The LOLCats Live at Our House

We clearly all needed more chaos in our lives, so enter the litter of foster-kittens. Five kittens, to be exact, although an exact count at any one time is extremely unlikely. Two look like this:
Two look like this:
And only one looks like this:She's also the bruiser of the bunch, outweighing the others at a whopping one pound. We'll probably have these babies for a month, until they're old enough and weigh enough to be able to be adopted, and then we'll bring them back.

Lots of people are actually pretty horrified when I tell them about our regular influx of foster-kittens. They're all, "Oh, won't the girls be broken-hearted when the kittens go back?" No, it's totally a reasonable question, and I don't know, perhaps my kids have hearts of ice or they're just exceptionally oblivious, but Matt and I have never even so much as implied, through word or association, that there would even be the slightest of possibilities that we could actually keep these kittens. They are our visitors and our guests, and guests ALWAYS go home eventually. So I don't know, maybe a more clued-in kid would figure out what's really going on, but it works for my kids.

Here's my list of reasons for why everyone with kids should absolutely foster:

1. Kittens are cute, fun, and entertaining. They make kids happy.
2. Caring for kittens and handling them appropriately are useful skills to learn--they teach kids that having a creature under your care requires a lot of work and a lot of self-restraint.
3. The kittens will need to go back in two weeks to a month, which is about as long as it takes for the novelty to wear off, anyway.
4. Kittens need to be put in foster families at first, because they're very susceptible to stress, illness, and the development of bad habits at the Humane Society.
5. Fostering kittens makes them more adoptable, because they will be litter-trained and very well socialized, especially towards children, and are far less likely to develop bad habits.
6. When it's time to return the kittens, saying goodbye to creatures that the children loves teaches them that we can't always keep what we love, that love carries on even after loss, and that pleasant memories comfort us and eventually become what is important.
7. Expending love and care on creatures that the children know they will eventually give to someone else teaches them the skill of service, that we should also work for the benefit of others, even if we won't ever meet them.

And, finally, 8. Sleeping with a kitten is an experience everyone should have:

At least a few million times before you're six years old, especially.