Month: April 2011

So, Maggie was just chilling… And I thought “Oh, I need to weigh the babies!”

Some of them were awake, and some of them were snoozing.

So I took them out and weighed them, and after I weighed them, I put them in this little purple cat bed. A couple of them got skeered.

“What is this place? Where is my MOMMY?!”

Maggie made her soothing mama noise to soothe them, and then some of them were all “TIME TO EAT!”

Maggie said “I need a bath.”

Then she thought about it.

She kissed a baby.

Then she cleaned a baby.

(To be continued tomorrow, because there were so many cute pictures I couldn’t fit them all in one day!)

Kara likes to go out into the back yard and jump up on the window sill and stare in at the computer room as if she’s thinking “That looks like a cool place to be. I sure wish I was THERE and not HERE.”

Previously
2010: I would almost welcome a flirty email with a “fuck me!” subtext from an ex-girlfriend when I’m snoring through his emails just to break up the tedium.
2009: Rude little brats.
2008: No entry.
2007: Feel free to cut and paste, assholes, though I fully understand if you prefer something with a few more misspellings.
2006: Must… resist… evil… urge…
2005: “Ah JEEZUS, here she goes again with the Gatlinburg! She goes for four days and talks about it for four weeks!”
2004: Oh. My. Eyes.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Entries I liked.
2000: No entry.

Those of you who asked, Fred’s book will also be available via Barnes and Noble in the next few days, in case you have a Nook instead of a Kindle. If you have neither, you can download Kindle for PC from Amazon and read it on your PC, or you can download Kindle for iPod Touch, and if you have a smartphone you can more than likely download the Kindle App for your smartphone. I myself have a Kindle, the Kindle app on my iPod Touch AND the Kindle App on my phone.

(And I still have a bookcase full of real live books and hadn’t touched my Kindle in about two months ’til Fred wanted to see what No Limit looks like on the Kindle, whereupon I had to charge it because it died from heartbreak over being ignored for months on end..)

Anyway, No Limit on the Kindle is here, it’s in the sidebar to the right, and when it’s available on Barnes & Noble, I’ll share that with you, too!

I’m all about the service, y’know.

I got my raised bed veggies planted yesterday, but when Fred went out to till the garden, he reported that it was still way too wet, and he wasn’t going to be able to till it. So I moved the box of seed onions and garlic off the bookcase in the computer room where the smell has been driving me nuts (they smell really really good – I love me some onions and garlic!) and put it in the hall closet. Maybe next weekend I’ll be able to get them planted. I hope so, anyway.

Yesterday was a crappy day where I dropped every damn thing I touched. Twice. I killed off five eggs while trying to scramble two for my breakfast (picked up two, dropped them. Picked up two more, dropped them. Picked up two more, dropped one. GRRRR.) and another couple while trying to crack one open for Alice (she likes egg yolks, but I wouldn’t let her slurp up the ones I dropped, because with the way my day was going, she’d have slurped up an eggshell fragment and choked to death on it).

I meant to do some organizing – the closets in this house desperately need some attention – but in the end, all I could manage for the day was to watch the season premiere of the NYC Housewives, spent a lot of time watching the kittens alternately sleep and squirm around, and lay on my bed and read for a while.

It was the kittens that made me feel better. They always do, even if I don’t touch them (if they’re sleeping soundly, I try not to touch them, because it gets ’em all riled up) and just sit and watch them sleep.

Today’s dumb question regards grill pans. Do they really cook food any differently than cooking it in a flat pan? Because I’m trying to determine whether I want to put my energy into desperately wanting a grill pan or not.

What say ye?

The movies. First, Fergus Simon McMao enjoys a belly rub, oh yes he does.

And second, your daily dose of McMao squirming and wide-eyed amazement.

“Don’t judge me.”

The feet up in the air will forever kill me dead.

The princess always sleeps hard.

Considering what to do next.

COMPLAINT: acquired. SHARING OF COMPLAINT: in progress.

That girl is always right in the middle of the pack. The better to rule her kingdom from, I suppose.

