School vacation week and I’m home alone! As much as I love traveling with or without my children. I’m also a HUGE fan of being home alone without them.

And I’m not totally alone. Captain is here and there’s a new guy Opal snoozing in the corner.

Our kitten has arrived! Opal Shane Prada Curtis. Aka Opie. Opes. Opester. Opalicious. Opaltastic. Opalite.

BB named him. We may have been listening to Taylor Swift.

Opal sounds like he might be a she, but he is a he. Or a they. His testicles are long gone.

He is a love and an absolute maniac. He’s a decent split of sweet, sleepy cuddles and pure chaos.

As much as I would identify as a dog person, Opal’s immediate and consistent use of the litter box is EVERYTHING. So maybe I’m a dog person currently in my cat era.

I’m also pretty sure I’ve lost my mind.

It started when I bought the robotic self-cleaning litter box, then a cat tree that goes up to our ceiling, then cat toys, a self-filtering water fountain bowl, cat beds, and last but not least, a cat treadmill.

As I pushed aside kid toys in an already overflowing living room, Captain looked on in disbelief. There was still no cat in our house, but I was ready.

Fast forward to last night when Opal slept for most of the night on Captain’s chest.

I am a love-to-snuggle-while-I’m-awake person, then I want to roll over, have no contact with anyone and fall asleep.

Captain will very happily snuggle while awake and asleep, so Opal picked the right person.

Although really Opal’s person is BB. When she’s here, we close Opal in with her at night. Which is great.

I thought Opal was going to start World War III with my girls having a cat fight for the ages, but not the biggest surprise, RB is somewhat terrified.

Before Opal’s arrival, the original plan had been that we’d try to get Opal to alternate nights sleeping with one kid then the other.

That was probably always going to be impossible, so a near miss on that crisis. RB doesn’t scream every time the cat comes near her, but enough that he’s learned she shouldn’t be his first choice.

If you ask RB what she wants to be when she grows up she says,

“A singer, but not the main one. A veterinarian. A soccer player and a tennis player.”

So after another high pitch scream when the three-pound kitten rubbed her leg, I mentioned,

“It doesn’t seem like you’d enjoy being a veterinarian.”

RB scowled at me, marched to her room, slammed her door and said,

“Don’t let that cat in here. I don’t want him messing up my stuff.”

BB is obsessed with him enough for all of us. Opal and BB have found true love and RB has time for self-discovery before applying for vet school.

After 30,000 cat photos in the last week, it looks like my photo app will now be dedicated to Opal. What kids? Haven’t seen them.