I hear a zipper swatted, a window blind battered or a book falling to the floor.

I feel my bed pounced, my toes bitten or my elbow licked.

I wake either gradually with sleepy eyes, or quickly with a startled and angry, “Tooncie Bear!”

What a funny name to say so sternly to such a cute, striped, otherwise loveable cat.

It is 6:30 a.m., and Tooncie is ready for First Breakfast. He is obstinate and won’t take no for an answer. The longer I put off obeying his demands for a sprinkle of Purina pellets, the more hairbrushes, magazines and coasters he whacks off my nightstand and dressing table.

Plunk! There goes the Kleenex box. I look at Tooncie, and he looks at me, front paw in the air, poised to take a swipe at my bedside Sudoku puzzles unless I stir and rise and head for the kitchen.

I created the monster, and now I don’t know how to stop him. So usually I shuffle down the stairs, pour a small serving of dry food for Tooncie and his better-behaved sister Jolly, swig some orange juice, use the bathroom, and return to the bedroom.

I don’t pick up the array of fallen objects because they would only provide fodder for Tooncie when Second Breakfast comes around at 9:30.

Nearly five years ago, our household decided to adopt two kittens: siblings, so they would have companionship. I’d never before raised animals, and they were my first real pets, so I was inclined to provide and spoil. Tooncie, having been the runt of the litter, was sick at first, so we fed him formulas from a dropper and then eased him into a regular, veterinarian-recommended, commercial food diet. I was happy to see his health improve and his diet normalize, and therefore glad to feed him whenever he asked. The problem was, he asked way too early in the morning.

I blame both my inexperience as a cat caretaker and the unfortunate layout of my 100-year-old house: the only bathroom must be accessed through the kitchen, past the food dishes. Early on, when my dreams of waterfalls and running faucets forced me to rise in the pre-dawn darkness and head for the bathroom, the cats invariably followed me and, once in the kitchen, meowed so pathetically and convincingly and adorably that I reached for the cupboard above the stove and sprinkled some pellets into their little bowls.

It was a recipe for disaster.

The morning feeding habit persists to this day because the ingredients remain: a hungry, stubborn cat with smart tricks; a tired, fairly compliant human tall enough to reach the food container; and a bathroom off the kitchen.

Being a night owl who often goes to bed well after midnight, I occasionally try to break Tooncie of his early-morning mischief by evicting him from the bedroom. Sometimes this gains me a few hours of solid sleep, but other times, Tooncie’s miserable meows from outside the door either disturb my conscience and therefore slumber, or else cause Jolly to take up his cause and lick my forehead until I let her fuzzy brother back inside.

Meanwhile, I admit to being thoroughly trained to do Tooncie’s bidding. My cat uses clever stratagems to call his human to the kitchen, and I usually obey, even waking on my own some mornings at 6:30 or 9:30, my body viscerally aware that it’s feline mealtime.

Once fed, Tooncie returns to his most comfortable nook in the crook of my neck and purrs us back to sleep. I blissfully forget that in another three hours, I will be rudely awakened for First Lunch.