I love our kitties. Not the love you have for baby animals because they are too cute not to love, but the real sort of love a person can share with an animal companion. The sort that makes you wonder how you can ever live without them, makes you think about a day sometime in the future when you will have to do just that, and it breaks your heart just a bit to think about it.

I’ve loved them since we brought them home, but I love all animals, especially little furry and helpless babies, in that “Oh how adorable, I have to pick them up and give them a squeeze!” way. There have been a few hours, sometimes a few days, when I wondered if getting them had been a good idea at all. I liked having them around, because I like being around cats, but they seemed like “just cats.” If you have ever had cats in your life, you know what I mean. Some cats are “just cats” who live with you, who you care for, and who give you the time of day every once in a while, and some cats are “very special cats” who weasel their way into every corner of your life and heart and become more like children than pets.

Fuzza had been a Very Special Cat, and I didn’t expect to have another Very Special Cat again. I’ve had a lot of cats in my life, and only Fuzza achieved the standing of being a Very Special Cat. I’d hoped one of the kittens would end up joining him in those ranks, but I certainly didn’t expect both of them to do so. I have been doubly blessed. Ronin and Myu both are on the road to becoming Very Special Cats, and it thrilled my heart today to realize how very close we are growing, and how much they love me and I them. It such a wonderful feeling!

They don’t follow me around anymore because they want to be fed or want a snack or want me to get out their favorite toy for a play session … the stick and string with feathery things on the end that drives them wild. Now they follow me around because they just want to spend time with me and be close to me. When I walk into the bedroom, to put away laundry or change clothes, they come running and hop on the bed begging for tummy rubs and a cuddle, which, of course, they always get. When I am working in the kitchen, they are underfoot rubbing against my legs and purring madly. When I sit at the computer, there’s always a battle to see who gets to lounge on the back of my chair or who gets the prime spot on my lap. When I am in the bathroom doing bathroom things at the sink, there they are bumping their heads against my elbows. On the rare occasion they aren’t somewhere near and I feel the need to have some Kitty Love, all I have to do is call out “Where are my kitties!” They come running … as soon as they have had a good stretch and a sip of water from the fountain.

I love my kitties, really LOVE them, and I am so glad we are finally bonding in that wonderful way I had with Fuzza. I didn’t think it possible. I even feared it wouldn’t happen at all with either of them. Yet it did, and it brings me so much joy and contentment to see how blessed I have been to have had such a wonderful cat as Fuzza and now to have two new babies who are going to live up to his grand legacy. I look forward to many long years of belly rubs, ear scritches, and insanely loud purring … and adorable kitties underfoot. :)

Will you look at how much they have grown! They aren’t even five months old yet, and they are HUGE! And how am I going to get through 24 whole hours without them in the house?! Wah!!!