The Cat Door

Now:

Not too long ago, a facebook friend posted a status about his cat and his cat door. He wrote about the cat bringing a rabbit into the house through the cat door. Thank you, Louis, for bringing back a very happy memory.

Then:

Gary and I were living in a converted log cabin lake home when the children were born. The home was small, but it was filled with love. In the back of the house was a screened three season porch.  After the children were born, the porch was used as a toy room. In the winter, the toys were dragged into the living room. Actually, most days they were dragged into the living room. In addition to four children, we also had two cats. The cats loved the screened in porch. It was their favorite space before the children were born, and Gary had installed a cat door so they could go in and out whenever they wished. Cat doors are a pretty decent size, and moving creatures other than cats can get through them. Yep, you guessed it, babies who can crawl are capable of crawling right through the cat door, and they did! It was adorable! Imagine the look on visitors' faces when they would, very unexpectedly, witness one, two, three, four babies crawl right through the cat door.

Rick coming through the door. 

Shannon - "Ready? Here I go!"

Meredith and Tracy having a kiss before they go through the door.

One Christmas, after spending all Christmas Eve wrapping gifts, we put the children's presents under the tree and the gifts for others on the porch. Our four thirteen month olds opened their presents and were playing happily when Gary and I went into the kitchen to make breakfast. "Uh-oh," I said, "it's awful quiet in there." I walked into the living room to find no babies. Yep, all four of them were on the porch opening every single gift out there. It does not take long for four babies to open a dozen or so gifts. Tracy was sitting on the porch floor with a Lenox candlestick, meant for my mother-in-law, in each hand. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but all the gifts did need to be re-wrapped. Never again did we store anything that we didn't want the children to touch on the porch.

Eventually, the children became too big to fit through the cat door. No one ever got stuck. I think it just became too uncomfortable for them, and the porch, once again, became a haven for the cats.