Monday, May 9, 2011

$5 Worth of Fun for 20¢

Leo is easy to please. He can make a toy of just about anything. A stack of papers and ads set aside for recycling is an awesome thing to take a running leap at and slide across the floor. (gonna have to get a video of that one day!) Crumpled up paper is so fun to bat across the floor and makes the coolest skittering sound.
 
Bugs! They can fascinate for hours! Or until they get chomped if they are on the inside of the screen. Milk jug rings, hand them over. Yarn for your afghan, seriously hide it if you don’t want it unraveled! Crinkly plastic like the stuff that comes around a stack of CDs, oh yeah, gotta play with that. IF he can get it away from Star who thinks that is the best toy next to her butterfly.
 
And don’t forget regular cat toys! Mice, oh yeah, lots of mice. Balls with feathers? Oh yeah, anything with feathers! My boy loves feathers! Sprakle balls, other balls, ring with the ball in it, anything that rolls, that’s a good one! Wiggle your toes wrong, and yup, that’s a toy too! Petting or playing? Let me grab yer hand just in case it’s play!
 
So yeah, toys toys any toys and he’s in heaven. So this weekend I got out something I’ve had for a while, and Star has loved in the past, but I just haven’t shown to Leo yet. Craft feathers. Big long probably duck feathers, dyed in multiple colors. The ones that come in a pack five for a dollar.
 
I learned that those could be a toy by accident a few years back. I had written a play that required a large feather ‘pen.’ It didn’t have to be real, but it had to be big. So I didn’t go with one of those expensive feather pens you see at weddings and such. I got the large craft feather (3 for a dollar for all red, which I wanted, 5 for a dollar for multicolor, no idea why..) and Star was intrigued, and the moment I wasn’t looking, she stole a feather!
 
Of course that was too cute. And of course I could NOT take away her fun. I got another feather and let her keep the one she had. She batted that around the house for months. When it was properly destroyed, I gave her another, the third from that first pack I had. I think I bought another pack at another time, but she hadn’t had one for quite a while.
 
Then I got Leo. And I decided that I would take some toys for Chrystal’s cats and those wonderful feathers would be part of that. I would need some for Star and Leo too! So we got some, but there were so many toys that I didn’t want to overwhelm Leo right off the bat, so I put the feathers and a few other things aside.

This weekend, I got them out. I showed Leo a feather and he sniffed it. I figured he’d go nuts, he chews the feathers off of every toy that has them! But after looking at it, he just didn’t seem interested. Ok, fine, Star would play with it eventually. She likes feathers too, she just doesn’t destroy them as quickly as the rough house boy.
 
My niece, not the live in who left this past week for Alaska, but her twin, was over, helping clean up the mess of clothing and stuff her sister left from one end of the house to the other.. And her boy friend was here too. He’s been trying to get Leo to befriend him for a while but Leo treats him like he treats everyone else. "Not the mommy, not gonna go near you." While he was here, I got the feather out again. A nice bright yellow. Still not interested. Then I tossed it, like a paper air plane, and it landed near The Chair.
 
The Chair is disputed territory. Star has considered it her very own, sorta like Leo thinks of the Kingdom of the Footstool. But Leo likes The Chair too. And it is the way to the only window that opens. At first, whenever Leo would touch The Chair, Star would sit across the room and grumble at him continually as long as he was touching it. Now she only gives a perfunctory grumble and ignores him. Unless she’s in the window.. But that’s another story.
 
Anyway, the feather landed near the chair and as he was passing, Leo spotted it. He stopped. He sniffed. He reached out a paw and touched it. It moved. He batted it again. Ok, this was getting better! He grabbed it with that big ol’ paw of his and flipped it around. Cool! Then something else got his attention. So back to boy friend, he went and picked it up and started moving it back and forth across the floor.
 
Leo perked up and took up a stance beside the Kingdom of the Footstool, crouched down and ready to pounce! But it wasn’t mommy holding the toy! Did he dare play with it.... What a dilemma! He gave in though! He had to! Too much fun! He played with the boy friend for quite a while before stealing the feather and taking it across the room.
 
So the following pictures show about five dollars worth of fun with a twenty cent toy!
(Please please please ignore the mess behind him... as I said, we were in the middle of cleaning up from twin1's trip to Alaska!)
 
No no, not the tummy!
Only mommy gets the tummy and then I still gonna grab her hand!

*sniff sniff* smells like fun!

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

I get you feather!

 Eek, goin' for my tummy again!
I will chomp! I will kick! I will get you feather!

Bitey bitey kick kick!

Bwahahahah! I gotted it away from him!

See mommy, I gots me a new toy! All mine!

It not moving as much now...
Guess I need to chomp on it some more!

2 comments:

Random Felines said...

What a very cool toy!!! We are going to have to go make mom look for some of those (and she says they are certainly cheaper than the average cat toy).

The Island Cats said...

We love feathers!! Sometimes our mom finds a real one that some birdie left in our yard! Man, we go crazy over it!!