Just Austin (aka Kitty Food)

Over the 4th we went down to Kerry's sister's house, and the kids LOVED playing with their friendly little kitten.  There were multiple times where I thought how nice it would be to have a cat, but then there's the perpetual dilemma Kerry and I have had about pets, which is whether the pets will indoor/outdoor or just outdoor.  Our yard is too small to have outdoor only pets with a good conscience, our backyard is not yet fenced, and I really don't want to have to deal with potty training an animal when I'm still working really hard to keep the house at housekeeping baseline.  So I dismissed the idea as something that might be great for an unspecified time in the future.

We got home late on the 4th, and we were trying to get all the sleeping kids in the house and into their beds without them waking up traumatized from all the fireworks (Kearns residents take their firework celebrations very seriously, and then with the arial fireworks legal this year it was like being in a war zone), when a stray cat who was also freaked out by all the noise ran in our open door, through the house, and went under our bed.  Kerry got the cat out, and after getting the kids all in bed, he sat outside with the poor cat and fed it tuna fish.

After asking around, we found out that the cat really is a stray, so we kept feeding it, and it's stuck around.  It's the best of all worlds: I don't have to worry about a litter box because as of right now the cat stays outside, but the kids LOVE having it (him? her? I should probably find out) around to play with and feed.  There aren't tons of people outside during the day in our little section of the neighborhood, so whenever we're outside playing or the kids are riding bikes, the cat comes to hang with us, and in the evening when I'm watering the garden or Kerry and I are relaxing on the porch it comes and sits with us.

We started calling the cat Just Austin from a Backyardigans episode, but he is also referred to by Tam as Kitty Food.  The funny things about learning a new language.  I think the ideas of animals and feeding them are too intertwined right now for him, but it cracks me up when he's chasing the long suffering cat around trying to give it some attention and yelling "Kitty Food!" at it.  Kate, meanwhile, just wants to have the cat sit on her lap for more than 2 seconds, which doesn't happen very often, and Yeb likes to watch it eat, but then gets sucked back to playing with something that has wheels.