When people ask if we have pets, it’s always been an easy no. We have seven kids, why would we need pets?! At the same time, I wanted my kids to be comfortable around animals and compassionate towards them. I saw a flyer at our library for a program where you read to shelter animals.

Great, I thought, it’s an opportunity for exactly what I wanted – exposure to animals plus reading practice. What’s not to love?

To add context to this, I have to go back to a couple of years ago. Our next door neighbors had just moved away and took their tom cat with them. Shortly after their departure, our house was completely full of mice.

It got to the point where I was finding what the pest control people calls “signs” of mice in our living areas, and then actual mouse sightings. It was horrible. We cleaned our house top to bottom daily, set up traps. It was just more than we could handle. We hired a company and paid for their “shock and awe” campaign, which was guaranteed to work for a year.

If there were fewer mice after the shock and awe (and I’m not sure that was the case), they were never totally gone. The mice quickly ramped up the psychological torture in the months after the pest control folks “sealed” up the house. Either there was a hole in the seal, or the mice were now locked in with us.

We got to a point where I was cleaning our house as though it were for sale and we were having an open house every day. We went on vacation and came back and it was obvious the mice had thrown a rager in our absence.

Instead of coming back to honor their guarantee, the guys from the pest control company, who had already come back several times to climb under our porches and into our attic, were none too happy about their failure to eradicate our pest. They started gaslighting me.

Those aren’t mouse turds you’re seeing! They are surely something else!

It was a deeply frustrating time in our lives. And in the midst of it, we thought back to our neighbors’ cat. We missed the silent protection it had provided just by existing. The kids were quick to jump on board.

I wasn’t ready. I was still hoping our professionals could vanquish the mice. And I thought, what if we adopt a cat and it isn’t a mouser? Would its smell be enough to deter those little bastards from making babies in our attic?

Despite a tireless campaign by the kids, we never got a cat. I was afraid of adding more chores to my life, and it sort of seemed irresponsible to get a cat JUST for rodent control. What if it needed something from us? Would we just be using it for its raw hunting prowess?

We found another pest control company that weren’t a bunch of dicks, and subscribed to their annual plan for the intervening years, and the mice finally left or died.

Then we signed up to read to animals at the shelter. That was in August. I was seriously thinking about bringing home a cat after about two reading sessions. We read to cats, hamsters, rabbits, mice, and more cats. We walked past the cat condos when we were finished like we were window shopping.

I got an email from our pest control folks that our automatic yearly renewal would be debited soon and my eyes watered at the price.

One week, we saw a beautiful fat tabby with friendly green eyes. I fell in love immediately, but I was afraid. So we left without her, and the next week she was gone.

I knew if we saw another cat we really liked, we would have to just go for it. And I knew that at some point soon, I would be ready to do that.

Not long after that, we went to the shelter one Wednesday, and they had kittens. Kittens were not even on my radar – I don’t need responsibility for any more kids! – but they were SO CUTE.

The place was buzzing with people who wanted to see the kittens. I knew I had to make a move. I took the kids back home, then hit the road back to the shelter. It turned out the kitten we wanted had worms, and the adoption counselor took me around the corner to a slightly larger kitten who did not have any health issues.

When we met in the adoption counseling room, the cat cowered under the only piece of furniture, a giant cat wheel, and meowed piteously. “She’s the one.” I said, and I went home with her.

We lived with Luna for a few weeks before I was thinking about getting another cat. Luna has warmed up to us, and she will definitely be a mouser, but she is not super cuddly. I wanted a cat who would be affectionate.

We were reading to the cats again a month after getting Luna. They put us in with the spirit cats. Spirit cats are afraid of humans and are being taught not to fear them. I had five kids with me. We quietly walked in. The kids sat on the little cushions we were provided with, and started to read.

The only visible cat was on a tower, sleeping. He started to wake up. He was acting… playful. Usually with the spirit cats we have to crane our necks into the crannies of the room to even find out how many animals are in the room with us. For a cat in that room to show ANY interest in us was weird.

One of the kids quietly picked up a cat toy and dangled it above the cat’s head. He started playing, then hopped down to the floor and walked up to each one of us and greeted us and let us pet him.

If more than two people try to say hi to Luna, she is gone, but this guy was super chill about the sheer number of us.

We went up to the front when we were finished reading. We were all in love with the cat. The front desk told us he wasn’t available for adoption. He was moody, they said, and sensitive, and he wasn’t a good fit for our family.

We left for home feeling bereft. I grabbed the cat carrier and went back to the shelter anyway. I don’t remember what my plan was. Find a different cat? But as I arrived with my two older girls, they ran inside and then straight back out again shouting that the cat WAS available! Come quick!

It turns out the cat who chose us IS moody and sensitive. But he has lived with other cats and with kids before and none of his previous (three!) homes had brought him back because of him. There were other issues – an allergic kid, inadequate housing. The shelter had decided we could adopt him if we wanted to.

So they let us have him.We named him Rio, and he lives in the master bedroom. He and Luna are not yet friends. We discovered early on that both cats can open the old doors in our house, so we block one in at a time and let the other wander so they can swap scents until the day they are ready to hang out in the same room without trying to kill each other.

For whatever beef exists between the two cats, Rio has quickly become a part of our fam. Each night, I get into bed, and he hops onto the bed and curls up – either on me with his face right next to mine, or in the crook of my arm. When I wake up, he is near me on the bed, sleeping or silently keeping watch.

For all the reasons why cats were not a good idea for us in the past, we are at a different place now and they are working for us. They regularly remind us that their ancestors were wild animals. They make us laugh and soothe us. It turns out, I like having a house with cats.

Will the honeymoon someday be over? Will it take years for the cats to tolerate each other? Maybe.

But they clearly have something to teach us, and I’m finally ready to learn.