The kids and their cats

Sometime last fall, Erik and I decided that the kids would really love a pet. And, by loving a pet, I mean, they talked about it NON-STOP! Erik and I are not cat people. At all. If anything, we are dog people. But, I was not going through training dogs in the fall again, by myself, with little kids at home. And, now that we live in the tundra, I wasn't about to do this task in the middle of winter. So, we opted for cats. Erik happened upon a conversation with some ladies at school who just happened to have a few four-five month old kittens. Her husband wanted them out of the house. I told Erik, fine, we could get one. Under no circumstances were we coming home with four. Anyways, we decide on a day to go up to pick out the kittens. We weren't going to bring them home until after the Christmas holiday, but because Bailey wasn't going to be here for Christmas we wanted her to be part of picking out a family pet. A day or two before going up there, I realized that it would be in our best interest to get two cats so they could keep each other occupied. In a few short years, Nate will be in school full time and I was not going to occupy a cat! So, two cats it is.
We walk into this ladies house and see four kittens scattering everywhere. The kids went crazy! They had no idea until we were in her driveway what we were doing. I then realized...we had three kids at home. What in the world was going to happen if two kittens each chose one child to sleep with? That would leave one child by themselves. Great. Three cats it is.
Bailey instantly found a kitten and it fell asleep in her arms. She wanted this particular one and wanted to name it Molly. The boys were just crazy trying to grab the other kittens. I wasn't worried about them picking out one because they would be with us to get them. So, off we went with three excited kids.
Fast forward another two weeks. It's time to get the cats. We walk in and the lady can only find three out of the four cats. Please, let one of those cats be Bailey's! It looked completely different from the other one's as it had a white chest and white legs. Whew....that one was there. Snatch it up and put it in the carrier. Two more were sleeping together on the chair. There we go. Three cats. We thank her and come on home with our packages.
Bailey's cat, Molly, is pretty much afraid of her shadow. She refused to come out of the bag for almost an hour and when she did come out, she went right under the couch and we pretty much didn't see her for three days. She looks completely different from the other two cats and is much much smaller in size.
Lex's and Nate's cats could be twins. We actually had to put a collar one of them to tell them apart. Nate couldn't say kitty correctly and kept calling it "Biddy." So, that's his name.
Lex wanted to name his cat either Heidi(his aunt) or Elli(his cousin). We tried to explain that those were girl names and he had a boy cat. Also, can you imagine a teenage boy trying to explain to his friends why his boy cat is named that?? So, Erik tried talking him out of it. Tried to tell him he should think of something he really likes. Spiderman. Okay, but every toy and animal you have is named Spiderman (actually pronounced 'Piderman by Lex). Erik asked him to think of something he really likes that is only one word. "Chocolate! I really like chocolate!" But, he didn't want his cat to be called chocolate. Erik tried to tell him that chocolate is made from cocoa, sugar, etc. and Lex instantly said, "Cocoa, that's my cat's name." So, there you have it. The kids and their cats.