But I digress.... Our new addition is of the kitten variety. I am not a pet person and neither is my husband. He was raised with dogs and cats and chickens and horses and cows and I'm sure even a pig or two, but he is not a pet person. I had a hamster when I was about three and we had a dog named Jim Morrison when I was 16 or so. Aside from a few tries with fish, those are all the pets my family had. We just aren't pet people. Our kids, however, are pet people... or at least they want to be. They have been begging for a dog or a cat since they could talk. I have always said that we would get a pet when all of the kids could feed themselves and were potty trained and we live on a piece of property where the pet could roam (we are DEFINITELY not indoor pet people). Well, we are almost to that point (depending on the day with the potty training) and we live on a farm, and I haven't come up with another good enough reason to postpone the pet adopting...Having said that, we know we need a cat. We have known we needed a cat since we moved into this house eight months ago. We had four-legged "homesteaders" almost immediately. We haven't had any in the house, thank goodness, but they are outside for sure and love the window well outside my daughter's basement bedroom window.
Last night while I was at Quilt Club, my sacred time away from spouse and children, I received a very excited phone call from a very excited 11-almost 12- year old girl. "We found a kitten," she says. "Can we keep it?" she asks. "Ummmm... I'm leaving now. I'll be home in a bit and then we'll talk about it," I answer and hang up the phone. I immediately received another call, this one from the 14-almost 15- year old son, JJ, needing a ride home from the volleyball game. As soon as I hung up with him, the phone rang again (So much for the quiet, child/spouse-free time away for Mom. Lucky for them the meeting had just ended.) It was my husband this time, wanting to know how we acquired a kitten in the three days he had been out of town. I claimed innocence on this one and immediately sent texts to our two neighbors (and by neighbors I mean the people who live closest to us - but each are a mile away, at least). Between them they have about 20 cats/kittens and have been asking us, for months, if we needed cats (plural) at our house.
One of the neighbors texted right back and said it was her kitten and we could keep it if we want. She thinks two kittens hopped a ride on her husbands pickup yesterday morning and disembarked when he was passing by our house. (The other kitten is still missing.)
When I arrived home, I found my husband sitting on the porch swing, with a kitten on his lap, surrounded by three bouncing children. John had gone out to the porch to enjoy some quiet and the cat came up and sat on his lap. The kids all quickly followed him outside. Earlier, Kelly, 11-almost 12, had found the cat under the jeep on our driveway and coaxed him out so she could play with him. Kelly has always been our animal lover. As we all sat on the porch, she begged and pleaded and pleaded and begged until it was time to go in the house and get ready for bed. We left it at "we'll talk about it in the morning".
This morning, when we woke up at 5:00 to get the first kid off to school, the kitten meowed and meowed through the open window until John and JJ went out and played with him. When they left the kitten meowed and meowed through the open window until the other two finished getting ready for school and ran out to play with him. The way I see it, we have two choices... either give this one back, thereby inciting a kid riot, or give in and get a friend for this kitten, thereby giving me two more things that I'm responsible for keeping alive - UGH...there's a reason why I have silk plants in my house and why my kids learn to make their own sandwiches by age 3.We'll probably go with the second option... I live in the real world and know when I'm outnumbered.
(By the way, my other neighbor texted this morning and said, "you can hardly say no if it was a prayer answered." Gee, thanks, Stephanie!)
