<G> It is just softer and fluffier to imagine it as mothering behavior.
The cutest thing: my little 7.25-lb shelter tabby, very skinny and
shaped like a Siamese, made herself right at home in the fall of
2001 when I brought her home. I looked around for things to
amuse her with, and found a rubber snake one of my nephews
left around. Well, she backed off and looked at it with those
huge eyes and crawled under the armoire and would not come
out! So I put it away. Then a few months later I brought it back
out, and she gave it a sniff, then I got involved in something and
forgot about it--until the wee hours the next morning!

My bed is up high--the cats hop on a hassock/chest at the foot to
get up on it. At maybe 3 AM I hear that plaintive, "talky" howling
and I have no idea what is going on. Next thing I know, I feel
Cheeky jump up on the bed. In the moonlight I can see that she
has this rubber snake in her mouth. She drops it, puts one front
paw on it, and looks very proud. She is clearly waiting for praise.
Well, I thought it was so damned cute I praised her to death. Now
she does it at least three times a day when I can hear her, and other
times when I cannot. She did take to sneaking about it, waiting
until I was in the shower, or we were downstairs watching TV.
But the tipoff is, she presents it to me wherever I am--or if I
am not home I find it on the bed.

The snake long ago lost its forked tongue, eyes, the last two
inches of its tail, and then its entire head. But my little hunter
still adores conquering it. I stop at least once a day and tell
her, "Oh, Cheeks, did you catch something? What could it
be?" And she rolls her eyes and listens. Then I make a big
deal of looking for it, and when I find it, ask her "did YOU
catch this SNAKE? Oh, good girl. It's very green and
wiggly." Then I pretend that it comes alive and fling it
across the room and after a while she gets it again. We never
get tired of it. She takes it very seriously. :)