I yelled for the kids and we tumbled out onto the porch...and apparently the sight of two noisy children in their underwear (my kids never have clothes on at home, fair warning) was overwhelming so kitty ran away. My kids cried and wailed over the loss so Michael lured the kitty with food from the woods into our cat carrier. He brought the carrier to the porch where the kids squealed and oohed over the little cat. Morgan cried 'please please please I will do anything to keep it!!'
Ugh.
The problem is, we already have two black cats. Ironic eh? And they aren't related. Both are boys. The little kitty actually looked like a combination of both our black cats. I swear a huge pile of their hair somehow made it outside and got struck by lightning, creating little kitty.
So we started feeding little kitty on our deck and he slowly got used to the kids. The day Morgan got to hold him, she decided he needed a name.
I was like well it's a boy so give it a boy name. She asked 'how do you know it's a boy?'
Uhhhh how do you explain these things to a six year old?
Oh yeah. Science.
I told her boys have balls.
'Okay, well I want to name him Balls since he's a boy.'
Wait...what?! No!
I tried to talk her out of it. But after seeing me laugh for 20 minutes over her choice of name, she knew it was a keeper.
What about Sirius?
No.
Gandalf?
No.
Darth Vader?
No.
For a short while (like a day) I talked her into naming him Binx after the cat in the movie Hocus Pocus. It didn't last.
And unfortunately Jack loved the name too. 'We have a new cat...his name is Balls.' Both kids had to tell everybody.
Thank goodness people who know us are used to our weirdness.
We tried to find a home for Balls but nobody wanted him since he wasn't a small enough kitten. So sad. He eventually found his way into our house where, surprisingly, our adult male black cats just love him. Especially the one Morgan renamed Mean Kitty, because he hates everybody other than Michael.
Michael was like 'we gotta do something about his name. I think Buddy is a good name for him.' I agreed. We tried to encourage Buddy, but the kids actually started referring to him as Little Kitty. That nickname works out great because Morgan renamed both cats when she was two; Calvin is 'Happy Kitty' and Shiner is 'Mean Kitty' so Buddy is 'Little Kitty.'
Well he was until Michael started calling him Stupid Cat...
Sigh.