Don't Cry Over Spilled Cat Food

Last night, Annabelle decided to dump the cat food out of the cats' food bowl TWICE.

She's emptied the cat food from the bowl in the past, but her love for that game did not last very long (a few random days). Typically, she will bring the empty (or somewhat empty) cat food bowl to me when she thinks the cats need more food. She is a pretty good little helper!

Here she is trying to help me clean up the cat food that she has so lovingly dumped all over the floor. Isn't that sweet? Too bad it didn't last long! She only helped for a short while.

Well, the only reason she dumped it out twice was because she proceeded to try and wear the cat food bowl as a hat. And, she then dropped the clay cat food bowl onto our kitchen slate floors, and it broke into several pieces. We have had those cat bowls since we first got our first cat back in October of 2000.

Please note that the above figure is a reconstruction of the broken cat food bowl. I obviously did not have time to grab the camera and take a picture while at the same time pull a toddler away from a harmful situation. And, do you think she wanted to sit in her high chair while Mommy cleaned up the mess? Oh no, she wanted to be right there in the middle of it to help!

I thought she was going to cry when she dropped the cat food bowl (because it was broken), but I didn't give her a chance. I immediately said, "Oh, Annabelle, it is alright." And, I also immediately grabbed her hands and arms and moved her away from the shattered clay. She was not happy with me for moving her away from the situation, but I didn't want any cut fingers.

So, after the cat food bowl had been broken, my husband put the cats some more food down last night in a Gladware container. She found it first thing this morning as I was unloading the dishwasher! And, what do you think she did? You guessed it! She emptied it onto the floor again, TWICE. I finally just left it on the floor until after breakfast, and then I asked her to help me clean it up. I tried to get her to use her hands to put the cat food back in the container, but she was not interested. However, when I pulled out the broom and dust pan, she was very interested in helping. So interested that she got an attitude with me when I tried to help her use the broom and dust pan. Obviously, we were getting nowhere with her sweeping the cat food up, but I thought I had given her plenty of time to clean it up on her own. Obviously not!

The cat food bowl sat on the kitchen counter until later this evening when our eldest cat, Shadow, cried to let us know she was hungry. I am quite surprised that she did not already make her way to the kitchen counter. I finally moved the container of cat food back down and placed it beside the trash can. I am sure that Annabelle will find the container of cat food again tomorrow morning though. I am crossing my fingers that she will not. I have no clue where we can place the cat food bowl to hide from a busy toddler but also allow the cats access. My kitchen counter is definitely out!