Stepan is usually cautious and the baby rarely pays any attention to him. There are some times however, when I encourage them to get to know each other better. Actually, I.N.* gets rather surprised when he encounters Stepan because he's used to our human faces. In the face of Stepan he sees two eyes, a nose, a mouth, but it's still something different.
As I've written before, I believe that the child will grow up happier and learn a few things more (like respect and care for other lives) with Stepan.
I suppose the next big "step" will be in a few months, when the baby will start crawling/walking and getting more and more interested in Stepan... I think I must get him a safe haven somewhere in our home...
P.S. Of course we've had those familiar warnings "the cat will get jealous and hurt the baby", or "a baby cannot be with a cat - cats have this terrible illness, don't they?" ...I would answer that some care and a lot of attention is all it takes for a happy and harmonic household.
Since our new family member arrived we took particular care not to alienate Stepan. Perhaps he even got some extra attention. And when he does get jealous all he asks is some more petting; it's not personal with the baby. Perhaps the situation even helped him become just a bit more extrovert and playful, to show that he's also well worth our attention.
As for the "illness", people of course refer to toxoplasmosis, particularly dangerous during pregnancy too. However, (especially for an indoor cat like Stepan) all it takes to be calm is a cat blood test (which in our case was negative) and some hygienic precautions any normal person takes anyway...
*My apologies for not showing full names.
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