Last night I took the kittens out of the McMao Cave to weigh them. The heaviest McMao is Declan at 9 1/2 ounces. The lightest is Macushla at 8 3/4 ounces.

When I see what these kittens weigh at 9 days old, it gives a new spin to the fact that when we got Beulah, who was (I believe) 4 or 5 weeks old, she only weighed 8 ounces.

That’s her on the far left there, next to her normal-sized siblings.

Kind of amazing, isn’t it?

And a bonus: my favorite picture of her litter, with Beulah in the middle:

Note to self: when the McMaos are eating solid food, be sure to get a shot like this!

Newt in the cat bed (well, DOG bed really) on my bed. I had forgotten that when the weather gets warm (and it’s been in the 80s recently), Newt likes to spend his days sleeping on my bed, and his nights roaming.

Previously
2010: (We call him “Creepy Cousin Spanky” when he acts like that.)
2009: No entry.
2008: If you see my bottle of Feliway, please send it home. Thankyew.
2007: “If a fluffy black cat prances across the yard, goes upstairs and shits on the carpet, could you give us a call?”
2006: “Hmm,” I said, like that meant something to me.
2005: Just because the fuckers are talking to me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to listen to their bullshit, does it?
2004: Hey, you know how I always say Ben Affleck has a humongous noggin?
2003: No entry.
2002: Apparently the Committee for Deciding Who is Hellbound was meeting in the waiting room.
2001: “Jesus has arrived in Madison,” he said nonchalantly.
2000: Now that, my friends, is wickedly fast.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the kitten pool. The money you donated will cover leukemia/aids testing, spaying or neutering, & rabies shots for all 6 kittens plus a bit left over. I am always amazed at the response Robyn gets from her readers and I appreciate that most of you probably have local organizations that you support. We are lucky to have so many generous animal lovers who jump in to support the cause. And I love the name Fergus Simon. Thanks, Lori, and congratulations on being the name-the-baby winner.

Sincerely, Susan B., Shelter Manager

First, the movies!

I changed out the bedding in the McMao cave, then put the kittens back in, and they weren’t sure what to think.

This second movie, I have to warn you: these kittens are OUT OF CONTROL.

Yesterday afternoon, I was picking up and cuddling kittens. I realized, as I was holding Fergus Simon, that one of his eyes had started to open. I was surprised – I honestly didn’t think that would start happening for several more days – and when Fred and I went in to hang out with Maggie and the babies before bed, I picked up Fergus Simon to show Fred the little bit of eye, and found that in the few hours since I’d last seen him, the little guy had opened BOTH eyes!

Clearly he’s a prodigy.

This is what he looked like only two days before.

I can see the slightest bit of eye here and there on the other kittens, so I suspect it won’t be long before they’ve all got their eyes open.

They don’t fit quite so easily in the palm of my hand any more. The babies are growing up!

Pink Nose looks inquisitive, no?

It’s a rough life, isn’t it?

(That’s a yawn over there to the right, not a hiss.)

More yawning.

Maggie, hanging out as far from those babies as possible. But when they call…

She comes a-running.

I wuv you, Dark Nose.

And you, Dark Nose with Pink Splotch.

At last night’s weigh-in, the heaviest kitten was Dark Nose with Pink Splotch, at a hefty 7 7/8 oz. The lightest was a three-way tie between Black Nose, Pink Nose, and White Face. It’s funny how heavy they seem compared to a week ago.

Fred took another look last night, and he’s pretty sure that the two kittens whose sex he’d been unable to determine earlier in the week are both boys. So it looks like we’ve got 5 boys and 1 lone little White Face girl.

She is so going rule that litter with an iron paw.

Corbie would like it known that he, too, can lay on his back and snooze and look adorable!

Previously
2010: I think I’ve decided she doesn’t have a sense of humor, because I still haven’t heard anything back, and HMPH TO HER.
2009: So, the great freedom-letting has begun!
2008: Now if I can just convince him to get going on that closet for the corner of the computer room….
2007: “What the fuck did you DO?” I accused Sugarbutt, who looked up at me with the most innocent face in existence.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Stupid Steven Cojocaru.
2003: I think I speak for most Alabamans in this area when I say “Uh, what the FUCK?!”
2002: sights from my walk
2001: I am SO PISSED OFF.
2000: It’s not stealing if I give them credit, right? Uh… right?

