Wednesday, October 16th

Wednesday was an ordinary school, library and karate day... with the exception of a feline visitor setting up shop in our house!  A sweet kitten, probably 5 or 6 months old, followed Grammie on her usual morning walk.  At first she assumed it was Pixie, who often accompanies her on walks because she doesn't realize she's a cat and not a dog ;-p  However, she eventually realized it was too small but by then the cat was traipsing after her in earnest, following her all the way back home.  When she picked it up it seemed, if not completely malnourished, as though it had definitely missed a few meals.  So she brought it inside onto the back porch to give it some food (it ate almost two full cups of cat food over the course of the day - that is an incredible amount for a kitten!) and as soon as Scarlett saw it, she was in full cat-care mode.  The kids begged and begged if we could keep it, and I told them it was welcome to stay... this was careful wording, as I realized there was a very excellent chance that it would simply let itself out of the back screened-in porch door and take off.  I also told them they'd need to talk with Jim about it.

The funny thing is that the kids play imagination games all of the time and Jim has become very accustomed to just rolling with whatever bizarre scenario they throw his way on his comings and goings ("I'm an orphan with no family because they died in the war...Can I live here now?" or "This is a baby tiger with no mama, so we have to tend to it," etc.).  So as they walked past with a black cat in tow and Scarlett and Victoria rapidly said, "Hey daddy, this is our new cat. Isn't it cute? It's lost and needs a home and we're going to take care of it and it will live with us," Jim smiled and nodded and said, "Uh-huh, okay."  He never gave it another thought because he thought they were holding Pixie and just playing make believe.  However, the kids took this as a binding verbal agreement. LOL

Two black cats!  They're nearly identical upon first glance, although the new kitten "Cupcake Sprinkle Moonlight Wright" is a good 30% smaller than Pixie and has orange eyes where Pixie has yellow/green eyes.  Cucpake's fur is also much softer and sleeker.

The kids flew through their schoolwork in order to get back to taking care of Cupcake and monitoring her every movement to ensure she wouldn't leave ;-)  Fortunately the cat has taken right to life here at the Wright Menagerie, uses the litter box like a pro and eats like a trucker. It pretty much thinks it owns the place.  We did get our new stack of library books for the week that we'll be working through:

"And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street"

"Very Last First Time"

"The Storm"

"Always Room for One More"

"Andy and the Lion"

"Cranberry Thanksgiving"

"Katy and the Big Snow"

"The Church Mouse"

"How to Make an Apple Pie"

I had put out a request to friends via Facebook, asking for reading recommendations and received a ton of great lists, personal favorites and other resource ideas.  It was great!  We'll enjoy working through all of the terrific titles :-)