Good things come in small packages

This past week I made plans with the Wild Child, we were going to get up bright and early on Saturday morning, drive for 3 1/2 hours to my old hometown and go apple picking. Then  we were going to drive 3 1/2 hours back home. The car was all ready, we were excited and talking about it every day.

Then Friday arrived!

Friday afternoon the Wild Child walked home from school, I met him at the door with a tiny kitten in his hands. Apparently he had found it on the way home and wanted to save it.

**Flashback to my childhood "Mom, I found it in the woods. It was all alone and sad. Can we keep it PLEASE!!!!**

He was all scruffy looking and had matted fur. He was dirty and tiny and full of fleas. It's a holiday weekend and the no kill shelter is closed until Tuesday. We brought it in, gave it a bath, gave it a dose of flea stuff that we had from when the other cats were kittens and placed him in the basement to keep him away from the other animals until we could figure out what to do with him. I told the Wild Child we could probably keep him here in the basement until Tuesday and then we could take him to the no kill shelter. We already had 2 cats and I didn't think Hubby was going to want a third in the house.

Hubby came home from work and the Wild Child worked his charms. He used every trick in the book and maybe even invented a few as well. He even went to the extent of reminding his father that my cat, Rex, had passed away over the winter and so now I didn't have one. Martin is the Wild Childs kitty, Merlin was a gift to Hubby when his kitty was killed by coyotes. My kitty had been Rex and he was gone. In the end Hubby gave the Wild Child a choice, spend money on gas driving to Vermont and going apple picking OR keep the kitten and use that money for shots. He chose the kitten and I received the task of figuring out a name.

At first I thought about naming him Scruffy, since that's how he looked when the boy carried him in. Then I thought of naming him Zorro because of his little mustache. Isn't it the cutest thing you have ever seen?

The Wild Child didn't like Zorro so I kept thinking. We have had a few cats named after mythological gods (Loki and Minerva) so I started looking at greek god names. First I found Boreas, God of the north wind and winter. That's pretty fitting for our family since we sure do love winter. The Wild Child didn't like the pronunciation and thought it might be difficult to say all the time and even harder to find a short name or nick name for.

Then I found Apollo: God of sun, music, archery, poetry, healing and prophecy. I love the sun and how it feels on my face, the sun alone can bring me happiness. Musical talent runs in my family and I find nothing more relaxing than cranking up my favorite tunes and singing along. When in high school I loved archery and was pretty good at it too. I enjoy writing poetry, especially when I am having emotional moments and need to get stuff out of my head. I work all the time to heal and move on from my past. Prophecy, well when I had gone to the bank to take out a little money for the trip my bank account was $666 and then this guy showed up keeping me from going back to my hometown. (In case you don't know, many believe 666 to be the number of the devil) I wonder if it was a sign...makes ya think huh?

I named him Apollo, it seemed to fit.

Of course Saturday I take him in and am informed that he can't be more than 6 weeks old and can't get any shots for 2 weeks. He is adorable, plays well and eats a ton. He has trouble with dry food so we are giving him canned kitten food for now. He's doing pretty good with the litter box so long as I put him in it shortly after he eats. He will learn in due time to go to it on his own, until then I will continue to carry him to the box. He won't go for anyone but me so that's my job, but then again he is my kitten so I guess that's the way it should be.


Good things come in small packages, in this case the package has been named Apollo.