Unexpected temporary pets

A few weeks ago Mason came running in the house announcing there were kitties in our back yard. I followed him out and sure enough there were 3 little kittens barely walking. They crawled out from under the "turtle home" that Larry built for his desert tortoise's when he lived here. I'm guessing the momma cat crawled in there, gave birth and they have been in there ever since. I don't know much about cats but I think they are about 3-4 weeks old. We fell in love instantly.

It really worked out nicely that there was 3 kittens. One for each of my children. It didn't take long for my kids to come up with names for each of "their" own kitties. Mason's kitty was the gray one and he named her Scottland, Noah named his cat Spidercat, (the orange with the white on his nose and feet), Callie named her kitten "Kitty" (the little orange kitten). From the get go Ron insisted we call animal control and have them taken care of. I pretended not to hear that advice and instead went to the store and bought cat food. hehe They were so little, I didn't know if the mom cat was still nursing them or what?!?! We bottle fed them for about a week (until my sister Maryann insisted we stop giving them milk because it's bad for cats.) So I bought kitty food at Pets Mart. At first they had a hard time figuring out the whole eating thing, but eventually picked up on it.

Ron would continually ask "What is the plan with the cats? When are we getting rid of them?" But secretly I think he enjoyed them as well. In fact, at night after the kids were in bed Ron would suggest we go sit outside and play with the kittens. Very fun to watch the softer side of your husband come out. It's crazy how fast they grow and coordinated they get. I think they almost doubled in size in a matter of just 2-3 weeks. We got to know their personalities very quickly and found our favorite to be Noah's cat, aka "Spidercat" or "Spidermonkey". He seemed to have the most personality, and we changed his name to Garfield. Very suiting for the "chubbiest kitty", he picked up on eating the quickest and was often found pushing for the food.

The momma cat would come to feed and eat as often as needed. She wasn't very friendly but kept her distance from us. (Here's the little pig Garfield going to town! I think he was his moms favorite too. This little momma's boy was often missing and we would find him off with his mom either back in the turtle home or in a corner of the backyard.)

In the end we found really good homes for all three kitties. I'll admit I didn't try very hard to find homes for them, but unfortunately homes just sort of fell in place. My mom had a family in her ward wanting a kitty, and then Nate's coworker in need of some kitties as well. 

  On our last night with the kitties I let the kids bring them in the house and play for a while. 

Poor Mason had the hardest time with the separation. He made sure that I promised to wake him up the next morning before they were taken away (at 5:30am). (Cried himself to sleep that night)

I'm really happy we found such good homes for the kittens. They went to homes of cat lovers who have their cats indoors. That's much better than I could have done for them. I just feel bad for my kids. It took a few days to get over the loss. Sad to see them go but happy to have had them as much as we did!