But you'd be wrong.
Because he's the sweetest kitten to ever walk the face of the earth. I swear it. I can only recall two other such kittens that were handed to my seester and me back in '88. Remember this pic?
Her name was Pearl. My parents gave her to me and handed her brother, Earnest T. Bass (Ernie), to my seester.
Pearl was with us for 9 years, Ernie for 22.
Just typing that evokes beautiful memories.
And now I have tears in my eyes.
Back to Walter.
As I mentioned in THIS post, he wasn't too keen on getting close to us for the first few days. I told Oliver to be patient and that if we sat outside with him enough, he would eventually come around.
What I didn't tell Oliver is that every night after he went to bed, I would head outside to feed Walter. Once I had him distracted with food, I scooped him up and made it my mission to make it clear to him that we were 'friend' and not 'foe'. I loved on him and gave him food. Love, food. Love, food. I repeated this for 4 nights until finally, he came running to me, begging for my hand to rub his face and scratch behind his ears and love him.
4 nights. That's what it took.
Check out the look on my boy's face when Walter climbed into his lap for the first time-
Pure sweetness.
Walter also went from sleeping on a couple of bath towels,
to a cozy cat bed,
to a cozy cat bed inside a little house that hubs built for him.
Now friends, this is the part where I tell you that if I had my way, Walter would be inside our house right now, sleeping in my lap as I type. Hubs is not on board with a pet inside, and that's okay. This is also where I tell you that we've come up with a compromise, and it happened Monday night when the temp dropped below freezing here in Alabama and I nearly lost my mind thinking about poor Walter Baby out in the cold all.night.long.
I don't think I've ever mentioned this on the blog, but we have a little house behind our house in the backyard. The man that built our house was a contractor and used the front of it (which also has a bathroom) as an office. We keep our red/green tubs of Christmas decor in there, along with a few other random boxes of stuff and some yard sale signs. The rear of the building (which has a seperate entrance) is a workshop and houses all of hubs tools and a few pool toys.
I should also mention that while we've lived in our house for 4 years now, we have never ever ever done any cleaning in the little house, so it looks a bit 'horror movie-ish', what with all of the cobwebs and leaves and general nasty that have been collecting out there all these years.
Enter freezing temps, and a cat, and hubs with a broom. After a discussion that, for the sake of time, boiled down to this:
Me: I want the cat inside.
Hubs: No.
It was actually hubs that came up with the brilliant plan of putting him in the little house where he'd be warm and safe and I wouldn't be up all night worrying that he'd freeze.
And so this is where he sleeps.
We moved his bed out there, along with food,water, a litter box and plenty of blankets and a heater, so it's pretty much a cat hotel. (And yes, that's the 'Leg Magic' you see at the top of that pic that I swore would change my life. Ahem.) My mum even brought him a scratching post yesterday so he has more than just leaves to play with. My plan is this: to de-nasty that space like we should have done when we moved in but didn't because we had more pressing matters to attend to. Like ripping up the 50 year old carpet, and painting over the baby pink walls in the master, and buying appliances. Once we actually rid that place of junk that we've been holding on to (I'm talking to you, Oliver's high chair) there will be plenty of space to actually stick a few chairs out there, and perhaps a rug. Maybe it could become a nice 'mommy retreat' when I need a time-out away from the house. Who knows. I'm just glad that hubs and I were able to find a compromise, and that Walter baby has a warm place to sleep and play. And no, we won't keep him cooped up in the house all the time. It's just that he came to us at a point in the year when it's actually COLD here. Which won't last long.
p.s. I've always been a cat person. Here I am with our cat, TC, at 4 years old. Yes this is a picture of a picture. For the love, someone come teach me how to use this scanner thingy.
