Nose Knows Not

P's mom would go all her way out to make her little prince happy. Their house is like a zoo, compared to our one-cat house anyways. They have a husky dog of the same name as our cat, a hamster, two birds that carry the colors of the rainbow when perching side by side, a tank of two dozen gold fish. In addition, the mother adopted a rabbit from their moving neighbors recently. She did it quite reluctantly because P insisted in having it, of course.

When we were over their house a couple of weeks ago, P's mom tried to talk Sienna into keeping their rabbit, or at least during the time when P is away in Europe with his grandparents. I watched the soliciting process with interest. I was curious if and how Sienna would be persuaded by other people. P's mom did a great job -- I should have her over to talk Sienna into wearing pants on one of those days. Ever since then, Sienna has gotten a thing about having a rabbit. I kind of let myself continue to watch how Sienna makes her effort to persuade me...

Yesterday, I was cleaning up a tiny little mess our cat Max had created with his shedding fur. Sienna couldn't help but understand the situation too well, “Mommy, when I grow up, I will never want a cat.”

“Oh? Why is that?” I asked even though I already guessed the answer.
“A cat is so messy. I don’t want to clean it.”
“And you are asking for a rabbit so that your mommy can have more cleaning up to do?”
“But mommy, a rabbit makes a good friend with a cat…”

Well, nice try, Sienna! Sienna doesn't have a thing for animals like some of her other friends do. Animals are like aliens and they smell. She refused to go to the zoo because “it smells,” said she. Much like me, and much like an animal, say a dog, Sienna smells from miles away, acutely. Any socialization about loving animals is not likely to take her much closer to animals. One thing I know she will not become when she grows up is an animal activist. I just don't smell that in her, not yet.