Meow!

Somehow, our child who has lived in a house with no pets her whole life (except for the months that we adopted our Penny girl), Reilly has fallen in love with kittens. Kittens, cats, anything that meows. I have no idea how it happened! She would read a book, and get SO excited when she saw a cat. "Meow" was one of the first animal sounds that she ever learned, right after a dog woof. Then it took off I guess in June, when we went to our friends house for vacation, and they had a cat. This cat was completely disinterested in Reilly, ran away from her, and Reilly only ever chased her and saw her from about 6 feet away the whole time - and yet she was in love. She kept chasing, kept giggling, kept meowing.

Then we went to our other friends house, straight from there, and they had 2 cats! Neither of which cared about Reilly at all, once again. And yet the meowing continued, the obsession carried on. Then Mima got Reilly the softest stuffed animal you could imagine, appropriately named "Kitty" by mama and daddy (she also has a baby named "Baby"...we're bad namers). And ever since that Kitty came into our home, her love has grown. No matter what she is doing, if she is sad, mad or otherwise, we can always distract her by saying, "Hey Reilly, where is Kitty?". And she will turn around, and go on a mission to find that Kitty, saying "Meow! Meow!" while she hunts.

So naturally, when our friends got 2 new baby kittens, I immediately asked if Reilly could come over to see them. I knew this would be heaven on earth for her - seeing tiny little kittens in real life. Kittens who, I was hoping, would be too young to know enough to run away from her.

I had no idea how she would be with them, what with the fact that she has not actually been within 5 feet of a cat for very long at all. But their kitten Maggie was just precious with Reilly, and Reilly was just as precious back. She was gentle and playful with the kitty, and seemed to know exactly how she liked to play. Here she is pouncing like the kitty, and meowing in her face. She really enjoyed being nose-to-nose with that kitty.

Then kitten laid down, and Reilly kissed her. The kissing was constant. And there was lots of laughing - random hysterical laughter, but I missed it on my camera.

Then Reilly laid down with kitty, and said "Nigh-Night", as they both pretended to sleep.

And here she is puckering up to steal some more kisses from kitty.

Of course I was terrified the whole time -that kitty would suddenly get annoyed with her and scratch or that Reilly would suddenly decide it was appropriate to grasp the kittens little face. But neither of those things happened! Reilly instinctively knew how to act, and it really seemed like this young kitten could sense that she was a baby and was having some hardcore patience. All around, it was just precious to see them together, and how happy babygirl was.

In conclusion, Hubby and I both do not care for cats very much in general. We have friends that we LOVE who have cats that we LOVE, but they basically make us very uneasy. We have no problem being around them, but we have a hard time trusting them, or wrapping our heads around the whole "litter box" ordeal.

So who knows where this intense love came from in our little pumpkin? In our house, kittens will remain a novelty that we get to play with at other people's houses. Hopefully she will move on to love other creatures instead...like babies. I like human babies - I'll tell her we can keep having more of those. :)