The Kitten Formerly Known as Aria

Originally uploaded by Lexy L.

After much deliberation and much anguish, we have finally settled (resettled?) on a name for the kitty. For some reason, Aria never stuck, even though we all liked it. We waded through baby name book after baby name book, and finally came up with *the* name.

Drumroll please.....
...introducing...
Kyra Skye!

Of course, as typical in our family, her given name is rarely used. She already has a million nicknames, including KiKi, Kyra-boo, and most frequently: Kitty Face. It's a wonder that we even bother to put so much thought into names!

Kyra Kitty has just the best little personality. She's just so mellow and cheerful. (Yes, a cat can be cheerful!) Our biggest challenge has been keeping Griffin from driving her crazy. He loves to carry her around (and thankfully has finally learned to pick her up properly; before we would discover him holding her by the neck. Eeek.), and loves to put her in strange places. He often takes her on the "bus", which, in his mind is the bathroom cabinets. Kyra is amazingly good natured about all of this and really doesn't seem to mind!

We don't know Kyra's history, but we suspect that she might have been weaned a little prematurely. She has adopted a black and tan stuffed dog as her own Mama, and when she sees it, she goes running for it. She immediately collapses on top of it, kneads her paws, and begins to "nurse" on the stuffed dog. Oh, and she purrs so loud that you can hear it across the room. The first time that Griffin saw Kyra "nursing" her stuffed Mama dog, he came running for me. "Mama! Mama!" he yelled excitedly. "Kitty nursing...happy," he said with a sigh. Fine, fine. I had been working towards weaning him. Who taught Griffin the art of the guilt trip?