Chris has not really been excited about having a pet, at least not until the girls get a little older and can share the responsibility of taking care of it. BUT, a neighborhood cat decided to give birth to kittens in our roof! Yes, in our roof, right over our kitchen. So, everyday during random meals we would hear the kitty jump on our roof and the little kittens crying for milk. For some reason, we heard the cries becoming less and less, until only one little meow was left. Mommy kitty was not coming to our roof anymore. We saw her jumping on our neighbors roof now. Finally, the lone kitty cry in our roof stopped and it was replaced with a TERRIBLE stench in our kitchen for a week or two. We had no access to the roof; so, the only option was to cut through the drywall to get the little kitty out (we were not really wanting to do that--not quite sure what else we would find up there) or wait it out. We choose the latter.
Soon, we saw little kittens climbing on our neighbor's roof. Mother kitty was taking them somewhere one by one. These ingenious cats give birth on roofs to avoid the dogs in the neighborhood. Sadly, we have seen/heard of at least two kittens being mauled by the street dogs in our subdivision. Well, one little kitty was left up on the roof. Each day it would come out of the roof and cry and cry; mommy was no where to be seen. This was agonizing for the girls, who were watching the kitty from their window!!! Chris was not moved and stood fast in his resolve NOT to have a pet. (BTW, our neighbor's roof comes right to our back porch and is on a lower plane, such that we can easily see and, even, touch it!)
On Thanksgiving morning things came to a head. I started to give the kitty some food on the roof, since mommy kitty abandoned this one, as well. The kitty was very afraid of me and would only come to the food, if I left the scene. We had a growing concern that it would fall off the roof and get mauled by the dogs down below. Well, it got too close to the edge, slipped and was hanging by its claws on the wall that separates our house from our neighbors!!! As the girls screamed in horror, Chris rushed to it's rescue so it would not plummet to it's death and it, somehow, ended up in one of the girls arms. :) That was the end of that or should I say the beginning?! So, we named our new kitty "Fiddler Fear"; Fiddler, for her singing (OK, crying) on the roof, and Fear, because it was terribly afraid of us and we had just read about the pilgrims and learned about a young child aboard the Mayflower named Fear. Really, we simply call her "Kitty."
All the excitement added to the craziness of hosting a HUGE Thanksgiving feast!!!
This sweet kitty is very patient with the girl's excessive love and intrigues. It has really become one of the family.
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