First day alone / first night in bed

Tulip spent her first day home alone yesterday. I worried all day long. I had school, so I didn't get home until 10:30 last night. However, I called Eve on my dinner break. She said that Tulip was just fine and that she had found the litterbox on her own during the day. I was so proud!

When I got home, she was hiding under the couch. I've decided that I've really had about enough of that, so we flushed her out. I had to play kitty rodeo for a while because she was spooked. But I found that if I get down on the floor with her and pet her really firmly, she usually calms right now. It worked. I walked her over to the couch and convinced her to come up there and flop with me for a while. She totally relaxed.

When we were ready for bed we brought her back to home base. She went right in her carrier and laid down. It's a straight shot from the bathroom to our bedroom so I could see her little ears pointing in our direction after we got in bed. She was still wide awake and wondering what we were up to. I decided to get her and put her on the bed to see if she'd sleep there with us. She was very curious about the room because she hasn't spent much time in there other than hiding under the nightstand. She did about 100 laps around the bed trying to figure out where she was. I was about ready to give up because I was exhausted and it was late. I decided to try the petting trick again and it worked again. She flopped herself down on the bed and went to sleep. When I woke up, she had worked her way up a little higher and was sleeping in between us. I gave her a little pet to wake her up and was greeted with a big stretch, yawn and loud purring. She woke up in a wonderful mood. I love it!

We took her back to her home base where she relaxed in the carrier while we ran around getting ready for work. We tried to get her to eat. She showed a lot more interest but fell just short of digging in. Eve ended up smearing a significant amount of wet food on her which she licked off. Then she went over to her water bowl and drank a lot of water. That made me happy. Things are looking up.