Drama Central at the Greene House

A week ago today, Anna and I left the house for work/school as usual. As we left the house, Anna stopped to pet the pregnant, stray cat that she had been asked not to feed but fed anyway and that she named Star Bright the instant she first laid eyes upon her. Later that evening, after piano lessons and after picking up Brennan and Ella, we got home to find Star Bright NOT pregnant anymore. Do I need to explain to you how excited the kids were? There was plenty of squeals and screams as they ran all over the yard and garage looking for where she had the kittens. They were so hysterical that even I helped in the search. We searched high and low and in every place we could imagine she might have had them. And I thought it was going to be so simple just setting up a nice box with towels in it for her in our garage. Apparently, Star Bright didn't like that location. Once we had searched just about everywhere, I began to get nervous but didn't let on to the kids. Anna had already started asking if she could make signs and put them around the neighborhood or could she go ask a neighborhood friend to help them search. Ella, aka, Drama Queen, was too busy clutching her chest and bawling. "Momma, I can't breeve very well and my heart is beeping. I don't want the kittens to die!" And anyone who knows Brennan, he follows behind sisters doing whatever they are doing. I sat Ella on my lap and told her to breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, all the while keeping my giggles to myself. The only thing I could think of to do was explain to the kids that they needed to just go about their evening in a normal routine, but follow Star Bright around. I told them that momma cats don't leave their babies for very long before they have to feed them. Brennan kept coming to me saying, "Mom, Star Bright had her kittens. Her tushy is bleedin' and that's where she had them." Okay, not exactly what I thought would come out of his four year old mouth, but wow, what an education he's getting with just having this stray cat have kittens near us. They did this for a few minutes, but quickly became bored. So off they ran with the neighborhood friend to look around the yard some more. As they were doing this, I took the few minutes of quiet time to make some hair bows. Nice quiet house....mew...mew.... At first I thought it was just my imagination, but then I heard it a couple more times so I followed the mewing. It was coming from our sunroom where all the kids' toys are. Around the corner of the doorway, Star Bright rapidly ran through the doggie door and I followed her. Right in the middle of the kids' toy box were four little kittens, each with different coloring. Star Bright jumped in and started to feed them. I hollered for the kids and they ran as fast as their little legs could carry them. More squeal and screams than before even. The kids all crowd around the toy box and are all oohing over the newborns. Ella, remember Miss Drama Queen, started bawling again. This time she was saying, "Oh Star Bright...your kittens are soooooooo cute. I wish that you had a daddy..." I grabbed Ella and hugged her and asked her why she was crying now that we found the kittens. Her response was, "I'm sooooooo happy. Mom, you know you cried when you had me!" Hilarious. The rest of the evening was spent cleaning, watching, naming, oohing, preparing, renaming and figuring out what to do with Star Bright since our house was not set up for an indoor cat. Some time after 10:00 p.m. I was able to drag the kids off to their beds, and after a half hour or so of them each running down to "check on the kittens" a time or two, or ten, the sandman finally got them. Below you will find a picture of Star Bright with her babies and the drama queen herself after we found the kittens. You can only see three kittens, but one is hidden among the others. I'll post more pictures in the future. Currently the names are Peace (multicolored), Spider (black), Joel (gray) and Zipper (orange and white). Oh, and Anna has decided that she already knows the gender of all the kittens, even though I've googled it and tried to figure out myself and haven't had any luck. She says that Peace is a girl and all the others are boys.