Maternal Instincts Heading Into Dangerous Territory

I'm starting to worry about my girlfriend, quite frankly.

Our baby isn't due until mid-July. In the meantime, though, after several baby showers, we now own about 385 "swaddling blankets," and her desire to make use of them is starting to get the better of her. She has developed a fierce, one might even say voracious need to swaddle something. Any damn thing. Her problem, though, is that there are very few viable candidates for swaddling in the immediate vicinity of her apartment. She has two close friends who have newborn babies of their own, and while they've been happy to have her baby-sit, they've also started to grow a bit wary of that hungry, "gotta swaddle" look in her eyes.

She swears that she just wants to practice, and that that this is going to be very important once the baby arrives. I believe her, of course, but I also believe in practicing temperance. "Patience," I try to counsel her. "you'll get your chance in a couple of months."

She's having none of it. One Saturday afternoon we were sitting around her apartment, and my girlfriend was just doing some organizing (or so she said), taking inventory of what we had already and what we were going to need once the baby arrived. Out came the swaddling blankets. A strange light came into her eyes. I knew there would be trouble.

Our cat Mason, a grey tabby with the disposition of an NFL linebacker, was dozing in the sunlight on the top of the couch while supervising the goings-on outside. My girlfriend grabbed him. I have to give her credit, she laid him on his back on a swaddling blanket she'd spread out in the middle of the living room, and with the speed and skill of a rodeo roper, she damn near succeeded in getting the beast wrapped up.

But as most cat owners will tell you, cats also have a certain look that they get in their eyes every now and again when their people try to do something really, really stupid like this. I don't know how they would express it in cat terms, but in very human terms, the look on Mason's face said, "Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"

There was an explosion of fur and claws and fangs. My girlfriend let out a sharp "Mwaaaah!!!" and Mason shot out the front door like he'd been fired from a cannon. I had to admit, I felt bad for her, because the look of dejection on her face was truly sad. But then I noticed that I was bleeding profusely. In my attempt to mediate the dispute, Mason had seen me as complicit in this attack on his dignity, so he'd taken the time to slash the everloving crap out of me on his way out the door.

So while I heal, we're continuing to count the days off the calendar until the baby's arrival. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that a new plot is starting to hatch in my girlfriend's curly red head. I've caught her practicing her swaddling moves with larger and larger blankets. I'm fairly certain that at some time in the near future, we're going to open the morning paper to find the following headline: "Mystery swaddler strikes city! Winos in park found resting comfortably."