Bella's 'birthday'

Happy “Birthday” Bella! Today is the day we pretend is Bella’s birthday, because we don’t know when her real one is (and she doesn’t care, obviously). This is also some fifteen months since the vet told us she had kidney disease and wouldn’t last more than a couple weeks. But Bella is a fighter—and always has been. She still loves sleeping in my lap as much as she can, so I kinda get the gift. Happy “Birthday”, Bella! #furbaby #catsofinstagram #catsofnewzealand #catsofnz

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Oct 3, 2017 at 2:35pm PDT

Today was our cat Bella’s “birthday” again, and we really were the ones who got the present. In July last year, the vet told us she had kidney disease and led us to think she’d only live a couple weeks. It’s now been 15 months, and she’s still doing well. This makes us very happy.

Bella has changed so much since she chose us all those years ago. She’s now one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever known, and a real lap cat (in fact, she’s sleeping in my lap as I write this).

As I said last year:

Bella has been a welcome and loved addition to our family, and we’re glad for each day we have with her. And we’re glad to celebrate another “birthday” with her—though she clearly has NO idea what we’re on about. We do, though, and that, too, is enough.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that when I go to take a close-up of Bella, she always looks down, and usually to the side. She did that for last year’s birthday photo, and for most of the photos of her I’ve shared on Instagram over the past year. The photo below taken shortly after the one above shows she does look up at me, if I’m farther away. No idea why that is, but in any case, she’s takes a good photo.

Previously
Bella’s Birthday (2013)
Equal Cat Time (2014) Not a birthday post.
Bella’s ‘birthday’ is today (2015)
Bella’s ‘birthday’ again (2016)