On Cats and Kitties and a Lost Hippo

The other day we were walking to the bus stop and Jayce was talking about his future cats.  We have told him that whenever we move he can get a kitten, so he brings this up periodically despite no move being on the horizon.  It's Chris and I's way of saying, some day but not now, and Jayce has clung to it.  A few different friends have mentioned it to me as well.  "So...Jayce tells me that when you move he's getting two cats?"  Apparently it comes up in conversation.

Jayce already has the names picked out.  If it's a boy, Cottontail, and if it's a girl, Whiskers.

We asked Hannah what she would name her cat.  Tree, she replied.  This was the conversation we were all having as I took these pictures.

My kids loooove cats.  I'm not entirely sure when this happened, but they have always been interested in cats.  

There are a few different cats that we see regularly on our school run.  They normally run off, but there is one that has slowed down a few times just long enough to rub quickly against Jayce's leg, or let him give it a quick pat on the back before running along.  The day that the cat let Jayce pat him on the back, he beamed and ran the rest of the way home because he was so excited.  When it rubbed against his legs, he squealed "Mom he snuggled me!!" and then jumped up and down and up and down in tiny little hops.

Due to this kitty obsession, my kids' favorite little snuggly things are these stuffed kittens which they have named Jack and Cooper.  I just discovered these pictures of them on my phone the other day with a dozen more just like it.  This is in our church, and I'm not sure why Jayce had my camera that morning because it doesn't have games on it and I never hand it over.  I do remember that he had set the kitties up on the chair for a picture, but it wasn't until I was scrolling through my photos this week that I noticed that each cat had it's own little photo session along with photos of them together.  What a funny kid.

Jack and Cooper are relatively recent additions around our house, but they quickly moved to the top tier of Important Child Objects.  

Jayce had a little stuffed hippo that he got when we visited Edinburgh a few years ago.  The hippo travelled with us on our recent trip to Nottingham but didn't make it home with us, and we had a very sad boy who sobbed at bedtime because he couldn't fall asleep without his favorite little snuggly thing.  Chelsea and I were in the city on Regent Street the next week and I ducked quickly into Hamleys to see if they had a similar hippo.  There was no hippo, but given the kids affinity for cat I thought these little kitties might work in a pinch.  

I presented them to Jayce the next morning and he was skeptical.  I told him how I knew he really missed hippo and that we could never replace him, but if he would like to snuggle one of these little kitties whenever he was missing hippo then maybe that would help.  He scowled, chose the black one, told me Hannah could have the gray one, and then carried his around all morning.  Hannah didn't really know why she got to be the recipient of a new little stuffed animal, but she didn't require any warming up stages, she immediately loved it.  

The kids absolutely love these things.  Sometimes it's a problem because they both want to take the kitties everywhere.  Cooper goes with Hannah to school most days, Jayce brings Jack to church and would take him more places if we let him.  Unfortunately (or fortunately?) now Jack is too important to go on random trips around town with us and risk being lost like poor hippo.  That is, until I can get back to Hamley's for a few backups.

It occurred to me the other day that I have never written about the kitties on the blog.  They are a minor detail in terms of the Things That Make It to the Blog, but in our house right now they are a big deal.  And when the days come when they no longer are a big deal, I will really need to look back on these pictures and stories.