We all have an inner child, and something about cute cats really brings us back there. 

Everyone has an inner child. Whether they touch that part of them, feel it, or interact with it is up to the person, but it's there. It's filled with wonders, with colors and shapes that defined our childhood. Filled with memories good and bad, but all veiled by the aura of nostalgia, as if we're wearing rose colored glasses. Nostalgia is like a hypnotic state where everything looks a little better and a little brighter. There are some things that bring about this sense of nostalgia more than others. Maybe it's a familiar smell, like garlic frying in a pan, or a certain laundry detergent. Maybe it's a song that your mother used to sing to you to go to bed. Maybe it's watching Disney movies that remind us of our childhood. And maybe it's about scrolling wholesome cat memes, because something about their early internet aura makes us feel like we're kids again. 

Cats have an inner child too, we just never see if (unless you speak cat, of course). It's not always a simple thing to cling to, and some of us have childhoods and memories teeming with confusion, bereft of a sense of belonging, or feelings that we associate with our family that we don't always want to revisit. But that's the beauty of nostalgia; it helps us forget those thing, helps us feel like it's all in the past, like there's this big bubble of time, space, and protection between us and then. So, enjoy these nostalgic cat memes that make us feel like kids again. 

Close your eyes and imagine a place where the sun never sets, but stays at that purrfect angle for a permanent nap.

Welcome to the Promised Land of Purrfection! In this meowgical kingdom, the streets are paved with premium cardboard and the clouds are made of the softest, fluffiest cotton candy. Here, our feline overlords rule with a gentle paw and a loud purr. Every tree is a giant scratching post, and the rivers flow with fresh tuna juice and lactose-free milk.

In this land, there are no alarm clocks - only the soft mlem of a smol kitten waking you up for a snuggle. We spend our days chasing laser dots that we can actually catch and admiring the endless fields of catnip. It's a silly, cozy paradise where zoomies are the national sport and the only law is that you must provide unlimited chin scritches. It's pure, unadulterated bliss.

Having a velcro cat is like living with your own tiny shadow made of love.

We, as cat owners, always warn first-time adopters that cats… don't always show affection in the way that you expect. That doesn't mean that they don't feel it. All that it means is that you have to do some extra work to learn your cat's love language and read it as it is. Some cats will show you affection by turning their back to you when they eat. Some cats will do it by slow-blinking at you from across the room. Other cats will do it by watching TV next to you and copying your sitting position. Little things. But meaningful. A cat's way of showing affection may be funny to an outsider, but that doesn't matter. It is up to you to recognize it and appreciate it. 

Of course, some of us win the lottery. Some of us don't have to work hard at all to learn our cat's love language, because we all speak the same one. They tell you that they love you by… cuddling with you, begging for you attention and sitting directly on your face in the middle of the night. Velcro cats are amazing. 

Somewhere out there is a smol cat causing tiny chaos.

Smol cats look like someone accidentally made a regular cat at 50 percent size and just decided to roll with it. Tiny paws. Tiny nose. Tiny little face that somehow still manages to look very serious about whatever it's doing. They wander around the house like they have extremely important responsibilities, even though those responsibilities mostly involve staring at things and being adorable.

A smol cat sitting down turns into a perfect little fluff orb. Just a round puff with ears and eyes. It almost doesn't look real, like someone placed a fuzzy toy on the floor and it suddenly blinked. The amount of fluff compared to the amount of actual cat feels wildly unbalanced.

The confidence is also completely unreasonable. A smol cat will walk straight up to animals five times its size like it's the boss of the whole operation. No hesitation. No second thoughts. Just tiny paws marching forward like they've been running the household for years.

And somehow they always manage to end up in the exact center of everything. Right in the middle of the room. Right in the middle of the hallway. Right where everyone needs to walk. A little puffball planted there like it owns the place. Which, based on the attitude alone, it probably does.

This is exactly like that childhood book Are You My Mother? Except this time it's a horde of baby penguins and one seriously smol stray cat.

Penguins and cats don't really mix. Mostly because the cats probably think, "Oh, birds! This will be a tasty meal!", and then as soon as they get closer and realize how large the penguins are, they immediately realize how wrong they were. The penguins pose no threat to the cats, but cats don't like things they can't control, and a herd of baby penguins is about the least-controllable thing in their environment. 

However, it makes for a pawsitively hissterical interaction! Our video below shows a stray cat (they say it's domestic, but we think that by 'domestic' they mean it's a normal house cat breed), introducing itself to a group of a waddle of giant baby penguins, who immediately take interest in the tiny feline and start following it around. The cat, who wasn't seeking all of this unwanted attention, keeps putting distance between itself and the penguins, but they keep following. Maybe they're interested in it, maybe they think it's their meowther, or maybe they just want to play. Who knows!

Regardless of why, this video made our day. It's the purrfect amount of wholesome shenanigans we expect from our feline friends, plus a whole lot of fluffy, giant penguin babies. What more could you ask for?

Weekends are better with a few extra fuzzy kittens around.

