The Name

I suppose at this time I'd better explain Cleo's name and how she got it. When we first got her, we assumed that She was a He. She also did NOT fall through the hole like the other 2 kitties. She was on the very edge. When Jerry saw this, the only thing he could think of was the movie "The 300" where Leonidus kicks the messenger into the huge pit

THIS IS SPARTA!!

So we gave this tiny kitten a huge name, Leonidus. Of course, we were only guessing at the gender. You can't tell what gender a kitten is until they get a little older. So we didn't know that little Leo was a girl until we took her to the vet (poor kitty got constipated). That's when we found out that 99% of all Calico's are female. Still, the vet's assistant picked her up and checked, much to little kitty's dismay. And that's how little Leonidus became Cleonidus a.k.a Cleo

The Evil Box

Ever since she has been little, Cleo has had a fascination with boxes and dropping things down the stairs. Her food bowl used to be at the top of a flight of stairs. When you would feed her, all you'd hear is  Thudathudathudathuda as this little kitten flew up to the top of the stairs. You'd hear it again when she would drop her toys down the stairs and chase after them. Then she'd pick them up, bring them to the top of the stairs, and drop them down again. Over and over again. She started to do this with her cans of cat food too. My husband and I would wake up to the sudden clanging of metal falling down the stairs. Well, one day she decided that she was going to attack a box at the top of the stairs. She sat on the stairs and swatted the box with every whack of the paw pulling it closer to the edge of the stairs until finally the little kitten comes flying down the stairs and the box comes chasing after her.

The Start Of It All

For the longest time I had wanted to get a pet. I love cats, but unfortunately, the husband is allergic. After a long while of me pestering him for a pet he finally turned to me and said "If god wants us to have a pet, he'll give us a pet." That night, we go to bed. Suddenly, Jerry goes downstairs after hearing a crash. He comes back upstairs and says "Hun, take out your earplugs. We've got kittens." I go downstairs and see a hole in the dining room ceiling and a little kitten on the floor. Apparently, a cat had tried to move her litter into the ceiling and it had collapsed under the weight.

The hole in the ceiling

Scared Mama Cat

We named him Geronimo

We grabbed the biggest box we could find and put kitten number one in it

Named this one Leo at first...

Then we checked the hole and found kitten number 2. It became very apparent that kitten number 1 belonged to the Mama Cat that fell through, but kitten number 2 seemed to have been abandoned in the hole by a different cat. Eventually, Mama Cat escaped the house and kitten number 1 was returned to her. But that left us to deal with kitten number 2. After bottle feeding her every 2 hours for a couple of weeks, she mewed and snuggled her way into our hearts and Cleo finally became a part of the family.