A month ago, our sweet cat Daphne disappeared. I guess I haven’t written about it because in the back of my mind I was hoping she’d come back. The last time I saw her, I was looking out the window and watching her leap around the grass as she chased a pesky hummingbird. Daphne was never like our other cats, who run a bit on the lazy side. Daphne loved to be outside and explore. We tried to keep her in for a while because she had a habit of wandering around the neighborhood, but she cried at the door for two months straight and we finally decided she was happiest when she could be outside.

The night she didn’t come back, we went looking everywhere. The next day we put up posters and walked around the neighborhood and went door to door. When she didn’t come back for breakfast the day after that, I went to the SPCA to make sure she wasn’t there. I came across a cat that I thought may have been her but it was hard to tell because we were in a dark room and she was in a cage. Little T was pointing and reacting to her though, and she looked just like Daphne. I called my roommate and she brought in a picture. The cat was on the euthanize list, and we were worried to go home and leave her alone so we were at the SPCA for a very long time. All of the markings matched Daphne’s picture exactly, but it was hard to tell because we weren’t allowed to hold her. The SPCA wasn’t going to let us take her, so we asked to talk to the manager and complained. We didn’t want to risk the chance that she was Daphne, and leave her to be euthanized. The SPCA finally agreed to let us bring her home after we had papers faxed from our vet and a photo identification was made by the SPCA. They put the cat in a box and we left the SPCA, nervous that we’d made a mistake.

As soon as we walked outside and we could hear her meow (it was hard to clearly hear her in a room of meowing cats), we knew she wasn’t Daphne. We brought her home to check anyway, and when we took her out of the box and got a good look at her, we were certain it wasn’t Daphne. My roommate M and I looked at each other, we were having an I Love Lucy moment.

We didn’t want to take her back because she would have been euthanized. The plan was to find her another home, but when we got a good look at her we saw that she was really sick and malnourished. I’ve never seen such a sick animal. M had to nurse her back to health with vet visits, antibiotics, and other medicines. We were really worried about the new cat, but she got better and better as the days went on. M named her Boots, and she’s turned into the snuggliest cat we’ve ever seen. I think she’s happy to have food and to be taken care of. M was going to take Boots to be spayed, but then she discovered she was pregnant. We thought Boots was having a miscarriage a week ago and took her to the vet again, but the vet said she was healthy and was only having one really big kitten. We think only one kitten because she was so sick and malnourished.

Boots had her kitten at 3:00A.M. two nights ago. She wouldn’t let M leave her side. She wouldn’t even let M take her hand out of her box. M had to stay up the whole time and make sure she was okay. We haven’t taken a lot of pictures because we want to give Boots some space for a few days so she can bond with her baby, but you can expect cute snuggly adorable kitten pics coming soon. ^_^

We miss Daphne a lot. In fact, I dreamed we found her the other night and we were crying with happiness. A lot of people have said she was probably eaten by a coyote, but M and I like to imagine that she’s found a home with a nice lady who gives her Tuna every Sunday. Ugh, I miss her and I hope she’s okay, but I’m happy Boots and her baby are safe.

When Little T:

1. Called all the animals at the zoo “doggies”.
2. Tried to sneak behind the baby gate and when he was caught red-handed, he looked at me and said, “uh oh….”
3. Carries a drum stick around like a security blanket.
4. Goes over to the cat water bowl so he can shout, “NO!” Because he knows he isn’t supposed to touch it.
5. When he comes walking back from the cat bowl after shouting, with a huge grin on his face while we all clap-because he loves the attention he gets from making the right choice.
6. When he enthusiastically spits and sputters all over the place, because that’s his favorite part of brushing his teeth.
7. How attached he became to a random giant plastic deer at Michael’s Craft Store, to the point where every time I’d try to put it back he’d lose it.
8. How he will grab my hand and remove it from the computer if I dare to use it instead of play with him. 😉
9. The way he decided during daddy’s football practice, that his little toy football wasn’t good enough and he absolutely needed a real football.  Even though the football was way too big for him.
10. Escapes before bath time and gleefully runs around the house naked. Heh heh.

But most of all, I don’t want to forget that sleepy smile he has on his face, when he walks into the living room after Dada wakes him up and he sees me for the first time in the morning. It’s always a sweet way to start the day.