New Residents

We have a couple of new family members I'd like to introduce to you.

This is Special Edition, and she is just that: special. She hails from far away, and came to us because of some pretty intolerable circumstances after she and Hubby met online during one of Hubby's roving, insomnia-driven youth-pastor-in-chat-room moments over a year and a half ago. (Long story.)

Isn't she cute?

Innyhoo, we are so glad to have her, even though it's interesting having an 18-year-old in addition to the 10-year-old and 8.5-year-olds. Poor Hubby is woefully outnumbered. He lives with five women, and that doesn't count the cats. She arrived in time to be able to go to Florida with us on our family vacation. (And to have emergency surgery five days after she came (she's much better now), in one of the craziest weeks I've ever had, and still feel well enough to travel with us ten days later.) She loves everything princess, so she fits in well, and was very tempted by this tiara we saw at Downtown Disney.

Our other new family member is of the four-legged variety. Yes, because we're nuts. But there's something about the sudden loss of a loved one, like Dad, that makes you crave the presence of young life. And, honestly, I needed something.

Enter the Little Dude.

Five weeks old and oh so tiny.

My dear friend Sunshine had come out to stay with us the day before Dad's service and to stay for a few days after, since I desperately needed her. While she was here, I learned about some little male buff-orange tiger kittens. Sunshine and I went out to meet these little guys. Five weeks old, much younger than I expected, not yet litter-trained or on solid food. I hadn't realized they would be so young. Had I not known for sure that Hubby would blow his stack, I would have taken all three of them. So cute, and little carbon copies of each other! This little guy was hiding under his brothers and trying to sleep. He's shy, and likes to cuddle up and sleep, we were told. After triple-checking that he's actually a he, I settled on him. He proved how not quiet he was when we had to wait out a rainstorm before I could drive to Petsmart and get him some kitten food.

Special Edition and Makaha, fiercely cute.

He's now almost 9 weeks old, and finally has a name: Makaha 'Auli'i. The two Hawai'ian words have a combined meaning of fierce and cute, so that makes him either fiercely cute or adorably fierce. "Makaha" is still a bit of a mouthful for such a small guy, but I figure he'll grow into it.

The reactions of the other felines were predictable: Koa didn't like him (still doesn't), Minou is sort of afraid of him (what else), Mika was tolerant (even when Makaha tried to nurse on him). Kimo was quite put out for the first 36 hours, having to give up the coveted place as the baby feline in the house. That lasted until Kimo discovered she could play with Makaha, and I had to watch the two of them carefully at the beginning, because Kimo was SO much bigger and hadn't clued in to the fact that Makaha was still a baby. Now that Makaha doesn't look like a fat fuzzy ball of buff-orange fluff, trying to bend his chubby belly in half to arch his back and puff out his fur to look bigger, and can tolerate horsing around, I don't worry so much. Makaha has already shown his name suits him!