Olive and Renegade

 Four years ago Scott gave me a kitten for Christmas. He was tiny and cute and we called him Renegade. This cat lived in our family until about a month ago when we listed him on KSL and a nice family came to take him home. There were lots of reasons why we decided to give him away but it was pretty hard to come to that decision because Oilve really liked the idea of having a cat. She identified herself as a cat owner and liked to talk about him when we saw other animals. I was pretty nervous about how she would react to him being gone. This is the funny story of her coming to terms with it. I'm sure no one else cares but I just really want to remember.... 

 One evening a family came to look at our cat Renegade to see if they wanted him to live at their house. Olive met the family and liked running around with the little boy. We had prepared her before hand by talking about how Renegade was going to live with a different family now and she seemed pretty ok with it. She liked the idea of him, but didn't actually like playing with him, or at least she wasn't too interested yet. So they took Renegade home with them that evening.

The next day Olive was playing in the back yard with Scott when some cats came running through our bushes. One of them was black, but small like a kitten (Renegade was huge weighing in at 20+ pounds) Olive yells "Renegade! He's back!" Then pauses and looks more closely at him and says "It's kind of Renegade?" because she realized that something was off about this cat. Still convinced it was hers she went up to try and pet it and it kept running away from her. In frustration and chasing it around the yard she yells "Renegade, it's me! Come back here! Renegade, stop running away!" Finally the cat scampers away into the next yard probably because it was feeling harassed by this little girl convinced it was her friend.
The following morning as I was doing my make up, Olive was sitting outside the bathroom talking to me as she often does (she is not allowed inside the bathroom while I'm in there so she just sits on the floor and talks and talks) I brought up the cat from yesterday to see if she was upset about missing Renegade or not. I asked "Did you see Renegade yesterday?" and she tells me "It was kind of Renegade." Then she thinks for a minute and says "It was Renegade's little brother!" He was small." Surprised by this I said "Oh, his little brother huh? What is Renegade's brother's name?" and without skipping a beat she answers "Rufus!"

This is why I love 3 year old Olive. I have no idea where she came up with Rufus. I have racked my brain thinking where she might have heard it before. I just adore the innocence and confidence that fill her life right now. I just might think that this is the perfect age (like I have never said that before).