My Other Kids.

I may not have mentioned recently that, in addition to our two small boys, T and I have 2 girls from before we were married. That's right, I was an unwed mother. I tenderly bottle fed my twin girls, stayed up nights with them, comforted them when they were scared. For the past 5 years they have been a constant in my life: cheering me up when I was sad, massaging my back when I was pregnant and miserable, and snuggling with me in my bed when T was out of town or gone overnight.

The fact that they are black and furry doesn't change a thing.

Our girls have an ongoing flirtation with "out of doors". They like to wait until the door is cracked open, then dart out for a brief breath of fresh air. Of course, as they are totally domesticated, pampered princesses, they immediately realize "oh shit, I'm OUTSIDE!" and do a 180 back into the house. Back to where the ground is soft, there is an endless supply of salmon-flavored kibble, little crinkly toys that smell of catnip, and patches of sunshine where one can lounge in air-conditioned comfort.

Yesterday, it seems, they decided they had had enough of our rules. Or maybe they heard me talking about possibly shaving Cassie to get under the knots that have formed under her coat despite sick amounts of grooming.

Whatever the reason, they waited for an opportunity and headed off into the great big world. We didn't even realize they had gone until evening; when we put the kids to bed and they didn't come to reclaim each individual square foot of the house as their own.

I panicked. We searched the house. I wandered outside in my slippers, calling and clicking. T swept the back yard. We took turns hiking through the scrub brush behind the houses, calling and begging... shaking the can of treats.... Nada.

Chloe, usually the most adventurous of the pair, apparently returned in the night and bedded down in the garden shed. (Kind of like the time I ran away from home. I got too scared to actually leave the yard and ended up spending the afternoon in my clubhouse. Which was totally like running away, even if my family never knew I was "gone". )

After a bath and a meal, she was much happier. I was apoplectic; overjoyed to have her back and devestated that the girls weren't together.

Somewhere Cassie, the prissy, long-haired duchess of a kitty, is alone in The Big Blue Room. There's a storm on the way, and she is all alone in the big bad world. And, bless her heart, I'm not sure she's got the brains to find her way home. She's as sweet as can be, it's just that she couldn't figure her way out of a paper bag.

Wherever you are out there, Cassie: Don't worry. Mama's Coming.