Good lord – those of you who weren’t reading back then should go back to March of 2008 and read about the excitement we had when the late Flappy McGee laid an egg inside an egg. There’s even a recording of us reading the newspaper article (I’m sorry, did I mention it made the FRONT PAGE of the newspaper?) and making ourselves sound like total hicks. We listened to it last night and laughed ourselves silly.

I’m in the process of moving Love & Hisses to a new web host. I won’t badmouth my current web host until I’ve got all my sites moved to the new host (AND THEN WILL BADMOUTH THEM PLENTY), but I will say that I find it SUPER interesting that it wasn’t until after they debuted their new “VPS Service” on April 1st – that would cost me $50 a month in hosting fees (not gonna happen) – that they had any issues with the amount of bandwidth I was using.

Fuckers. Is what I’m sayin’.

This weekend, I will be planting my onions and garlic and my carrots and radishes and purslane and romaine and brussels sprouts and cauliflower! I can’t wait to get this stuff planted, I’m ready for my fresh from the garden veggies to come rolling in!

I need to get my herbs planted, too, but I plan to plant those in containers rather than raised beds (because all my raised bed space will be growing other stuff) so it can wait a bit.

That’s what I’m doing this weekend when I’m not sitting and staring at baby kittens, that is. What do YOU have planned?

First, the movies.

This is the really long one I warned you about. It’s just kittens sleeping and squirming, squirming and sleeping. It’s very relaxing to watch, I can tell you that!

This one’s much shorter, and it’s got wee hissing kittens in it (actually, I think it’s Fergus Simon doing the hissing both times). If time is of the essence for you, forward to 38 seconds and watch Little White Face have a conniption because I BARELY TOUCHED HER. She’s a drama queen in the making, that one.

Let me see if I can remember the questions I wanted to answer that some of you asked.

Regarding what our cats think of the peeps coming from the foster room: they don’t seem to think anything. We have a little temporary wall up about a foot from the door (I’ll try to get a picture of it, it’s quite the sight) so that our cats can’t get to the foster door and sniff around and get Maggie all riled up. The very first set of fosters we had were Mia and her babies – the babies were only a few weeks old when I brought them home – and Mia was super protective and lost her MIND when she saw one of our cats near the door. Since then, whenever we have a momma cat, we’re sure to put up something so that she can’t see our other cats. I mean, I’m sure Maggie knows they’re out there – god knows Miz Poo is fond of walking through the house with a toy in her mouth, howling, it’s hard to miss that – but she hasn’t actually seen any of them and so has been pretty relaxed.

This is what Miz Poo does every day, many many times a day:

(That was made at our previous house.)

Regarding Maggie’s belly, it looks less like a deflated balloon than you’d think. She’s still not a thin cat (though I swear she looks smaller every day – while the kittens get bigger every day. Funny how that works, no?), and she’s got a bit of a sway to her when she walks, but I imagine that in time her belly will snap back to something resembling normal – it certainly worked that way for Kara.

Rufus’s hiding place: Nope, still haven’t figured it out. I’m going to set up the camera in the laundry room (since I’m pretty sure that’s where it is) this weekend and start vacuuming and we’ll see if we get it figured out!

Sarah, White Face says she’d love to move to New Zealand as long as I have visitation rights. 🙂

Jessica, thank you for thinking that I have a soothing voice. When I hear it, I mostly find it annoying and weird and lispy.

Y’all check out this EXCELLENT cat video over at D-Listed.

Elayne, Rufus is very soft and velvety and an all-around pleasure to pet!

Elizabeth in NC said: “Susan sexed the babies.” Perhaps someone like that shouldn’t really be working around helpless animals. which made me laugh out loud. I hated, when Maggie was pregnant, mentioning the size of her nipples because it made me feel like such a pervert. (But I felt it needed to be shared. What WOULD you all have done if you didn’t know that Maggie’s nipples were prominent?!)

