Ben & The Pets

Benjamin & our cat Tito - July 2008

We have 3 pets - 2 cats and 1 dog. Tito has been with Luis for many years way before we met and had a baby. He is incredibly sweet, practically a saint. We were somewhat worried about how Tito would react to Benjamin. Imagine how relieved we were when Tito accepts Benjamin into our family without any hesitation. As for our other cat Polo and dog Lucy, that is a whole different story. Both Polo and Lucy are scared of Benjamin. Even Lucy is scared of Tito. Anyhow, Tito tolerates Benjamin's playful tactics; however, at some times, Tito would escape from Benjamin's wrath by sitting on the top of the TV entertainment center. But you can see in the picture above, Tito was willing to sit right next to Benjamin if only he is sleeping (in other words, not picking on him!)

While Tito is being very sweet and tolerable towards Benjamin, Polo can be tolerable with Benjamin's playful tactics but he would rather stay in our bedroom where no one can bother him. Almost daily Ben would beg for Luis or I to call for Polo to come out of our bedroom. He would attempt to say, "Polo" and clap his hands at the same time. Cutie pie. It is very easy to say Polo. However, whenever we call on Polo, our dog Lucy would go crazy and bark loudly. Ben gets a kick out of it.

With Lucy, Ben loves to help out by pouring dog food into the dog bowl for Lucy or give her a treat after she is done with her business outside. Whenever we go for a walk, Ben likes to hold the dog leash while sitting in the stroller. Lucy was very scared of Ben when he was first born, but now she is slowly warming up to Ben. I think it gets easier as Ben gets older.

It is certainly an adventure having 3 pets with a baby in the house, but we would not trade it for anything else in the world. We had every intention to expose Ben to the animals from the moment he was born. But sometimes we even forget to feed our pets, poor them, because we tend to be very focused on Ben. Sometimes, we were like, did you feed the cats? Did you feed Lucy? One of us would be like, hmm, I am not sure. Don't worry, we don't do that everyday. Really.