“Hey, Fos,” Panda said, waking me up from a comfortable nap.

“Do you ever wonder about your mom?”

“Dude,” I replied, covering my eyes, “I’m trying to sleep. You know I always wonder about Mom. In fact, I think most people do.” I stifled a laugh. Panda wasn’t satisfied. “I don’t mean Mom, I mean your birth mom. We both have to have one, don’t we?”

Realizing this was important to Panda, I sat up and looked at him intently. “Well,” I said, “I haven’t really given it much thought. Being here with Mom is pretty much my earliest memory.”

“Remember, I was only five weeks old when I came to live with Mom. We even have our first selfie together. It was August 2, 2016.”

“I don’t know how old I was when Mom got me,” Panda said. “My first memory is being in her classroom on a shelf. But I think I must have had a mom before that.”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, as kindly as possible, “but I sort of think you may have come from a stuffed animal factory in China.”

“Well,” Panda replied, “we do know I came from China, because that’s where pandas originated. But I’m pretty sure I had a mom there.”

We’ve actually been to China to look for Panda’s long-lost relatives, but we hadn’t thought at the time to look for his mom. “That was a fun adventure,” I said after we had reminisced for a few minutes. “But what made you think about our birth moms all of a sudden?”

“Well, last week everyone was saying ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ on different people’s blogs that Mom follows. It made me start thinking.” He showed me a picture on Mom’s laptop. “I found this card on Unsplash.com. Isn’t it pretty?” His voice sounded a bit nostalgic. “If we knew where our moms were, we could send them a card.” I agreed that the card was pretty. It looked like something Mom would draw. “But Panda,” I began, then realized he wasn’t listening.

“While I was on Unsplash,” he was saying, “I think I found your mom. Does this cat look familiar? I think that’s you in the front.” I looked at the picture carefully. “Well, my sister did kind of look like that black and white one,” I mused. “But I don’t think that’s me.”

“What about this one?” Panda asked. “That sofa looks like something Mom would have.” After studying the photo for a minute, I shook my head. “No, I don’t think any of my siblings were orange. Plus my back feet are white, so that tabby one can’t be me.”

Panda looked thoughtful. “What about this one?” he asked. “It doesn’t show the mom, though.”

“But my feet are white,” I said patiently, to which Panda sighed in resignation. “Thanks for looking, though,” I added, sensing his disappointment.

“Hey,” I said, changing the subject. “Remember when we saved the baby panda that got lost at the San Diego Zoo?” Panda perked up a bit. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I wore the overalls Mom made me for that trip.”

“That’s right,” I replied. “In fact, Mom has made you a lot of different outfits.” Panda nodded. “That’s because we play so rough I always get holes in me, and Mom doesn’t want you to swallow any of my stuffing.”

“Remember the time she made you an outfit that looked like pajamas?” I said, laughing. Panda shuddered. “Don’t go there, Bro,” he replied, but even he had trouble keeping a straight face.

“And she always picks you up and puts you back on the bed whenever I leave you lying around the house,” I added, hopeful that I was getting somewhere now.

“Plus, she’s washed you in the washing machine before when I’ve gotten you too dirty. I think Mom takes really good care of us, don’t you?”

Panda seemed to be cheering up a little. “She does take me to the vet every year when you go for your checkup and has Dr. Duran check me out, too,” he ventured. “She must really love us to do that.”

I agreed heartily, happy that my idea was working. Panda continued, “And she lets us go on the laptop and look up stuff. A lot of moms wouldn’t do that.”

“Well,” I said carefully. “I don’t think she always knows about that. Remember when we went on Amazon Prime and accidentally up in the Amazon rain forest?” Panda conceded that Mom probably wouldn’t have let us go there, had she known.

“And how many cats and pandas have their own shelf of books about them at the library?” he asked enthusiastically. “That’s a good point.” I answered. “Plus, how many get to be on a blog, and write their own posts?”

“And have coloring pages about them?” Panda was back to his usual cheery self. “I get what you’re saying, Foster,” he remarked. “Mom does a lot of things for us that our birth moms wouldn’t have been able to do. I think she loves us as much as a birth mom would.”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “She always pets me whenever I tap her on the arm with my paw.”

“And she takes a lot of pictures of us, even selfies. A person doesn’t have to be your birth mom to love you just as much as if they were.”

“Thanks, Foster,” Panda said. “You’ve really cheered me up. I think we should get Mom a Mother’s Day card, don’t you?” I agreed. “Let’s look for one when we wake up from our nap,” I said. But Panda was already sound asleep.