Okay, I think I covered everything. Let me know if you have a burning question and I’ll do my best to answer it!

Six days old! Today, those babies are six days old. Can you believe that? Tomorrow they will be ONE FULL WEEK OLD. In the next week, their eyes should start opening, and they should start hearing. The part where they start hearing? I highly suspect that that will lead to much hissing in my direction from them. I’ll do my best to catch that on video!

Thank you all for your name suggestions. I’ve got some favorites in mind, and I plan to formally introduce them all by name in Monday’s entry.

Maggie takes some time away from the babies to get just a little high on the KONG catnip kicker toy. She works hard, you know. She deserves a little time to herself!

Paws in the AIR like he just don’t CARE!

Truly, could you not just kiss that little pink mouth?

The legs flailing on the right side of the picture crack me UP.

Now begins the yawnapalooza.

Yawny White Face.

Yawny Pink Nose.

Annnnd they’re out again.

That look on her face makes me laugh.

Joe Bob in a box.

Plenty big enough, obviously.

He loved that box with a deep and abiding passion. And then someone peed in it, and we had to throw it away and there’s never been another box as perfect. The end.

Previously
2010: “A pineapple tree,” I said.
2009: Y’all are some grumpy motherfuckers, aren’t you?
2008: Detective Boogerton, the grizzled, cranky veteran detective who has seen it all, is disgruntled that his day off has been interrupted.
2007: No entry.
2006: FYI.
2005: Meme.
2004: Lime green would work.
2003: I called Fred at one point and said “Maybe it’s SARS!”
2002: Well, you can just bite my coconut-scented, soft, smooth, butt.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

Tom (still!) needs a home!

Can someone tell me what the difference is between canned crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce? IS there a difference? Because my favorite spaghetti sauce recipe calls for crushed tomatoes, and I like using crushed tomatoes because there are no chunks of tomatoes in it, and I don’t like tomato chunks.

Well, I guess I like tomato chunks in salsa (a restaurant we occasionally go to has salsa without tomato chunks – I think they use tomato sauce, and it’s really just kind of gross) and I like a slice of tomato on BLTs (for years and years I ate my BLTs without tomato, though) and sometimes hamburgers or chicken sandwiches. But in a sauce, I do not care for tomato chunks. I also don’t care for baked tomatoes – I’ve made quiche with halved cherry tomatoes in it, and while I ate it, I didn’t really care for it.

But in any case, what IS the difference between crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce? Anyone know?

I watched Burlesque yesterday. That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Well.

I actually watched the second half of the movie at fast speed – when I hit the “seek” button once on the remote, it speeds up, but you can still hear what everyone’s saying, they just say it faster – and frankly, I could have just taken the movie right out of the Blu-Ray player about 10 minutes after it started, and wouldn’t have missed a thing. I like Christina Aguilera’s voice and think she’s purty and I enjoy singing-and-dancing movies, but good lord – next time I’ll just pull up a couple of her videos on YouTube and call it good enough. What a generic movie annnnnd I hate to say it, but Christina Aguilera is not an actress. Stick to the singing, Christina.

I do not recommend.

So, Rufus. I hear you were a bad boy who went out into the back yard and over the fence on Saturday and were gone ALL DAY LONG and had to be trapped because you were acting like a scaredy cat and wouldn’t come to Fred and so now you have to wear a collar to keep you in the back yard. Do you have any comments on the matter?

“Your accusations bore me, lady.”

“And that guy did NOT scare me. He just smelled funny. Yeah, that’s it.”

First, your daily McMao movie (I have a really long one saved for tomorrow!)

Oh, the little pink toes on the left KILL ME DEAD.

He’s not hungry, he just wants a snuggle.

Maggie’s having deep thoughts.

Sleepin’ baby face.

All six! I imagine in another few weeks, it’ll be pretty hard to get a shot of all of them at once.

Pink toes, pink nose, and tiny little claws.

Those toes are just the most amazing shade of perfect pink, aren’t they?

Named! The kitten formerly known as Blue (aka “Dark face”, aka “no white paws”) is now Fergus Simon! Lori (winner of the Maggie Pool) named him after her sons.

