Disgustingly Cute

Yesterday I woke up and ambled into my kitchen.

I put the coffee on and then hobbled over to Rudyard's cage to check up on him. Sometimes he's awake, sometimes he's not. He does actually have a schedule of sleepings-and-wakings, it will just change depending on when he was last let out and for how long.

Example, I let Rudyard out at 10am. He runs around for a couple of hours, then goes back into his cage. If I let him out at 10pm and let him run for another two hours, then that works out fine. If I let him out around 4pm and let him run about for one hour, he's fine. His sleeps are often very deep and meaningful.

But if I let Rudyard out at 10am and I don't have time to let him do his full run, he'll get restless. Let's say he runs about for thirty minutes. When he goes back into his cage, he will fuss. Fuss, fuss, fuss, and fuss until I let him out again or until he falls asleep because he doesn't know what to do.

Then, he'll wake up every hour or so to see if he can manage to get out. If I'm not there to let him out, he'll fuss and fuss and fuss and use all of his energy fussing until he decides he's tired and goes back to sleep.

So when I get home at say, 9:30pm which is often the case Mondays and Wednesdays, he's asleep. But when I'm ready to go to bed, usually around 12 midnight, he's wide awake and fussing. So, of course I have to let him out. He needs his proper exercise and playtime. Then at 6am, if I'm awake, I can usually hear him fussing to be let out again. He tends to work in very specific shifts.

Any who, that's a tangent. A nice big one. What I really wanted to share was yesterday when I hobbled over to my sleeping baby boy, this is what I saw:

How unbearably adorable! What is he dreaming of, I wonder?
Sometimes when I check in on him, he's moving. Or he's making a noise. I just want to know what is going on in that little Mustelid brain of his.

When I was little, I had these awesome puppies, Belle and Radar. I mean, they were family dogs, not just mine. But they would power their little legs in their sleep. Mom always said, "They're chasing something."

Maybe its not just chasing. Maybe he's adventuring. Maybe he's wandering somewhere new. Maybe its scary, or made out of peanut butter. Maybe he's found a place that is made out of couch and its okay for him to eat chocolate.

I just can't help but wonder.