My latest column…

Since having kids, we’ve tossed around the idea of getting a puppy or kitten a few times, but have always decided against it once we consider all the factors: fur everywhere, litter-training or house-training, obedience training. (Hey, at least babies use diapers, toddlers don’t shed all over the sofa, and kids rarely jump up on strangers or chase squirrels into the middle of the street.) I still like animals, but just didn’t feel up to the task of combining kids and pets.

But as it turns out, I can have both, wrapped up into a cute little blonde package. My 4-year-old son William has decided that he is a cat.

At first, it was cute. “Not William - I’m KITTY,” he would protest when I called him to dinner. The fact that he pronounces his “K” like a “T” added to our amusement.

When he began asking for his dinners in a bowl on the floor, I obliged his whim, happy to encourage his imagination. I scratched his head when he bumped it against my hand (for a kid who’s never had a pet, he sure has a cat’s mannerisms down). I carried on conversations with him in which his end sounded something like “Meow meow me want meow chocolate meow meow chip meow cookie!”

And somewhere along the way - I think it was the day when he jumped up in my lap and licked my arm - Will’s “cat phase” went from cute to slightly disturbing.

It’s impossible to carry on a conversation with a kid who inserts a “meow” or two between every other word. He insisted on crawling on all fours, even though there’s snow on the ground, and meows piteously and holds out his paws - er, hands - to be carried down stairs.

When people began giving us funny looks when he purred at me in public, I began wondering if there was some well-known fact about children who act like animals that everybody was clued in to except me.

For example, it’s common knowledge that mass murderers were likely to have been bed-wetters, fire starters and cruel to animals as children. Maybe, I thought, there’s also an established link between children who act like animals and those who grow up to compulsively chew old shoes or urinate in public.

A little digging online reassured me a bit: acting like an animal is developmentally normal for a 4-year-old child.

In fact, pretend play in general is considered to be an important stepping stone in a preschooler’s development - experts say that it helps children learn to communicate and express emotions and can increase their imagination and creative skills.

But pretend play is one thing; a break with reality is another. Can it really be considered normal when a child prefers to curl up on the floor to sleep?

I was hoping to raise a human boy, not a hairless 40-pound kitty that pees on the toilet seat and leaves peanut butter smears on my shirt when he rubs his “whiskers” on me. And cats don’t even do anything useful. Couldn’t he have chosen to be a service animal, perhaps a pack mule or a mail-carrying pigeon?

I know it could be worse. For instance, William could have decided to act like a poop-flinging monkey or a rabid woodchuck.

And I feel extremely fortunate that he has not been around actual cats enough to observe them cleaning their nether regions, because if he’d decided to give that a try too, I might have been in for a very unpleasant parent-teacher conference.

Of course, one day, when Will’s getting my car into fender benders or blowing curfews, I’m sure I’ll look back with nostalgia at simpler days when the most annoying thing he did was lap milk directly from a bowl after finishing his cereal, rather than using a spoon. And for the moment, I’ve found myself growing quite fond of my furless little feline and wouldn’t mind if he sticks around for a while.

As long as he finds his own way to the litter box, that is.