I’m hoping to get the others named by the end of the weekend. What I need, if you know of any, are Irish names that are not gender specific, because we’re still unsure of the sex of two of the kittens and I’d like to get them named. So if you have any favorites, feel free to share!

Corbie, keeping an eye on Newt. Or really, just waiting for Newt to get fed up and run out of the playhouse.

Mission accomplished!

Previously
2010: “What the -?”
2009: Random things that make me twitch.
2008: She turned and glared her “FUCK YOU” glare at me, and went along her way.
2007: No entry.
2006: You WISH you were me.
2005: Off to Gatlinburg.
2004: Our palates are too immature, I suppose.
2003: Now I know why, when the camera and sound guy were setting up and I chirped “Oh, is this the camera that’s going to make me look like Ashley Judd?”, everyone laughed so hard.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Then he and the spud went swimming yesterday, since the pool’s up to a sultry 66.

First, some videos, all taken on the day Maggie gave birth.

The first bit is of Maggie in labor, and you can hear Fred snickering at the expression on her face, and then me saying “You don’t laugh at a woman in labor!” The second bit is of Maggie and her firstborn. There’s nothing graphic, though the kitten is a bit damp still.

I believe Maggie was dealing with baby #6 while the other five were yelling for food. There’s nothing graphic here aside from some bloody towels.

And in this one, the first bit is shortly after labor was over, and Maggie was cleaning her babies. Then it cuts to later that same day, after we’d switched out the bloody bedding for clean.

Now, meet the McMaos!

Purple (aka “black splotch on right nostril) is a boy.

Red (aka “black nose with pink splotch”) is “probably” (according to Fred) a boy.

White Face is a girl.

The sex of Green (aka “Pink nose”) is unknown.

Orange (aka “Black nose”) is a boy.

Blue (aka “Dark face”, aka “no white paws”) is a boy.

In case you missed this one on Facebook yesterday, I couldn’t keep my hands off the babies. This is Green and his/her umbilical cord.

I weighed the babies last night, and they weigh between 5 1/2 oz (Orange & White Face) and 5 3/4 oz (Red and Purple). They’re all nice and healthy, with round little bellies. None of them is really in the running to be the runt of the litter, at least not yet.

You might think that Blue, there, with the open mouth is crying sadly for his momma. “Momma, we is HONGRY!” he might be crying. You would be wrong. Blue is shaping up to be the drama queen of the litter, and when I reach into the kennel to pet him or one of his siblings, he hisses at me. I can’t take offense, though – he’s so CUTE when he does it!

::slurrrp::

::urrrrrrp!::

::considering::

::slurrrp::

::slurrrrp::

::pondering::

“Tastes like chicken.”

Alice, bird-watching.

Previously
2010: She’s not pregnant. She’s just big-boned.
2009: (The smell of boiling chicken livers: gag me.)
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Now, I’m sure I’d rather be skinny and bald than fat and hairified, but what I’d MUCH prefer to be is skinny and hairified, thanks.
2005: I think that a more accurate description would be “covered the annoyance of itching by making your skin feel as though you’re being set on fire.”
2004: Meme.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Fred’s such a bastard.

Ohhhhhh, y’all, if you had been here yesterday afternoon you would have seen me absolutely beside myself. I had just finished lunch and was doing a last email check before I toddled off to the living room to cross-stitch while half-watching those crazy OC Housewives, but then I got an email that my site was down, and THEN I got an email from my web host letting me know that, hey. We’ve suspended your Love & Hisses account, mm’kay?

Fuckers. FUCK. ERS. Oh, was I irate. SO IRATE.

Yesterday Google Reader linked to the Love & Hisses entry about Maggie birthin’ those babies, and unfortunately when I signed up for service with my current web host, when it said I had “unlimited” bandwidth, what it actually meant was “not unlimited” bandwidth. And the huge traffic spike from Google Reader caused a lot of drain on the bandwidth and was making the other sites hosted on that machine go super-slow and in fact I think my web hosting company briefly thought they were under attack.

UNDER ATTACK FROM THE KITTEH LUVAHS maybe.

