Charlotte loves Tandy. She pretty much loves any cute, small mammal (human or otherwise), but Tandy is her pal. Tandy is the "older" sister, the one Charlotte wants most to emulate.
Never was this so clear as this past weekend. Charlotte was in her high chair, happily eating cheerios (Trader Joe's version of course). Most of them ended up in her mouth, although quite a few were scattered about the floor and in the high chair seat. When I finally set her free, I noticed she was pretty close to where we keep Tandy's bowl and water dish. And she was chewing on something, pretty hard. Chris asked me what she was chewing on, and I assumed it was a stray cheerio. But he told me that it couldn't be because she'd been chewing on it for a while and cheerios dissolve pretty quickly. I didn't think it was cat food because when Charlotte's crawling around I pick up Tandy's cat food bowl and water and place it out of reach on the counter. He picked her up and I did the mouth sweep I'd been taught. Sure enough, out came a half-chewed piece of cat food. Yumm! Protein! I guess I need to start looking at everything from a ground-level perspective. Charlotte is fast, and she is becoming quite adept at picking up the smallest bits of food in her high chair, including tiny lentils. I shouldn't be surprised that she'd be able to find a stray morsel of cat food.
And for proof, here is Charlotte about a month ago when she first encountered Tandy's domain.
On a related note, I'm wondering when Charlotte will be smarter than Tandy. Obviously, on a purely evolutionary level, Charlotte is already smarter as she has the bigger brain. But still, Tandy was 5 weeks old when we brought her home from the pound, and she was already litter box trained. I'm pretty sure that if we showed Charlotte where the litter box was, very different, much less sanitary things would go in her mouth. Tandy looks up when her name is called, and Charlotte finally does this consistently. Both Tandy and Charlotte chase after balls, although Tandy still wins that race. Let's just say that the talent gap is closing, ever so slowly. Charlotte may never be able to leap on to the dresser in a single bound, but she's already got Tandy beat by talking constantly (we just can't understand her yet!).
Coming up next: a photo of both Tandy and Charlotte begging me for bits of leftover lasagna and other table scraps! HA! Just kidding. Chris hasn't taken a picture of that yet.
That was hilarious. You can tell Charlotte I think she's definitely smarter than the cat, even if she's not jumping on dressers. Aren't you glad she's not going that?! =)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! I've often wondered what cat food tasted like, and now all I have to do is ask Charlotte :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard that cats are like 2 year old humans, but I'm not sure if that's their intelligence or their emotional maturity. You're right that Charlotte is smarter due to her brain size, but Tandy is older and more developed and that makes her more capable, despite her smaller cranium. I should see if someone would give me money to do a study on this :)