As I sit and write this post from the comfort of my overstuffed chair in the corner of the living room beside the woodstove, two kittens are tumbling up and down the stairs just outside the room. I can hear their thundering paws as they tackle and roll and skitter away from each other.

Somehow in the last few months, the line between our "outdoor mouse-hunting barn cats" and "indoor house cats" got very blurry.

This morning, my wake up call came from Mary, who had sneaked downstairs and outside to find these two little kittens waiting for her. I think they've caught on to her routine. She came to my bedside, the sound of loud purring coming from her arms : "One for you. One for me." as a pile of fluff was dumped on my chest. She slid in the covers beside me, tucking her ball of warmth under the comforter.

My children have this way with kittens. They get so much attention and love, mixed with just the perfect amount of patience-forming teasing, that I believe they end up to be the perfect pets. I know these two kittens, when they find the perfect home, will make sweet additions to some little family.

Between you and me, Columbus is my favorite, though Panda wins the cute award. Columbus has the motor of diesel truck and at the first stroke of your hand down his back, it kicks in. Sometimes just the anticipation of it, gets him going.

This weekend, he fell sound asleep in my arms and the girls grabbed the FLIP so we could record his purring. But there must be some stage of sleep rhythm for cats that inhibits purring. He was so sound asleep we could barely get him to show it off. I always thought cats were the lightest of sleepers, but Columbus seems to be proving us wrong.

And for the record, the heavy breathing is coming from Columbus, not from me.