CATS

She arrived shortly after we did, a whisper thin puff of fur that would come to sip from our fountain and occasionally sleep on our porch furniture. In truth she barely registered on our radar, between unpacking, hosting events and learning to cook beans that don’t come in a can. Stray cats (and dogs) in Costa Rica are as common as squirrels in New England. Parades of bony, scruffy would-be pets greet you at every turn here, to the sad point of making even this bleeding heart turn callus.

Then, she had kittens behind our garage. How is it that all babies seem to make things more complicated?

At first I tried to keep my distance. “My oldest daughter has allergies, you know, and once we start feeding them, we’ll have cats everywhere!” Quietly, I feared that the well of energy and patience that is constantly tapped by my kids would be completely depleted if I had to care for one more creature. But then my housekeeper found them, and immediately began buying milk for the mamma cat, “so she won’t get too skinny, feeding her babies.” My gardener brought in old shirts to make a bed for them. Feeling quite like the Grinch in need of a larger heart, I slunk off to Pricemart (the local equivalent of Costco) and bought an enormous bag of Cat Chow.

The true tipping point arrived when my babies met her babies. Deprived of their own pets for so long, I had never seen that particular kind of wonder, amazement, curiosity and affection in my girls before. Two months later, they still look for the kittens the minute they get up in the morning and the minute they get home from school; they still want to recount to me every adorable action. They feed them, stare at them, and have given them names.

Roll call. At last count we had five cats in our compound. Mom, three kids, and a large, sleek, bruiser of a dad. What they are called depends largely on the person speaking. “Kitt-a-lees!” says my youngest; my husband generally calls them “In My Way.” The older girls have been more thoughtful, thorough, and specific. Mom is Sparkles. It was decided (rather than actually determined) that the kittens consisted of two boys named Wrestle and Dash, and a girl named Violet. And the dad? Greg MacGilpin.

I finally faced that the cats weren’t likely to leave. So the most humane and sane option seemed to be what the Costa Ricans call castrar. Sparkles is calm and affectionate, and I had no trouble placing her gently in a basket for the 20 minute ride to the vet. The kittens are frightened and fast; I knew I would need help.

I asked if I could attend a meeting of the Middle School Paws n’ Claws club. It is run by a group of earnest tween girls who love cats and dogs with an as yet unchecked combination of innocence and fervor. They manage a shelter in town that they maintain through club fundraisers. Their efforts bring discount spay and neuter clinics to the shelter regularly, and they place about 50 cats and dogs in homes annually. I am both humbled, mostly because my memories of Middle School involved passion about things like Vidal Sasson jeans and invitations to make-out parties, and psyched because I knew I had come to the right place.

Within 30 minutes I had six club members at my house, donning oven mitts and old towels, bravely chasing kittens around my yard. It was one of those moments when I wished that my life had a soundtrack. They managed to catch Violet and Wrestle, but not Dash. Perhaps my girls knew more than I did. Experienced with this sort of thing, the girls set up a cage for me with a swinging door and a string that I could pull from inside my house. They laid a trap of food and water, and wished me luck.

I caught Dash, and managed to get all the kittens to and home from the spay and neuter clinic. I suppose that I could have left them at the shelter. Except that I couldn’t. Maybe because I grew up with a mom who would stop the car for a stray cat at the side of the road. Maybe because my children love them so much. I’d like to think that it’s because I realize, finally, that the point of this life is to make my heart bigger. But I’ll let you know when the next pregnant kitt-a-lee shows up.