Remember my friend who brought over the salt water aquarium?

She’s a clever one. She invited friends with kids for a cook out, Monday, and “oh by the way, my six-week-old kittens who have had their first shots and are ready to be adopted are upstairs in the bedroom, if you want to go see them”…

Molly spent almost the entire day on the bed with the kittens, giggling and snuggling and sighing.

Yeah, we brought one home.  She’s a very dear little furball, and kept popping her head up out of her box on the ride home, so Molly named her “Peekaboo”. (Boo, for short.) We set her up in Molly’s room with her own little food dish, litter box and sleeping basket.

The parallels to bringing home a new baby are obvious. Last night, Molly came into my room after midnight, weepy. “I love the kitten, but she sleeps a little and then wakes me up again and again. I need to sleep!”

Molly crawled into my bed, and I went to sleep in hers with the “baby”. I slept with my own infants in my bed and remember well that careful kind of sleep where you’re always aware of the little body you can’t roll over on. But my babies just woke to nurse… this one wants to pounce on my hair or climb me with her little claws.

My goodness, though, she’s sweet. Between romps she napped against my cheek, or my neck, or any place that seemed snuggly.

The other new-baby angst Molly is discovering is a sense of guilt about the jilted “old baby”.  Our cat Spooky is accustomed to sleeping in Molly’s bed and now she’s not invited — at least until new baby gets familiar with her new family. Molly sat with Spooky this afternoon and gave her some attention. I heard her say, “You probably think Peekaboo will take all your love, but there is enough love for everybody.” Spooky is, however, unimpressed with the little fuzz-wad thus far.  

The big challenge now is to get Molly to leave the kitten’s side long enough to do her homeschooling and eat her meals.

Grandma is coming tomorrow to wallpaper her bedroom (the border has kitties on it) — so Molly’s pretty happy, these days.

In other news… Connor’s snake escaped from its aquarium. We have not given up the search, but I am beginning to suspect we’ll find a crispy bit of snake jerky some day under the piano.