Cat Girl

Yes, Leah is the cat girl and we have a cat collection at our house!

Some of you may know that I have an indoor cat. I have had her since I moved to Columbus in 1999. She was our only cat for quite some time. When I was pregnant with Leah a neighborhood cat decided to have kittens in our attic. She got access to our attic because we were doing an addition at the time. She wasn't a friendly cat, but I am a softy for kittens so I had to see them. I gave one of them away, one died and we kept one. The mom cat disappeared, but the cat that we called Pinky stayed and was our outside cat. She was great with Leah and both Leah and Caleb played with her. However, last summer she disappeared and this made Leah very upset. Because we felt sorry for her, we let her get a kitten from my Dad's farm. Ever since last summer we've had this one outside cat.

I am not exactly sure what has happened since then, but this summer one full grown cat decided to take up residence at our house. Any neighbor cat that comes near our house is quickly welcomed by Leah and so we ended up with outdoor cat number two.

All summer we've had two cats and although I haven't been altogether thrilled with the increased number, Leah loves them and two isn't terrible. While Rod was in Colorado another kitten showed up in our yard. Leah was very eager to greet the kitten with open arms. This kitten is extremely loud and meows all the time. She loves it and when I told her that when Dad came how he was going to have to shoot it because I couldn't bear to listen to it meow all the time, she freaked out. She also promised to feed it all the time so it wouldn't meow. She of course started to feed it, so obviously that cat isn't going anywhere and now we are up to outdoor cat #3!

No, that's not the end of the cat girl story! This Sunday we were leaving for church and what is sitting over in the pine trees beside our house meowing, but another kitten! Leah makes a mad dash over to see it. She is very excited that she has found another kitten. Great! We have to pull her away from it to get into the van and head off to church. At this point, I am praying that the kitten decides to keep moving and is long gone by the time we get home. No such luck. As soon as we get home, cat girl runs out and starts calling for it. It comes running and Leah has to feed all four of her wonderful new friends! Yes, we know have 4 outdoor cats and one indoor. If this keeps up we may need to buy stock in cat food!

Here are 3 of the four. The other is near, don't worry!