1.  Happy Friday, everyone!

2.  First things first: Mittens is doing well.

3.  She’s returned to chilling out in the family room with us.

4.  Well, mostly, but a lot of that has to do with loud banging in the house.

5.  Noise from bathroom renovations isn’t for the faint of heart.

6.  Anyway.

7.  Overall we’re calling this adventure a win, mouth- and food-wise.

8.  Not so much on the nighttime routine side.

9.  You see, our sweet Mittens is a snuggly bunny, which is a strange turn of events for a cat who spent the first few months hiding in our basement.

10.  Gotta love the unexpected wins, and Mittens being a cuddlebug is definitely that.

11.  Unfortunately, while she was recovering from her procedure last week she slept in the room with us.

12.  She’d taken up full time residence under the bed where we sleep so it was what it was.

13.  The first few nights it made no difference — I was a little nervous about stepping on her if she wandered out overnight but she was tucked in tight so it wasn’t an issue.

14.  Then she turned a corner…not enough to leave the room but enough to get up on the bed.

15.  Which leads to my shameful cat owner admission.

16.  It’s bad. It’s really bad. I know this.

17.  (Deep breath) I don’t like sleeping with my cats.

18.  Overnight, that is. I don’t like sleeping with my cats overnight.

19.  I adore napping with them — I’m a side sleeper and having a cat curled up behind my knees is delightful for a few hours.

20.  But overnight? Sorry, terrible kitty mom here, but I just can’t.

21.  My sleep sometimes sucks all on its own; add in a fur baby moving about and things can go sideways in a hurry.

22.  Nothing screams “restful slumber” like chunky girl deciding at 1am she’d like to check things out so she plants a paw on my belly/hip/leg/arm and flings herself over the obstacle.

23.  That would be me. I’m the obstacle.

24.  Anyway, that’s a long explanation for how we found ourselves having to break Mittens’ heart (YET AGAIN) by denying her overnight access to her comfy private accommodations.

25.  The first night that meant hustling back to close the bedroom door while she was enjoying dinner.

26.  ACCESS DENIED, MISSY. She was not amused.

27.  But denying access in the evening hours is only the first step.

28.  The real test of wills came at bedtime when our delightful princess realized I was doing my goodnight shutdown of the family room and chased me down the hall.

29.  Y’ALL. There aren’t words to capture the sound of our built-solid sweetness’ feet thundering against the hardwood as she raced me to the bedroom.

30.  Night one was a horrible fail in the sense that I plopped on the floor to comfort her.

31.  IN THE HALLWAY though, because I knew if I let her in that room I’d never get her out.

32.  Cue me twenty minutes later calling for BrightSide to help because she kept looking at me like you wouldn’t leave me all alone out here in the dark, would you??

33.  This is about the time my sweet husband says Laura, for Pete’s sake, she’s a CAT, she’ll be FINE.

34.  Spoiler alert: She was indeed fine, despite being cruelly shut out of the bedroom overnight.

35.  Unfortunately we’re now in the retraining phase.

36.  We went through this before. About a year ago I had to break her habit of trying to shove past my feet into the bedroom when I was done for the night.

37.  For a girl who doesn’t like to be touched unless she chooses contact Mittens sure gets fussy about closed doors in the wee hours.

38.  I know we’ll get there. We’ve reached the stage where she’ll follow at a good clip but when I look down, snap, and say a brisk “stay!” she’ll pause.

39.  I’m looking forward to the time when princess poochykins lets me kiss her goodnight while she’s snuggled up on the couch.

40.  And that’s a wrap. I finally got around to uploading a couple of new kitty photos. Happy Friday!