Todays Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

Smokey

By B. A. Sutkus

My daughter had her parenting cut out for her. Only two days after my

grandsons Josh and Jarod, identical twins, were born, my daughter brought

them

home from the hospital. The babies weighed only about four pounds each, and

my

daughter had dressed them in Cabbage Patch nightgowns, the only clothes she

could find to fit them.

For the next five days, we all pitched in. The household revolved

around

these two tiny creatures. They ate every two hours, and we spent virtually

the

entire day in some stage of feeding them: making bottles, emptying bottles,

cleaning bottles, changing diapers, preparing more bottles. After the twins

had

sucked down the last of their

8:00 p.m. bottles and we had changed them and tucked them into bed, we would

head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and a much-needed break. What we

needed

was a full-time, paid staff. What we had was Smokey, the family cat.

Smokey had been fascinated with the twins since the day they came home.

He

spent more time at their side than we did, watching them curiously or

napping

near their beds. We watched him cautiously at first, making sure he didn't

hurt

the babies, but though he never left their side, he never got too close to

them.

He seemed a loyal caretaker.

One evening, though, we briefly doubted our trust. We were unwinding

in

the kitchen when Smokey let out a blood-curdling howl, like an animal

killing

its prey. We raced into the twins' room, and the sight that greeted us

filled

us with terror. Smokey was almost sitting on Josh, the smaller twin,

butting

the baby's little body with his head and literally rolling him around the

crib.

As we ran to save Josh from what we thought was serious injury or worse,

Smokey

suddenly lay down and started softly mewing, almost moaning. That's when we

discovered that little Josh wasn't breathing.

I immediately started CPR while someone else called 911, and an

ambulance

raced Josh to the hospital. It turned out that both boys were highly

allergic

to milk. Their bodies had reached their limit in milk intake, and because

Josh

was smaller, he had gotten sick sooner. Mercifully, Josh had not been

without

oxygen for very long. Smokey had realized that Josh had stopped breathing

and

alerted us just in time. Josh would be fine. In fact, the doctor said

Smokey

had definitely saved Josh's life.

Over the following months, the family settled into an amiable routine.

Then late one night, Smokey jumped into bed with my daughter and son-in-law

and

started to bite and scratch them. More annoyed than puzzled at the cat's

strange behavior, they got up to shut him into the bathroom for the night.

But

Smokey dodged their grasp and darted upstairs to the twins' older brother

's

room. When my daughter followed in the chase, she found so ill that he

couldn't move or call for help. " My chest, " was all he could say. When he

underwent emergency heart surgery, the doctors found that his aorta was

almost

totally blocked.

Smokey, the hero-cat, now holds a special place in our family. He may

have

been content to be your typical family pet when the house was half-empty,

but as

it filled up with children, he decided he better promote himself to a

mothering

position. When it comes to raising a houseful of kids, Smokey figures it

doesn't hurt to have some extra help.