BED BUGS

For the last several months, or shall I say ever since he was able to crawl out of his crib, Madison has decided that he prefers sleeping in the big bed with mama. He is very good about pointing to the pillow and telling mama "nanna!" which in Italian means "night-night". However, while I do enjoy this mother-child bonding we seems to have a little problem now that summer has descended upon us. What could this problem be you ask? Well, it is actually two-fold. Number one is that my adoring cat CIN (pronounced Cheen) has now decided that with the regularity of Big Ben that she is going to Meow and Meow at 5:30am every morning until I get up. I am at a loss as to what she wants because I get up and follow her to the kitchen, fill up her food and water and open the door to the terrace where her litter box is, despite the fact that she has 24 hour access through the bathroom window. She looks up at me as if she is now satisfied -she neither eats nor drinks nor goes outside-she is just happy that she has woken me. I then proceed to stumble bleary eyed back to bed only to have the patting of little feet dig into my sides and hear "mamma mamma" to which I reply - "yes, maddy mamma's here" and then he proceeds to get up and try to get me up as well. So we get the early show at 5.30 and then a follow up at 6am. Needless to say my colleagues are wondering why I am falling asleep at the computer and where the mysterious bags under my eyes came from...they look at me sadly and say "allergies" and I reply weakly "must be".