Gratitude Challenge - Day 8

Today I am thankful for my families love of animals.  I have always been an animal lover.  I even thought about becoming a vet at one point (till I thought of the fact that some of my patients might die - I just couldn't handle the thought of that at the young age of 18).  To see that my family is just as enamored with furry little critters makes me smile.

That and seeing cute little faces like these.

Meet our newest foster kittens: 

Mork & Mindy 

(note: they came to us named)

They were found with their mother (a stray) so needless to say they are quite shy considering they haven't had much human interaction.  After being in our charge for only 24-hours they are already opening up to us.  Looking forward to some good cuddles from these 2 in the very near future.

Things that Make you Go Hmmmmm...

My Facebook friends are probably aware that I have been having a rough week at work.  I've been called a liar and been threatened with a lawsuit for the supposed lie.  Anyone who knows me knows I don't lie.  In fact, growing up, lying was punished more severely than anything else I can remember.  Although I know I didn't lie and I know they don't have a case, it still hurts that someone accused me.

This year we signed our kids up to participate in 2 group classes.  One was science and the other was also a bit science related but was based around Lego's or K'Nex.  This week it was decided the science class was going to be cancelled for the rest of the year.  Apparently a few of the families who were participating just couldn't make it anymore and we couldn't hold the class with the few people remaining.  The group is still going to try to get together once a month but it's going to be a bit more laid back.  A part of me is sad and another part of me is happy because my schedule only seems to be getting busier.

This week I ended up teaching my daughter's Lego class and my husband ended up teaching our son's K'Nex class.  I've taught the Lego class last year so it wasn't that big of a deal.  Technically it was the second time my husband filled in for the K'Nex teacher, but it was the first time he actually taught the lesson rather than just helping the kids build something with K'Nex.  Not only did he enjoy himself, but the kids he taught enjoyed the class too.

My husband is also in the process of figuring out the feasibility of teaching a class starting in January about building and programming robots.  They wouldn't be competing with other schools or groups like some of the robotics groups out there, but this would be the first step toward that (we hope).

One night this week, my daughter and I were reading a book.  I read a page and then I had her read a couple pages.  Then my son volunteered to read!  Not only was that a surprise in and of itself, but his reading has improved.  I know he's been reading in his room at night and I was hoping it would help his reading improve.  It was nice to actually witness it.

I don't know what's going on, but my husband is really getting into the whole stay-at-home Dad thing.  He's been enjoying the time with the kids.  He's volunteering to teach their classes if needed.  He enjoys cooking and he's getting good at it too.  He's even getting to the point where cleaning is becoming part of his routine.

A little over a week ago we let my daughter's hamster go free.  It was a hard decision to make, but his brother (from the same litter) passed away suddenly a few months ago and the remaining hamster seemed to be getting sick.  He had a growth on his neck that kept getting bigger and bigger.  He only cost $5 so taking him to the vet just wasn't in the cards.  We though about putting him out of his misery but no one was willing to do it and no one wanted to watch him slowly die.  So my daughter decided to let him go in a secluded and safe area in the back yard so that he could live out whatever life he had left in the wild.  We have seen no sign of him since and that's particularly important since we have an outdoor cat that likes to leave us presents.  In fact, the first few days after we let the hamster go, part of my morning routine was to check the present location before the kids might stumble across something.

I think the lack of small furry things has finally hit us.  We got a call from a woman who runs a cat rescue the other day asking if we would be willing to take a litter of kittens.  Being the suckers that we are, we said yes.  They will be joining our family this coming week.

What Were We Thinking?

Yep, we've gone and done it.  We are fostering 5 kittens that are about 13 weeks old.  We have been thinking about doing this for a couple years but knew we couldn't do it till we were no longer renting.  I had contacted someone letting them know we would be interested as soon as we got the renovations done on our house but we received an urgent email looking for someone willing to foster 2 kittens.  When I called the contact, I was asked if we'd be willing to watch 5 instead.  We were reluctant to take 5 at first but we might as well;  they needed a place to stay and we have the space.

The skittish one

The playful one

The reluctant one

The friendly one

The loving one

As any regular reader knows, my daughter loves all animals.  She has talked about how she wants to be a vet or work at an aquarium.  We figure that fostering will give our daughter an idea of what it's like to care for an animal (physically and emotionally) and then have to give it to it's (new) owner.

Hubby and I agree that we need to do everything we can to help our children focus their learning on  the thing God has called them to do which we'd like to this is also something they enjoy doing.  That means we first need to help make sure they REALLY know what they want to do.

Hubby has been teaching our son computer programming with programming robots as the ultimate goal.  So far our son is still very excited and gun-ho about robots as his future vocation.  This allows us to make sure that everything he does is focused on making sure he is moving toward that ultimate goal.  Why send him to horse camp if he'd be better served by $200 in cash to spend on parts to build a robot (or robot camp in a year or two when he's old enough)?

So how can we help our daughter determine if she really wants to care for animals?  That's simple, let her care for animals.  If she enjoys caring for kittens and can part with them once they are adopted, then maybe we can move on to something else like talking to someone who works at the local aquarium or talking to a vet, or someone at a zoo (or all three).  The woman from the rescue said that if these work out well, she would even consider letting us take younger ones to let my daughter get a more full experience of the kitten experience.

All I know is that these kittens are SO cute and sweet, I might have trouble parting with them too.

Oh, and we found a bonus too.  We had a couple days notice before the kittens were dropped off so we convinced the kids to do a REALLY good job of cleaning up their toys so we didn't have any kitten hazards out when they showed up.  I must say, the house ended up pretty clean.  :-)