birthday kitten

I would like to introduce the newest edition to the Sweeney family... our new kitten (name tbd).  

There is a little bit of a story behind the adoption of this little guy, beyond just my complete lack of self control around adorable baby animals...  I swear Ryan was the voice of reason in our marriage; without him, I need to find a way to curb the urge to collect every furbaby or I may very likely become the crazy cat lady...  But the story behind this new guy... Back in October 2001, not too long after Ryan and I were married, Ryan got a kitten for me for my birthday.  Ryan had never particularly been an animal lover and he did not grow up in a house full of pets like I did, so him purchasing this kitten for me was really an act of love.  I can still I picture him looking at me and sighing, saying, “won’t a cat just claw up everything? Why do we need a cat?”  Being newly married and living in an apartment, we had talked about getting a dog but we were both working and we knew a dog would be too much responsibility for us.  And I really, really wanted a pet...  So for my birthday my sweet Ryan picked out an adorable little calico kitten for me, our precious Dana.  Here is the link to my post from October of last year, where I shared pictures of Dana over the years: Dana - October 2016 link

Side note: Truth be told, our actual first pet was a fish (one of those cool-looking fighting fishes with feathery blue fins) and the poor thing died in less than 24 hours.  We had not even named the fish before we found it belly up the next morning, so we had this running joke for years that his name was Weebit because he had only lived a wee bit.

So October 2001, Ryan picked out our tiny Dana kitten for me.  She was our first baby (sorry Weebit).  Dana eventually developed kidney disease and hyperthyroidism and she died this past October (October 26, 2016) at the age of 15.  

And actually I have to throw in another side note in here because this is a funny memory that I want to preserve... So my birthday in 2001 was on a Saturday and we adopted Dana from one of those adoption fairs at the Shreveport animal shelter early that Saturday morning.  By Sunday morning Dana had developed a kennel cough so bad she could barely lift her tiny head and she was not eating.  Ryan and I debated taking her to the weekend emergency vet clinic, but on a newlywed budget we realized we really needed to pray she would be okay and wait until we could go to the regular vet on Monday morning.  I remember Ryan staying up most of the night holding that tiny kitten, who was barely the size of a roll of socks, and being so concerned for her.  Dana did obviously recover and live a full life.  The following week that year though, I found out I was pregnant and expecting our precious Katherine Grace, who was born July 2002.  So our running joke throughout our marriage was that we tried to take care of a fish, but it died.  So we decided to adopt a cat instead - the cat almost almost died.  So we thought, let’s just have a kid and see how that works out!  It worked out well though, our precious Katherine survived our early years of figuring out the whole caregiving and parent thing...  

So now fast forward to 2017 and it is October and it is my birthday again and my sister lets me know that the local animal shelter has kittens... One of them looks a little bit like Dana and it was born the same week Dana had been born.  I remember how much Ryan absolutely loved his little Dana.  He would sit there and pet her and as she got old and frail, I remember him saying that Dana was not allowed to die.  And he actually looked up if a pet could be cloned so we would always have our Dana!  We joked that the clone would be named Dina.  Those sweet memories stick with me, and I mentioned how I have zero willpower around adorable baby Kitanimals, right??  So this new kitten is in memory of Dana.  

I was actually away at my school program residency during my birthday this year but when my sister was texting me picture of the kittens at the shelter, I gave her permission to go see if the one I liked was available.  And of course when I got home from my residency, my children were delighted to introduce me to my new kitten!  It must be a family genetic predisposition to obtain all things cute and furry though because my sister adopted the brother of my kitten as well.  These two kitten brothers are so adorable when we get them together to play.  Our puppy, Ollie, just adores his new little feline brother.  Our older cats, Sammy and Jake, have differing reactions.  Sammy is just cranky and avoids our other pets in general, preferring to sleep and eat in peace.  However, Jake, our orange stray cat from Washington DC, adores the kitten and watches over him and plays with him.  And the animals in our house bring smiles and joy as the children and I watch their crazy antics.  I can just picture Ryan both adoring the new kitten (the closest I could come to our idea about a Dana clone) but also probably shaking his head, smiling with amusement and confusion, as he thinks that someone needs to stop Jen’s obsession with baby animal collecting... 

New kitten and Ollie

Kitten brothers