A mom originally from Australia couldn’t believe the surprise her toddler brought home.
In a reel on Instagram, Stacey Sinclair (@lomalombok) was greeted by her 2-year-old son, Nalu, at the window. Confused, she asked, “What the hell?”, before she saw him holding a tiny kitten he had found nestled in the plants outside their apartment complex.
“I had only turned my back for a moment, and suddenly there was a tiny kitten sitting there like it was the most normal thing in the world,” Stacey told Newsweek. “It was one of those parenting moments that catches you completely off guard.”
Stacey, who is also mom to Raffa, 1, with partner Jack Givney, said that the kitten had been picked up straight off the street.
The family had only recently relocated from Australia to Lombok, Indonesia, drawn by the promise of a slower, more intentional way of living.
Jack said the move was motivated by a desire for more time together, less pressure and an environment where their children could grow up immersed in nature.
Lombok, he explained, is raw and beautiful—but also unpredictable. Being early in their journey there, life still feels as if it’s unfolding all at once.
That closeness to nature is something Jack believes shaped Nalu’s instinctive response to the kitten. Surrounded daily by animals, the toddler showed no hesitation—only care and concern. To him, the kitten was something small and vulnerable that needed help, not a complication or an inconvenience.
Still, the practicalities couldn’t be ignored. The family had been in Lombok for only two months and were still settling in. They had also recently taken in a stray puppy during a severe monsoonal rainstorm.
Jack also works away at times, a reality that would have left Stacey managing two young children and multiple animals alone.
The reel went completely viral online, amassing over 2.1 million views. In the comments, many viewers found the moment funny and relatable, while others criticized the family for not keeping the kitten.
“As much as it tugged at our hearts, we knew it just wasn’t manageable,” Jack said. “Unfortunately, many people don’t realize that there are no formal animal shelters here and a very large stray population, so decisions like this aren’t as simple as they might seem from the outside.”
For one night, the kitten was kept warm, fed and safe before being returned to the area across the street where its family lived.
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