Happy Birthday, Chai!
It’s Chai’s first birthday today!
So that calls for a look back at his first year…
A year ago today I was visiting my parents in Alberta, after spending my first summer with the hawks in Saskatchewan. So I was there the day he was born, an all-white boy with two gray sisters. I soon departed to band birds in the Yukon for the next two months.
At about a month old, his markings becoming evident.
When I returned I spent a few days bonding with him, and then kidnapped him from his loving family (although his mum did tend to kick him in the head a lot, which I think explains some things…)
1750 km later, we moved into our apartment on Vancouver Island
and he helped me unpack.
He then spent the winter both entertaining me and frustrating me:
Exploring,
playing with me,
helping in the kitchen,
helping make the bed,
and assisting me while I lint brushed his hair off the bed were just a few of his many activities.
He also grew to be a big fan of eating his fruit and veggies–
especially spinach.
But perhaps most of all he likes to do what he wants, no matter how many times I try to make him understand the proper way for a cat to act.
In the spring Chai accompanied me back to Alberta and he has spent the summer with my parents while I went back to Saskatchewan. It has been good living and conversing with a human roommate (Mara never drank out of my water-glass, got her hair all over me, nor climbed into the sink 
) but I have missed Chai.
I’m arriving back at my parents today and will visit him for a few days but then I’m off to a banding station in British Columbia for two months. But it sounds like my mum is enjoying his company, even if his love of nectarines and red peppers is increasing the grocery bill. Rumour has it he likes to snuggle more now that he is getting older.
Time has passed so quickly…
When did he go from being this cute little thing…
to this!?
For more of Chai’s first year check out the “Cat” category in the sidebar.
Chuckle chuckle. He He is a cute boy but not little anymore. You will find a big difference when you arrive home this afternoon. He is outside checking out the ornage tom that is here these days!!
That was cute overload right there. I’m in sugar shock.
My favourite pic is the hanging out of the bedframe(?) box upside down on the floor. However, I do want to see one of him eating the nectarine granola bar.
Yes, that was the box my bed came in. He eats nectarines, but it is an apricot granola bar he likes. I ate one in front of him but it wasn’t that big of a deal. He does try to grab it with his paw. Maybe when I go home on my days off I will get Mum to eat one and take a video on her new camera. He goes crazier for smoothies, or at least used to.