This is our cat, Merle. Merle is a grumpy old bag of bones who decides to live in one random spot in the house, and stays there 95% of the time for a few months, and then picks a new spot. He's not a very active cat. The other day, he walked into the living room and sat down between the twins, and proceeded to pretend to completely ignore the thrashing he got from the now very interested toddlers. They grabbed handfuls of his skin, Wesley lifted his rear end by the tail, they yanked on his tail, They smacked him in the back, Evan attemped to pick him up and carry him off several times. They were really curious, and really rough. He's lucky they didn't pick him up above their heads and throw him against the ground while smiling and yelling "UHH!" like they do everything else.
Merle is the greatest cat ever. Not once did he hiss or take a swipe at one of them. Not once did he bare his teeth or bite one of them. He barely reacted at all, save the occasional grimace. We tried to get the babies to understand how to pet Merle, but they had already decided he was a new toy, and thus needed the new toy treatment (picking it up and throwing it down over and over.) It was obvious he came in to interact with them, and that he knew they were babies and didn't mean to hurt him.
Merle is great.
