May 25th

Grateful for the opportunity my life gives me right now, to peek through a window of my child's alternate universe.  

Today, I got to do kinda duty.

Three and a half hours of mingling with four year olds, doing up capes, washing out paintbrushes, creating snails out of clay and faeries out of glittered paper.  And watching.  Watching how she interacts.  Watching how she plays, how she speaks, how she listens.  Watching how she speaks up, how she sits back.  Watching who she gravitates towards and who seeks her out.

The teachers are always ever so grateful to have you help.  And during the children's play, they hold you captivated with anecdotes of your child and how much she's developed since day one, how her confidence has soared, how her personality has blossomed.

She seems infinitely pleased to have me in her kinda space.

Fetching me a chair so as I could sit near her at snack time.  Seeking me out in the playground to help her collect seed pods.  Snuggling into my lap during storytime.  And well, of course she would!  She is only four after all.  Perhaps a little young to be spending so much time outside of the home....?  But I wonder, is that a need for *her* to be home, or a need of my own?

Straight from kinda today, we whisked up to visit Lily and Jasper.  There was much excitement bubbling from us both!  On fetching our kitties from their holding pen, our eyes met with the most beautiful face I think I have ever seen.  Sitting in the pen next to Jasper, was Matilda.  Four weeks older than our twins, one of Lulu's siblings, she was considerably bigger.  And gosh, did she ever let us know that she was missing Jasper from her side!  I instinctively reached for her and she melted into my hands.  It was instant love.

Matilda, our seal point Ragdoll

I asked Lucy what she thought Ben would say about another kittie.  By this stage she was snuggling Matilda herself and all she could do was nod fervently, so too was she captivated!  I watched the three kittens play, as Lucy followed them around the floor, attempting to capture the fuzzy white blurs as they raced past her.  I collected Matilda up into my arms on her next zoom past and locked eyes with her again.  I couldn't not adopt her into our family.  A pictorial SMS sent moments later entitled "Meet Matilda" and an SMS returned with a "why not?!" and the deal was sealed.

Lily

Jude, the breeder had just sent pedigree papers off for Matilda, hence the fact she already had a name.  I very much liked the name (in fact it was one that made the list for Lily, but didn't seem to suit her) and I thought it blended well with the names Lily and Jasper.  The decision was made on the spot to register Lily and Jasper, in the event Lucy (or even myself) might one day wish to show them.  It's not my thing, but I wasn't ruling it out for myself in the future, or anyone else.

R to L: Jasper, Lily and Matilda

The name Lily was already registered to a cat in a previous litter through Jude, so we needed to come up with an original pedigree name.  I misheard her at one point and the name Jarrah popped into my head.  So Lily's pedigree name became JarrahLily.  Matilda was already named and Mae seemed to flow from my lips, so MatildaMae it was.  Jasper was a little harder.  We were restricted to six letters, as 'Rosecoloured' must be in their pedigree name, as that is the family they come from.  I loved Augustus, but that was two letters too many.  We flicked through some online Latin names and narrowed it down to Lucius, Lucian and Dacian.  Dacian stuck.  So JasperDacian was so named!

The *twins* go in for their desexing on Friday and we pick the three of them up on Monday afternoon.

This weekend will be time to shop!

It's official.  We are now the new crazy cat people on the block.

The excitement in the house is palpable *grin*.