I entered the fostering room this morning to another case of an empty box. This time, I found Kismet behind the futon, which is Shadow's safe space. I know I should be upset about this, but I'm not. It means that Shadow brought Kismet there, which means she's mothering Kismet without us in the room. She just doesn't want to do it in any spaces that we set up. The futon is easy enough to move so I was able to grab Kismet for weighing fairly easily.

While Shadow ate her morning wet food, I pet Kismet and got my first looks at Kismet's face without having to hold the kitten up and try to get hir to look at me. Ze is 12.6 ounces today, which is up from yesterday morning's 11.39 ounces! That is one big kitten. We're not sure exactly how old Kismet is, but we're pretty sure she's around 2 weeks old. Here's what the Kitten Lady says about a two-week old kitten:

• At two weeks of age, kittens' eyes will be fully open and baby blue. Her vision will still be developing.
• The ear canals will be open and the ears will be small and rounded, like a baby bear cub.
• Two week old kittens will be wobbly on their feet and attempting to develop coordination and movement.
• Average two week old kitten weight: 250-350 grams

At 357 grams (converted from lbs and oz) Kismet is a big kitten, but the other milestones are definitely there!

I'm autistic and generally do things by instruction. I read all the books and all the websites and follow the knowledge. My partner has the instinct. Last night, Katrina pulled Shadow from under the futon and sat her down in the box with the wet food. I hadn't seen Shadow all day, but it worked! The above video is from the beginning of that night in the safe room with the cats. We were in there for a long time after this, petting Shadow, convincing Shadow to nurse Kismet, and (for Katrina) cutting the mats out of Shadow's fur. Shadow was a sweetheart and an attention hog through all of it. Before we set them nursing, if I went to pay attention to Kismet she came over demanding my attention instead. Shadow wouldn't nurse Kismet unless we were also petting her; if we stopped, she would get up and Kismet would start to cry. It was a long night in the safe room, but it was worth it for all the progress we made.

This morning when I came into the room Shadow was hiding again. When I opened a can of food and went to weigh Kismet, Shadow came out. I don't know if it was the food or the kitten crying, but I managed to weigh Kismet and put hir back down and Shadow went to eat.

Then, miracle of miracles, I got to see Shadow being motherly! Last night we found out that Shadow's preferred place to nurse is on the futon, which we're fine with as long as we're in the room because it's easy enough to clean. I brought Kismet out onto the futon and Shadow jumped up, got some pets, and settled down to nurse. Above is just three minutes of that process. Kismet nurses for a long time - about 45 minutes - and Shadow wasn't this patient the whole time this morning, but it was good to see it at the start!

About the kitties: background

Shadow and Kismet were found on Sunday, July 28th under a car in Everett during the middle of a thunderstorm. We don't know if there were any more kittens, though it's likely there were and Shadow was only able to save the one. Shadow stayed with her rescuer for one night before coming to us. According to animal control, Shadow is a known entity; she's had one other litter in the past. In that case she let animal control take the kittens, but she was elusive. We think the storm is the only reason she allowed herself to be caught.

Shadow and Kismet are settling in with us. This blog will follow their progress and I promise adorableness along the way.

We were giving Shadow and Kismet some space to settle in for their first couple days here, so this is the first day I've really spent time in their safety room, otherwise known as our enclosed back porch and green light therapy room. Thus, a deluge of videos. You really see the cutest things when you're not popping in for a few minutes just to make sure everyone's okay and fed.

Kittens do a lot of napping. Above is a video of the a mid-afternoon kitten dreaming away. Below is Kismet napping peacefully this morning. Those paws might be the most adorable things ever.

Well I had a scare this morning! I came into the room and Kismet wasn't in the drawer. "Where's Kismet???" was going off in my head. Turns out Kismet was curled up on the floor, next to the litter box, completely fine. Okay, so Shadow moved Kismet. Not a great thing to have happen when we have this nice nest set up, but okay. So much for the drawer. I put Kismet in the box since mom obviously doesn't want Kismet in her space. Then a bit later I look over again and Kismet is gone again! Turns out, Kismet overnight Kismet has learned to move on zir own accord. This time I didn't need to move Kismet to the box; ze did that on hir own accord. This is video of Kismet once ze made it into the box, because I wasn't fast enough to actually catch the crawling to the box. That kitten is fast on hardwood!

The box has since been turned up so the walls are too high for Kismet to get out of. The last thing we want is to have a missing kitten.

When we went to take Shadow and Kismet to the vet, we found that Shadow's preferred hiding place was this drawer under our futon. It's not actually connected to the futon and the back is lower than the front, so there was just enough space for Shadow to get in. We figured - hey. If mom's not going to bring kitten into her space, we'll just put hir there! So we did. Here's Kismet in a drawer! I have no idea what that mouth movement is, but we're assuming the vet saw it and it isn't a problem. Katrina maintains that it's a yawn, but a few minutes after this video ended I saw a real yawn and a roll over so I don't think that's it.

Welcome to momcat! Since the kitties were headed to the vet, we needed to settle on names for them. Mom is now Shadow and kitten is now Kismet. They have no idea what is about to happen.

It turns out that vets are swamped right now! We had to drop off Shadow and Kismet first thing in the morning so they could be seen whenever the vet could squeeze in the time. The good news is that they're healthy! They did an x-ray and there are no more kittens inside Shadow, just "milk and poop." We're good with that. However, the vet did say that Shadow is an inattentive mom. We've seen that as well.