Timesharing our kitten, a field report

I was optimistic a few weeks ago when I wrote about my daughter’s new found kitten Kiwi, and how I didn’t even want to meet him because I didn’t really want him to be part of my household, having just said goodbye to my cat of many years, Newton, at the beginning of this year. Yeah. I’m so tough around incredibly cute little creatures.

Surprise. I finally met Kiwi and he’s just a lovely little guy, both cuddly and hyper, exactly as a kitten should be.

They have three dogs at my ex’s house, two of whom are pretty chill, but the third of whom is a bit of a nutter, and with zero experience around cats, the fear is that if he encounters Kiwi it could be very bad for Kiwi’s health and well being.

So when the kids are with me, Kiwi was being locked up in an unused bedroom, basically ignored.

A- was the one who had the great idea:

“Why can’t Kiwi just come with us when we’re at your house, Daddy?”

So that’s what we’re doing. As an experiment Kiwi is changing houses on the same schedule that the children are doing, spending roughly half his time at my house, entertaining us all with his mad dashes and cavorting about. The other half of the time, he’s cowering in fear, worried about big barking dogs running through the house (alright, perhaps I exaggerate just a slight bit!)

I knew we were in the thick of it when I stopped by PetCo and walked out with $90 worth of food, cat litter, a new litter box and a few toys.

Why I’m still buying toys for a cat after so many years of having cats and knowing that they’d rather bat around a lump of foil than a toy designed to entertain them is another story entirely.

Kiwi has been switching houses for two weeks now, and so far, it’s going well.

Or should I say “it’s going well except for the leather stool he’s trashed in the kitchen”.

But that’s the price to pay for some crazy cute company and a tiny little creature to wake me up in the morning when I inevitably arise prior to any of the kids.

And my gosh, he’s a cute little monkey!