Marley & Us

As many of you know, we have a kitty cat named Marley.
After watching the movie 'Marley & Me I have come to realization that our Marley is similar to the dog Marley in almost every way (except our household destroyer is a cat and the book focuses on a dog).

We got Marley in the winter of 2004.
Our flat had been broken into and I wasn't sleeping well after the incident. I needed something to wander the house and make some background noise. Marley was a surprise to all of us. A good friend of mine had a friend in her program at school whose cat had kittens. These kittens needed homes and a snap decision was made that we would adopt one. By the time we went to pick our kitty, there were two left. There was Marley, the kitten who climbed into Alex's size 13 shoes and immediately chewed his shoelaces; and a very cuddly, fuzzy orange cat. I was concerned about the amount of cat hair left in our small flat so I picked the short haired, grey and white, tuxedo terror. We stuffed him into my little backpack and brought him home. We had food and water set up for him. He sat on our blue couch all night without uttering a peep. Neither of us slept that night. We were worried that he would fall in the toilet (which he actually did a couple days later), or not make it into his litter box.
After the first week Marley, Alex and I boarded a plane home to Toronto. He mewed the entire way home. He was only eight weeks old when we got him and at nine weeks he was already a worldly traveller.

After countless ripped up rugs, scarred wrists from 'love' bites and the occasional poopy accident, Marley is finally going to be a 'big brother' (so to speak).
Over the almost seven years he's lived with us, we have always lavished too much attention on him. I blame Alex eventhough I am probably most to blame. I like to cuddle him and buy him nice toys and yummy food.
There is no doubt that both of us are nurturing by nature but Marley is truly king of his domain as a result of our kitty coddling hands.
I fear that the introduction of a louder, more labour-intensive creature is going to cramp his style.

For the first few weeks after 'Peanut' arrives, Marley is moving in with my parents. They love him but can also attest that he is a very bad kitty. My mother is concerned that Marley is going to do something horrible to the baby. Alex and I are not worried about the safety of the baby but rather the adjustment period for Marley to realize that he has to come second.
I figure that once the baby can grab his tail, Marley will realize who's the real boss in this house.

People raise children with pets all the time. Hopefully Marley will find whatever type of compassion he has in his blueberry-sized brain and embrace the idea of a new baby. He doesn't really have much choice now does he? So long as he doesn't feel that he has to compete in the poop department with 'Peanut' we should be good.