Kitties Galore!

It is a well known fact that I am a cat person. Not that I'm not a dog person, because I do love dogs, too, especially our Jenny, who, by the way, does not care for any other animal besides herself. As in, she eats other animals that are in her yard...squirrels, birds, rabbits, snakes, and she even goes after the groundhogs, racoons (tackled one in the garage), and foxes. I had a cat, Zha-Zha, for 18 years. I begged my dad for a cat, and I guess he finally gave in because one day, my mom showed up with a kitten. Little did we know that this kitten would soon turn into the "devil" cat (to which we nicknamed her, with love, of course!) and hang around for 18 years. Geesh! All I wanted was a nice lap cat that would let me love on her, but no, my cat would attack you if you breathed in her direction. She might like a little pet on the head every once in a while, but if you went 2 seconds too long, it was "Whack!" with the claws and "Snarl" with her venom-filled hiss. Can you believe that I was heart broken two years ago this October when I had to put her to sleep??? Yep, thought I was gonna need some happy drug to get me over that one, but shortly after, I found out I was pregnant, so that helped take my mind off my poor kitty. I swore up and down we'd never have another animal (I told Jenny she'd just have to live forever), but Andy said one day we'd have outside cats. Well, guess what showed up at our house yesterday? A family of cats! A mama cat and her FOUR baby kittens, to be exact. They are adorable. You know I was not going to let them go hungry, so out came the milk and tuna. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they are here to stay now. However, I'm not exactly sure what I signed us up for. For one, Jenny is going to have to stay penned up in the newly fenced in back yard, which is logistically fine, but she's not too happy about it. For another...I really wasn't planning on having FIVE cats. Two would've been ok. And I wasn't exactly ready to have a cat just yet. I hadn't mentally prepared myself for it. Well, who's to say they are ours...just yet. I think we'll keep them on a trial basis and see how it works out. I should add that we've seen these cats around the neighborhood for about three weeks now, but they've been hanging out in Murph's garage. I guess they've finally made it down to our house, looking for someone to feed them.

Little Miss Amelia, however, is ready to call them HERS! She is fascinated by cats, and these are pretty friendly. The little gray tiger-striped one is pretty skittish, but the others, especially the mama cat, let us pet them and run up to Amelia. The mama cat brushed the end of her tail up on Amelia's face, to which Amelia reacted with a smile, laugh, then an "I'll get you, my pretty" look. Yeah, this should be very interesting!

My Zha-Zha