He would sleep through the night, mostly in my arms, and only stir at respectable hours.
But now at 6 months old, Dave is beginning to enter those difficult teenage years. Always hungry. Disappearing at night without saying where to, loudly bursting through the cat door at anti-social hours then jumping on my head to tell me all about his night on the prowl.
Dave is my kitten. Although I ought to concede he is lately more of a cat.
After much mewing of my own, my perfect boyfriend put him under the Christmas tree and ever since he has been, without question, the coolest cat in the land.
Not content to act according to type and terrorise our dog in the way cats are inclined to do, Dave instead opted to bond with Greta in a way cats just shouldn't.
He insists on sleeping with her, climbing all over her, attacking her by the fire and keeping her company outside on the porch even when it's cold.
Repeated attempts to give him his own bed or at least get him on to the couch so Greta has more space have failed utterly.
Every morning, without fail, he is tucked in a tight ball, wedged between her legs.
But while Greta is eternally patient and adores "her" new pet, she has lately found herself out in the cold as Dave's growing bulk has finally caught up to the size of his personality.
When putting her outside for a toilet stop didn't work we eventually discovered the problem ... Dave. Sprawled out, fast asleep in Greta's bed, comfortably oblivious to her whimpers and their impact on us.
After failed attempts to get him to sleep on the couch, on the spare bed, on our bed and even his own bed, my boyfriend had enough one night and grabbed him from his prone position and threw him on to the floor.
For a cat used to leaping off benches and down from our laps this shouldn't have been a problem, except the poor little guy was so fast asleep he simply landed on the ground with a loud thud.
I had also managed to sleep through the kerfuffle, prompting cheeky complaints from my boyfriend that it was a woman's job to get up at night for the kids.
Last night I did, except this time it was to clean up Dave's vomit after he took a dislike to a new variety of food.
As he sat woefully in the corner watching me, I knew he had a tummy ache.
So despite knowing the warnings that you never sleep with a baby, I took young Dave into my bed and cuddled him till it felt better.
At which point he decided to climb on my head and make sport out of batting ears until I woke up and wondered if, maybe, the stalk could swoop back in and pick my baby back up.
