Wondering where Kismet is now? He's is all nice and settled in his new home with two siblings to play with! His new people (not owners, never owners - don't you know the cats own us?) have started an instagram account to document the felines. You can follow it here.
This blog is as a whole not religious because of course it isn't, but today needs to be an exception. It is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year and one of the days we recite Yizkor, the memorial service. Today I remembered not only my grandmother but also Shadow. The service I attended was shorter than and different from the one I usually attend, but it included this prayer:
May God remember the soul of Shadow, who has gone to her eternal home. In loving testimony to her life, I pledge tz'dakah to help perpetuate ideals important to her. Through such deeds, and through prayer and remembrance, may her soul be bound up in the bond of life. May I prove myself worthy of the many gifts with which she blessed me. May these moments of meditation strengthen the ties that link me to her memory. May she rest in peace forever in God's presence. Amen.
In her brief six weeks with us, Shadow gave us many gifts. She introduced us to fostering. She gave us her love and her purrs and her unbounding energy for the cat dancer. She gave us trust, both that we would take care of her and that we would take care of her kitten. She gave us joy.
I will always remember Shadow. By continuing to foster cats and kittens, we give tribute to her. Every cat and kitten we take care of, every cat and kitten we socialize, is another feline life who doesn't end up on the street, malnourished and trying to take care of a family in the elements. It's a small thing, but it's something we can do.
It's Saturday, and that means kittens will be four weeks old in a few hours! Don't let little Izzy up there fool you; their fifth week of life looks to be shaping up to be a troublesome one. We've taken down the pen beause my partner thought the kittens needed more space and when I went to fix myself breakfast this morning I could hear extremely loud mewing coming from the foster room. Inness had managed to box himself in between the folded up pet stairs, the humidifier, and the futon and couldn't figure out how to get himself out again Thus began my morning.
Inness also managed to pee in his mom's food bowl last night. He seems to have figured out "I scratch in stuff and then I pee," but he didn't realize that mom's food was not the appropriate place to go. I caught him in the act, cleaned up the entire mess (bowl, floor, puppy pads, towel, the works) and then my partner proceeded to toilet every single kitten over the litter box. Not that it worked because I found pee on the floor again this morning, but once I moved the litter box to where they keep going and I scratched his paws in it, Ira went in the box! It was very exciting as a foster parent. So far he's the only one, but hopefully he'll teach the others! (Like Inness, perhaps?)
Oh, Inness. Growing up and getting into trouble. But how can we be mad at you when you curl up in my elbow and sleep so peacefully?
So life is exciting. Further excitement last night involved the clipping of the claws for the first time. Remember how I said they claws aren't retracting yet? Oh, they're retracting. They retracted very well when the kittens didn't want my partner clipping them. However, my partner is amazing and managed to clip everyone's claws, including mom's. The kittens are no longer breaking our skin with their claws and they're so much more pleasant to socialize.
So what's in store for this next week, besides litter box training and socializing?
Izzy is actually already eating some of mom's wet food to supplement her diet of mother's milk. She's managed to push mom out of the way a couple times when she's wanted food, which I'm taking as a good sign. Izzy is the smallest, so we want her to get as much food as she can.
In other news, getting video of kittens playing is hard. I learned this with Kismet, but it's even harder when there are five kittens and you can't decide who to focus on! In lieu of a video, I present to you "Ira on a log," a story in five stills.
The kittens are now three weeks and five days old! What's been happening this week?
All the curiosity. Wow, are these kittens curious. They want to get into everything! Weighing this morning was exciting because everyone was getting in the way, including Lassi! The kittens aren't giving mom an easier time, either. I'm not entirely sure how she's managing to eat right now, given the kitten antics seen below.
With the kittens being so active, we changed their pen so that they have all the space from one side of the futon to the other. This makes it easier for us to walk (as long as the kittens aren't swarming our feet) and it gives the kittens more space to move around. Last night we added a scratching post and a cat tunnel to the pen to give the kittens more to interact with. The scratching post was a must because Inness and Inara had taken to trying to climb my partner's leg and no matter what PetMD says, the kittens are not yet retracting those claws and they have sharp little murder mittens.
