchen floor. I would pick it up and put it back in the pot. The next morning, I'd find it back on the floor again. Eventually, the cactus, no doubt dreaming of a pleasant death by dehydration at the office, gave up and died.

Dewey, the Headless Cat.

He was quite the cat. He had a loud, very Siamese meow and an easygoing disposition, and he was an affectionate lap cat. However, by the time Bruce and Betty came along, he was an adult, and found babies much less amusing...and toddlers even less so. When we moved back to Austin, he took advantage of an open door and ran away...and never returned. I was devastated. Dewey was truly one of a kind. I'll admit it--eight years later, I still look for him in the streets around the old neighborhood.

Yeah. I'm awesome.Got milk?