Sleep-wise, having pets can be worse than having babies

Our first two children, Elissa and Chloe, began sleeping through the night within a week of coming home from the hospital.

Jared, our #3, took a few months.

Melanie, the next in line, honestly took a good year and a half.

Jack, the youngest, was somewhat less than that but still gave us troubles.

I've often said that, had this all happened in reverse order and the first two were problem sleepers, there would not have been five Tennant kids. You would right now be reading a blog titled "Two Kids and That's It."

Those days are long in the past, of course, but I'm still often awakened at times when I would rather not be awakened.

Nowadays, the culprits are our five cats. And really, it's mostly Fred.

Fred is ready to wake up and eat any time after 4:30am. I'm an early riser, but he tends to start bothering me during that delicious half-hour before I get up when the bed feels warm and comfortable and you doze so peacefully.

This bothering takes the form of questioning meows, followed by Fred positioning his face literally within three inches of mine (as if to say, "hey, you awake?")

This is always followed by Fred placing a front paw on my cheek. It would almost be sweet if it wasn't so annoying.

I will usually roll away or swat his paw from my face to indicate my disagreement with Fred's position that it is, in fact, time to start the day. But at that point it's really no use. There's no way I'm going back to sleep, so after five minutes of just laying there to show Fred who's boss (though he clearly knows the truth), I roll out of bed and proceed to feed the cats, scoop their litter boxes, sweep up around said boxes, etc.

All things considered, I think I would prefer going back to the babies-in-the-house phase of our life.