Friday, August 05, 2005

I got to watch chicks hatching today for the first time! It was so cool! Those poor little guys work so hard to get out of the eggs and within hours, go from a helpless wet weakling, who can't even pick their head up, to running around drinking water. How cute.

Baxter and I finally had a breakthrough tonight. As strange as it sounds, I was able to "become a cat" for a while and communicate back and forth with him. I used everything I have learned about cat behavior, movement, interaction, and communication, to reach out to him, and he understood. He answered back, and we communicated perfectly for nearly an hour. After this, we had three huge firsts: 1) I was able to call him from across the room and he came right to me; 2) I was able to leave the room, come back in, and have him come to me, rather than him slinking immediately under the bed; 3) He played! It was an amazing, humbling experience. I'm sure we still have a long way to go, but I feel infinitely more hopeful.