You know who doesn’t care if you’re going through something?

Mice. Mice don’t care.

On one of the many sleepless nights I’ve had recently, I suddenly realized that I was hearing a skittering sound that could only mean one thing: The mice had realized that we’d lost our Taco Cat and they were taking advantage of the situation.

These are the things that happen when you live in an old farm house in the middle of the woods.

While a mouse trap line was quickly installed by the experts, I knew that we’d need to think about a more permanent and less icky approach to rodent control sooner rather than later.

While the dogs have proved to be expert exterminators outside, they didn’t have the same level of ambition when it came to guarding the inside. With all of the loss we’ve had lately, and with the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds still trying to adjust to our new situation, I was nervous about bringing a new pet into the mix.

However, I also am a firm believer in the healing power of pets, and knew that bringing the right furball into the family could possibly be a little ray of sunshine that we all needed. So, I started hoping that the right kitten would cross our paths at the right time.

I also made the “mistake” of mentioning that to my good friend, P. She found a new mission in life, and I found myself getting tagged in all sorts of “free to a good home” cat posts on social media.

None of them quite felt like the right cat, though, and another idea started to form in my brain.

One dog had been a great addition to our family, but things really got exciting when we got the second one. Although he had initially been resistant to his little brother, Dunc came around to Henson pretty quickly, and now the two of them are inseparable.

Maybe I needed to take the same route with the cats? Our original cat, Tubbs, had been adamantly an only cat, and I’d just gotten stuck on the idea of having one cat, but maybe, just maybe, we were now a two-cat family.

Almost immediately after I had that thought, P sent me a picture of a little cat family, featuring two brothers and two sisters. While we definitely weren’t a four-cat family, I was intrigued by the two brothers. It turned out that their foster mother was hoping to adopt them out together, as they were a bonded pair. She even said they had their own way of talking to each other.

So, E and I made a short road trip to meet them and we both fell in love instantly. The kittens were immediately drawn to her and she got more snuggles out of them in five minutes than she had ever had in three years with Taco.

While we were 99% sure we’d found our new feline friends, we still had to clear it with the rest of the family. I also didn’t want to bring new pets into the house before we headed out on our Disney trip. Taking care of the dogs, the chickens, and the guinea pigs was going to be enough of a headache for our friends and family. We made arrangements to pick them up just hours after we got back from our trip.

For the next two weeks, the great name debate raged. They were two relatively nondescript gray and white tabby cats.

Nothing in particular jumped out about them that inspired any one particular set of names. The kids considered famous duos, like Thor and Loki, Ron and Harry, Tom and Jerry, and Woody and Buzz. Our friends made “helpful” contributions, like Cheech and Chong. Calvin and Hobbes were contenders for a while, as were Holmes and Watson.

After setting every screen background she has to a picture of the kitties, E decided that one of them definitely looked like an “Otis.” None of the famous Otises really came in a pair, though, so we were still stumped. So, we started down the “O” list of names: Oliver, Otto (Otto the Catto almost won), and well, that was a pretty short list. Finally, we landed on Oscar. Oscar and Otis just clicked.

The O’s have lived up to every expectation I’ve had. They’ve been cuddly and playful, and snuggle in with one of the kids every night. Having another set of mouths to feed and care for has been good for the kids, a small reminder that life does go on, and that they need to follow through with their responsibilities, even when they don’t feel like it. Their antics have made the kids laugh a little more, which has been sorely needed.

Of course, the conversation invariably turns back to pondering what Dad would have thought about our new additions. Steve was always a dog man first, and he was slightly less than thrilled when I announced we were adopting Tubbs. The two of them got along well, though, mostly because Tubbs had a lot of canine characteristics. He cried almost as hard when Tubby died, as he did when he lost his old beagles. He and Taco weren’t necessarily fans of each other, but she did come in handy when he was trying out new lures for his bobcat traps.

As the O’s haven’t exactly made themselves useful yet, and hunted down any wild rodents, I suspect he would be reserving judgment until they proved themselves as hunters.

For me, this was one of the first major decisions I made on my own. It may not sound like much, but these days, even going to the grocery store can overwhelm me. Taking on a new pet, even a necessary one, was a lot, so I really hoped that getting two wasn’t going to blow up in my face.

The other night, as I went to tuck E in, I found her sound asleep, with one arm wrapped around Otis, who was zonked out next to her. In the next room, Oscar was curled up on G’s feet, his purrs matching G’s light snores.

I’m not sure if Steve had a hand in guiding our little friends to us, but they are certainly bringing us a small amount of joy and comfort that we sorely needed, so I’d like to think he did.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.