Sibling rivalry

The moment I enter the house in the evening, my son comes running to me. After I hug him and his dad says hi, he'll start cuddling and complaining about his elder sister. His sister will be upstairs at that time, so I go up to see her and she'll come running too... "Mooooom, you don't know what he did in the afternoon when I was napping. He thumped loudly on the door." That would start off her brother, "No Mom, I didn't thump loudly. I just wanted to wake her up!" "Wake me up?" my daughter would say in a sarcastic tone. "Mom, see he scratched my hand."
That said, they also have a lot of "unfairness" to complain about. My daughter is on a diet so she can't eat everything, whereas my son is a picky eater so I need to offer him varied food. That is "unfair" to my daughter. Also, since my daughter can eat only a few things, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I can offer her, which seems "unfair" to my son. Then comes their "mommy and me" and "daddy and me" time issues. Their dad plays rough with the boy, their cuddle time becomes more like wrestling, whereas when I'm with my daughter, she loves me grooming and petting her. However, my son is always "Mamma's boy" and my daughter is "Daddy's girl"!!


With May on the day she arrived

 Well, they don't need to be humans though...they are our furry four legged kids - Mota and May! Being felines does not mean they are exempt from sibling rivalry, nor does it mean they won't covet snuggle time with their human parents. True that we can't translate their conversations into Bengali or English (or for that matter any language that Google translator can help us with) but we can definitely get the idea behind their "meows" and "purrs".
It doesn't need much knowledge to understand what May's hisses mean when Mota starts meowing from outside the door the moment she settles down to have her fur brushed. Mota has an only child syndrome so he hates to share his parents with anyone else. May, on the other hand has a super strong personality (rather, catsonality) and she wants to make her position known to Mota. Also, May is 5 years Mota's senior.
Having two adult cats in the same household is not very easy, especially as they haven't been together since kittenhood and have very strong personalities.

Mota checking out my PlayBook

In the morning, Arnab would be up early to feed them. Cat food would outnumber human food in our fridge very soon. Same in the evening. Before fixing our dinner, I'd feed them (and Peanut Butter, if he's there too). Then there's play time for them and snuggle time also :-) Time to see their antics, cat fights, growls and hisses. Finally we say good night to May, Arnab gives her some bonito fish flakes, turns off the light in her room and she goes to sleep. Mota would be roaming around for a while then climb up our bed, sniff at my nose for a while (probably to make sure that his Mommy is ok) and curls up either on my pillow, or near my foot and calls it a night!!