a cat tale

Once upon a time, on a Friday afternoon, Loni and I took the boys and the dog down to the playground (that's what the boys call our fenced-in area with the swing set) to play. And we played. And played. Wore the dog out with fetching and attempting to teach him to jump through a hula hoop (no success there yet), wore the boys out with swinging and crossing the monkey rings and going up and down the slide.

And when it was time to go back up to the house, we spotted it: the most beautiful little gray striped kitten. A stray, but oh, so cute! The boys kind of glanced at it, then were like, whatever, another cat. But it followed us up to the house, and it camped out on the deck until we paid attention to it. Loni went out and picked it up, and it was game over from that point. Max held it like a baby, and Liam couldn't stop talking about how it kept purring so loud because it was saying that it loved him.


It was left to me to explain to the boys that there was no way we could bring another living creature into this house without bursting at the seams. Let me just say, this mom thing is hell on my approval rating in the under-10 set!

Apparently, Henry didn't get the memo, because he continued to flirt enthusiastically with the kitten through the glass door.



The kitten was nothing if not tenacious. It stayed out on the deck when we took Charlie out to pee, and it was still there when Loni packed up to go. So what could I do? I made her take it with her when she left. Luckily, she found the kitten a happy home in a barn with lots of other cats and a little girl to love them all. And thus endeth our story ... at least until the next time the boys fall in love with a pet.