Meet our latest house guests: Tootsie, Snickers, Taffy and Twizzler, here to bring the mewing, the clawing, the purring and a big dose of vitamin Awww.
Circumstances did what circumstances will do sometimes, and these local little felines suddenly found themselves without their mother. Of course, the stellar Tillamook Animal Shelter rescued them, and shared photos of them on Facebook, drinking from bottles and napping in fluffy piles. When I saw this, I waited exactly three nonchalant minutes before asking Geza if we could provide them with temporary foster care. He waited exactly one tenth of a second before saying, "Yes."
Why? When life is so hectic and there is already too much not getting done, why bring kittens into the mix?
Because, well, shoot. The reason is sort of deep inside my head, like a feeling that something is happening now and it is important. I've had this feeling before, and I liked what happened when I listened to it. Yes, it was when a pregnant dog spewed puppies all over my living room. Noticing a theme here?
I suppose this is what people romanticize about country life: all of the life. I've never heard a person speak disparagingly of a childhood filled with baby critters, even if things are messy and laborious at times. When we chose to homeschool, I decided against any particular program or curriculum, and cut out activities the kids weren't actively begging me for. This wasn't because I'm lazy, which I can be, but not in this case. It was because I believed something else would fill that space.
And that something just happens to be animals a lot of the time.
Impromptu Kitten Unit or What My Kids Get Out of Caring for Critters
Science: Squirming cause and effect.
For the younger two, the conversations have gotten deep. Often, we compare our bodies to the kittens'. Look at her forepaw. It's like your hand, isn't it? But it's also different. How is it different?
The way an animal behaves when he's content, hungry, in pain, or looking for some fun, is communicated without the fog of verbal meaning. For a person who is still getting the hang of words and their definitions, it is useful to employ these concepts without being graded on syntax. By responding to another creature's cues, a young person can practice caring, before they know what it is. Which leads me to
Empathy: What's it like to be you?
Not only can we talk about their body parts, their habits, and their needs, we can try to put ourselves into their paws. We learned that kittens have very limited vision and rely on their whiskers to figure out the world directly in front of their faces. As soon as Mae saw Tootsie shudder and stare blankly at a shadow, she melted with empathy, scooping her up to keep her safe. Imagining that someone else is having a totally different experience than the one you are having is a heavy-duty abstract notion for somebody who is not yet five.
Confrontation Therapy: Sensory Overload, but in a Good Way
A litter of kittens, like most critters, provides ample scratching, stubbornness, wriggling, and sudden noise-making. This barrage of sensorial tricks and treats can surprise, startle, delight, frustrate, and sometimes hurt a young person, trying to make the kitten stay in the Lego house.
I can see how someone like George benefits from this. He's a big fan of predictable routines, and doesn't appreciate sudden anythings, except when flappy chicks, pushy puppies, and scratchy kittens are involved. When, while handling resident or visiting animals, he gets a faceful of wings, or a tiny little nibble from a barely-weaned, furry mouth, his resilience is inspirational. There's no giving up on loving a kitten. They spark in him a desire to return and try again; to build relationships over time.
Math: Count the Combos
Last, but not least, when you have to care for four kittens, you have frolicky fun word problems in the making. While they are our furry little teachers here at the BU, they are also doing their fair share of learning. These babies need to be handled, startled, cuddled, and surprised by humans during their early days. That's because, when they find themselves in a shelter eventually, potential adopters will not consider a hissing frightened ball of feral fur for a pet. So, every evening, Henry and Thomas bring the kittens upstairs in pairs, to climb up pillows, jump off of beds, surf the storms of beds sheets and hide in book forts.
Night after night, as they took up various combinations of cats, we got to talking. How many different kitten pairs are possible?
What's the best way to figure that out? Sure, you can start with: Snickers plus Tootsie (1), Snickers plus Taffy (2), Snickers plus Twizzler (3), and then keep counting all of the other cats that way, but you'd soon run into some repeats. Taffy plus Tootsie (4), Taffy plus Twizzler (5), Taffy plus Snickers? Nope, we said that already. So, moving on to another kitten, Twizzler or Tootsie, we're going to have even more repeats. I asked aloud, "Isn't there some kind of mathematical formula, to help us know how many possible kitten combos can be taken for playtime upstairs?"
Lucky for all of us, the dad of the house is mathmalicious. He dropped this little beauty on me before I was even done asking for it.
N x (N-1) = X
2
N=the number of kittens, or puppies, or platypi you happen to be grouping into pairs. In this case, that number is four.
I'll spare you the ciphering. Where N=4, the answer to how many unique pairs can be made, X= 6. The kids may romp with six different sets of cats in their adventures upstairs.
Question: answered
Math: learned
We can move on to play time. I give you the Tabletop Kitten Arena
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