For those of you who haven't been to my house in the last two years, you may not know that I have two cats... it was unintentional that their arrival coincided with Chris' departure... I had already promised a friend that if her cat had a solid white female kitten I would take her... I also later offered to take one of the males if their new home fell through... so now I have two beautiful solid white cats that happened to be weaned at the same time Chris moved out... it made his absence a bit easier for the kids because they had a new distraction... who wouldn't be excited about two soft and fuzzy kitties? As with anyone who has small children mixed with even smaller animals, you tend to take a few precautions... Stella and Eddie were introduced as Hannah and Jack's new brother and sister... they were so tiny that I used to keep a kitty cube up on my bed for them to sleep in until they were fast enough to run from all of the hugs the kids were trying to give... Eddie has turned into a complete guy and does whatever it is that guys do at night but Stella will always find her way back to my bed at some point in the night... she has an affinity for waking me up by walking on me and rubbing her little face on mine... normally that wouldn't be a problem but my cats still have their claws so when she walks on me in hurts just enough to wake me up... and she doesn't let up after I've tossed her off the bed... no... she'll keep at it until I get up and turn on my bathroom faucet for her to drink out of and feed her... now I'm telling you this because I haven't been sleeping much over the past couple of weeks and it was after 3 a.m. before I fell asleep... Stella normally waits to announce her arrival around the same time my alarm is going off... she's my backup alarm... and I would not usually mind having her wake me up because I used to get at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep... but this morning she chose to wake me up at 4:27 a.m. and I must have tossed her off of the bed no less than 10 times before she curled up next to me and went back to sleep... so needless to say that I am more than tired this morning... but up and dressed... I have to go down to whatever government office has the birth certificate records because I need a copy to apply for the kids' Social Security benefits... I know I have several copies somewhere and I'm sure I'll find at least one of the copies after I pick this one up... Murphy's Law... I'm hoping the rest of my day will be better...