A Taste of Bed Rest

Since being placed on bed rest on March 3 at 25 weeks I have been working overtime at staying busy and keeping my mind from wandering to negative thoughts. I have spent a great deal of time working on CEs to maintain my board certification, writing 'Thank You' notes for all the amazing baby gifts we have received, organizing the thousands and thousands of pictures and videos on my computer, maintaining contact with friends and family, researching birth plans/vaccinations/pediatricians, signing up for parent readiness courses at Fairview Hospital (where the boys will be born), planning out the nursery, writing 'honey do' lists and spending a great deal of time on the phone with my mom, dad and sister Carrie who have, thankfully, been keeping me company. Of course, I have had my faith companions, Palmer and Dillon to keep me company. So I decided to post a little video Dillon and I made depicting how our mornings typicaly start....However too understand the following video you might need a little history as to why Dillon and I interact in this peculiar manner.

A few years ago, while laying awake listening to Ryan gracefully sleep through the night (as so many nights go thanks to my sleep issues) I decided to shape up Dillons behavior. If you have ever heard me talk about Dilly or have been lucky enough to meet him you know that he is an attention whore. He needs constant attention. This addiction to attention gets terrible at night when he is trying to snuggle in and prepare for sleep. Dilly is the only cat I know who will go into a mini mental break down if attention is with held...which can be both heart breaking and entertaining depending on the day. On this specific night I decided to teach Dillon to ask to be pet by gently touching the tip of my nose with his paw. Dillon, who isnt overly intelligent, caught on very quickly and this has become his way of getting what he wants. Over time, Dillon has learned that when I cover my nose or he cant access my nose that the reinforcement is unavailable and its time for him to A) move onto Ryan or B) move onto a new activity.

After being the sole recipient of Dillons appropriate attention seeking for over a year we generalized the behavior to Ryan who now enjoys being silly with Dilly. This week, day after long long day Dillon and I have played in this manner and I decided, seeing how cute cute cute he is, that its long past due that I post a video of him. Keep in mind, he is the baby of the family thus far and I have been letting him slack so his aim is off at times (and I reinforce the approximations...terrible terrible behavior analyst I know!) I know this video doesnt really capture how sweet he is but anyone who loves a cat or dog knows how I feel about this little butthead and can appreciate it. Enjoy!