Weekends are a good time to appreciate just how fuzzy kittens can be. A tiny kitten walking into the room already looks like a little cloud with legs. The fluff sticks out in every direction, making the kitten look twice as round as it actually is. Even the smallest kitten somehow manages to look unbelievably soft and completely adorable.

A kitten that fluffy does not need to do much to steal attention. Sitting down turns them into a perfectly round puff of fur with ears. Stretching out makes the fluff spread everywhere. Sometimes they just sit there blinking slowly, looking like the coziest little creature in the house.

Tiny paws, little whiskers, and all that fuzzy fur make every kitten look extra sweet. Some kittens have fluffy cheeks that puff out like they're wearing tiny winter coats. Others have tails that look like soft little feathers behind them.

After a while the kitten curls up and the fluff folds into a tiny round ball. Paws tucked in, nose hidden in the fur, completely relaxed. A super fuzzy kitten like that is the kind of weekend sight that can make anyone smile.

One lick, two lick, three lick, cat meme! 

What's your favorite type of candy? Are you a chocolate fiend, trying to get your hands on a Hershey's or Kiss? Maybe you love caramel, and you go crazy for Milky Ways or Snickers. Maybe you're a Mike and Ike's type, where you just want something in bright, lurid colors and chewy on your palate. But there are some who prefer lollipops. They love to savor the flavors, like to take their time with the things they enjoy, like to feel the sugar rush bit by bit. And cats are kind of like that, too. There's something inherently sweet about cats. They're like little dolls with their big eyes, their tiny pink noses and bustling whiskers bursting from their face. Imagine your little cat just perched on top of a lollipop waiting for you to bite them and eat them up! It's a new love language, just in case you didn't know about it. 

These syrupy sweet kitties evoke the same sensations that a purrfectly swirled pile of cotton candy does, with heaps of reds and blues, they're the purrfect thing for a Saturday scroll. What is there to do on the weekend in mere winter? It may be bright outside, but it's still brisk, chilly, and it's much more comforting to stay inside and think of things sweet, tasty, wholesome, and purrfectly cat-like. The soft fur of a cat, the big curious eyes, the playful antics are all associated with sweetness, and that's why I Can Has Cheezburger has put together this sweet list just for you. Enjoy! 

Cat names are all kinds of comical, but they pale in comparison to the names their pawrents actually call them. And in this collection of cute cats we expose those hissterical nicknames thanks to their pawrents.

It is quite the feline phenomenon to have a nickname in the animal kingdom. After all, most other pets do not really have nicknames, and most of the animals in the world do not even have hooman names. So for cats to have several monikers by which they are known is truly special. But what is so delightfully funny about these nicknames is that they are usually born of the cat's quirks and curiosities. For example it would not be out of place for a cat who particularly enjoys picking food scraps out of the trash to be given the nickname 'Trash Baby'.

So strap in for a whole heap of gems like that with this collection of cute cats with curious names as exposed by their pawrents. All we can say is that it is a good thing that cats are yet to master the English language…
 

Cat law is cat law, and every cat pawrent knows to obey their floofy feline overlords who rule their lives with an iron paw.

Some cats enact really weird laws in their domestic house kingdoms: Don't throw away the chewed-up single sock, it's a prized possession. Don't make loud noises when the cat naps on the couch, or else he'll bite. Give exactly three belly rubs, no more, no less. Even cat has their own crazed set of rules, and we as cat pawrents just sort of accept it. But some of these royal feline decrees are set in stone, and are always true for all cats worldwide.

One of them is "never disturb the cat's nap". The nap is sacred. The nap is pure bliss. The cat must nap uninterrupted. And that's exactly why it's so common for cat pawrents everywhere to get "stuck" when their feline friends decide to take a holy nap on their chest or lap. This one woman hilariously asked the online feline family if there's anything to do in this situation that she's in - only to be reminded that… no.

It takes a special kind of purrson to adopt a senior cat, but it wouldn't take more than a glance for anyone to see how special 'Pudge', the 18-year-old cat, was.

Adopting senior kitties is one of the hardest and most rewarding things you can do as a cat lover. It's hard because you know that you will fall in love and have your heart broken before you know it, but as Shakespeare once said, "It's better to have loved and have lost than to never have loved at all". 

The older they get, the less chance they have of getting adopted, too. For the exact reasons we said earlier, most people don't want to adopt a cat for a year or two, they want as much time with them as they can. It's totally understandable, but that also means that most senior cats end their lives alone in an animal shelter, and that's the least fair thing we can think of.

Pudge was able to escape that unfair reality. Found by happenstance online, one cat mom and her husband took one look at this 18-year-old baby and couldn't say no. He had been kept in a cage his whole life (don't even get us started), but they decided to adopt him and give him the best last months of his life. Well, two months turned into three, three turned into six, and six months turned into a year. Pudge lived. He played. He ate steak, and ice cream. 

Pudge's story makes us believe that the love and heartbreak is worth it to see how much a new beginning can change even the oldest cat's life. They deserve it, and so do you.