Alas, I don't have a good video of the kittens playing because it's been too entertaining to just watch and usually involves kittens all over the place, but I can attest to the fact that life is not always insane with them. My partner shot this last video last night and is proof that yes, even three-and-a-half-week-old kittens still tire out.
My partner set up a kitten cam! It's nowhere near as nice as being in the room with them, but it does allow us to spy on the kittens whenever we want. I've been timing my morning kitten weighings this week to "when they're not nursing" so the kittens get all the nutrition Mom will stand for them sucking out of her.
Want to watch? Click the link here or in the right-hand menu.
The lack of posts is because Lassicat managed to tear several keys off my keyboard that we could not reattach and my PC had to be sent in to repair. It's really hard to work with semi-functioning p, comma, and x keys! I spent the last week or so working on my partner's Mac and it was so uncomfortable that I didn't want to spend any time on it if I didn't have to. It's the middle of week four already, but this post will be a storied and visual recap of week two and I'll write about week three tomorrow.
As seen above, the kittens acquired a pen. They actually acquired this pen right after my last post. Remember how I said the kittens were going to start to walk? They started to walk. And they started to walk right off their blankets and right under our feet. After one near-kitten-squash, it was time to set up a pen. There are now no more kittens under the futon and we can worry less about where they are, even as they get more active.
And they got more active. These first two videos were shot last Tuesday.
It was slow mobility at first. Those kittens really reminded me of human babies, especially when my partner was playing waving games with Inara. They got more mobile by the end of the week. This last video was Friday, and I'm going to leave it there.
It's Saturday night and that means the kittens are a few hours hours into their third week of life! Inara and Izzy have officially tripled in weight, and their siblings aren't far behind! Here's what we can expect in the next week:
Some of our kittens are early learners; Inara purred for Katrina earlier, and at least one kitten's claws are retracting!
Okay, maybe this post has an exclamation-point problem, but I'm excited about all the growing.
Tonight my partner realized that the kittens are exactly the right size to fit into a mug. We're not torturing the kittens like this on a regular basis, but I thought it might be a cute way to introduce everyone.
Izzy was born last, so it's only fitting that she come first in our photo series. She's the smallest, but she's gentle and inquisitive. She was named after Izzy from Grey's Anatomy.
Inara currently wins the contest for "loudest kitten." She definitely has a set of lungs on her! She was named after Inara from Firefly.
Inness is usually sweet and calm but he didn't like being in a mug one bit and was very hard to photograph! He was the first to open his eyes and might be my favorite little stripey. Inness was named after a character from the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce.
Ira is our little manspreader. If you noticed the kitten with the arms stretched out in the photo in a previous post, that's him. He was named after Ira Glass from "This American Life."
Iggy, our firstborn, loves being pet! He's the most compliant kitten and doesn't mind being on his back. He was named after (Z)Iggy Stardust.
Blogspot and my internet haven't been getting along this week, so this post is a long time coming! The picture above is from Sunday evening when the kittens were one day old. It is proof that in fact, all five kittens can nurse at once. It's possible! It is not, however, easy. Cats can have between four and ten nipples and Lassi has eight, which is average. However, those nipples are in pairs and there's always going to be one kitten who has to be either above or below everyone else. That leads to a lot of squabbles. Long squabbles.
The good news is that in the end, everyone's getting fed. All the kittens are gaining a good amount of weight each day, which is a weight off our backs because we started off so worried for the tiny lives we're suddenly responsible for! Things were complicated by the fact that Lassi had a rough night on Sunday. Lassi's been getting better since then and today she's back to her pre-kitten antics. You know, meowing at us, demanding attention, getting into drawers... it's great to see. Though of course, it's also great to see her return to her kitten to do some Mommy duty!
