Of Fathers and Kittens

I know this post only loosely relates to Father’s Day, but since I blogged here before about my cats, and especially the one who passed away a few months ago, I thought this might be a good week to blog about my new kittens. After all, before we were parents of human children, my husband and I already considered ourselves parents to our feline children, and this Father’s Day, my husband gets to count two new kitty children as his own!

After my crazy, loveable cat died a few months ago, my husband and I promised our kids we could get a new kitten in the summer. And last weekend we went to PetSmart to check out the kittens from the local no-kill shelter, and my son immediately fell in love with one, a sweet white and orange kitty.

The only problem was, we left his sister behind at the store. While we were filling out the adoption paperwork, the two of them sat cuddled up in their cage together, and it nearly broke my heart to separate the two of them. Still, we only wanted one kitten, so we filled out the papers and took him home.

Later that night, my husband suggested that maybe we should go back the next day and see if his sister was still there. At first I thought he was crazy – I mean, having three cats is one thing, but having four? That seemed like just enough to put us over the edge from animal lovers to animal crazies. But, when I thought of that poor little kitten all alone without her brother, I had to agree that we should go back and at least see if she was still there.

So the next morning we went back, and she was still there, so we adopted her, too! Yes, we now officially have the same number of cats as humans living in our house. But I am so, so glad. It had felt a little too quiet since my crazy cat died, and it’s nice to have a little bit of the chaos back. Really, what’s the point of putting dinner on the table, if you’re not going to have to chase a cat away, or filling the bathtub for my sons if a cat isn’t going to try to jump in?

And just because this is really supposed to be about Father’s Day, I have to add that I’m lucky that my parents are visiting me this week so I get to spend Father’s Day with my dad this year. And he’s lucky, too, because now that my mom has spent a little time with my new little kittens, I have a feeling he’s in for some additions to his own cat family!