(Please note: it was the huge influx from an unexpected source that caused the crash/ suspension. You guys who came back several times to look at the baby pics? Trust me, it wasn’t you. You guys keep on coming back and look at those pics all you want!)

The problem is that for at least the last year – maybe longer – I’ve uploaded all my pictures to the Love & Hisses domain, and linked to them from Bitchypoo and from Love & Hisses. And I post, perhaps you’ve noticed, a LOT of pictures.

When Fred got home from work, I was frantically looking at other hosting companies, but as he pointed out, due to the large number of pictures, with any kind of shared hosting I’m going to come up against the same issue. My web hosting company offered to upgrade me to a VPS Service account (I think it was called), but those start at $50 a month, and come on. All these sites I have are really hobby sites and I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on a hobby site, you know?

I know someone out there’s going to suggest putting up a Paypal button on this site, and you are very sweet, but I’m not willing to do that – I absolutely will not accept money from you guys for this, please don’t go sending me money I AM NOT KIDDING. I also don’t want to put up ads.

Luckily, after some brainstorming, we realized (and I asked the support guy, to be sure) that if I use Flickr – I have a Flickr Pro account, after all – to host my pictures, that will lessen the bandwidth used on the server, and I don’t have to move my blog. Yet. When I signed up with this hosting company, I paid for a year in advance because it was cheaper that way. That year is up in August. At this point, I’m not planning to stay with this company, but I’m not going to move out of desperation if I don’t have to.

What this long and boring epic means to you guys: pictures will be hosted at Flickr. I’m hoping it doesn’t make a difference at all for you guys. Things should still look the same and load about as quickly. It’s going to take several days to get this site looking the way it needs to. Thank you for your patience, and I lurve you.

Leanne wrote:

Hey Robyn.

If any of your readers have any advice on feline diabetes I would really appreciate it. As it stands I have to feed him every 12 hours and I have to moniter him to watch out for hypogylcemia. Hard to do when you are at work all day, but at least I own my own hair salon and can take a run home throughout the day to check on him.

As I told Leanne, we’ve only had experience with one diabetic cat (Tubby) and we had problems getting to the right medication level. I know that someone out there – maybe several someones? – have had experience with a diabetic cat, so if you have any advice or tips, would you share please? Thanks!

Our boy Rufus has clearly made himself at home.

“What?”

Rufus has found himself a hidey-hole somewhere in this house, and we can’t figure out where it is. We thought Sunday evening and again yesterday afternoon that he was gone, but then he showed up in the laundry room, all sleepy and stretching like he’d been curled up taking a nap somewhere. I canNOT figure it out, and it’s kind of driving me nuts!

Maggie is such an awesome little mother. I go into the room several times a day to spend time with her, to rub her back and her ears and tell her what a great mom she is. Yesterday, Susan the shelter manager and Richard stopped by to see the babies. Susan sexed the babies, and decided that we have at least four boys, one undecided, and one definite girl. Unfortunately, I’m not sure which was which (still working on identifying them, though I’m starting to get a handle on it), so we’ll have to look again.

Maggie was okay with strangers in her room, and okay with us handling her babies, and as soon as I put the babies back into the kennel, she climbed right in to comfort them.

I’m not having much luck getting a shot of her with her babies, because she does like to greet me at the door. I think today I’m going to go in there with her and just set up camp ’til the babies need feeding and I can get some good momma-and-babies pics. They’re not going to stay this tiny forever, I know.

The squirming pile o’ stripes.

Little white face says “I’m on top of the pile! I’M ON TOP OF THE PILE!”

Okay, I got their face pics, but I am a bad, bad foster mommy, and somehow even THOUGH I took pics of all six of them, I got overzealous when I was deleting, and I must have deleted the pic of the sixth one. When Fred gets home tonight, we’re going to use the fancy colored markers I bought yesterday to dab a bit of color inside their ears, and then I’ll snap face and body pics of each of them.

Little White Face. This one right here? Destined to be a heartbreaker (in a good way, of course). And my favorite.

Look at the stern little face on Black Nose! Black Nose is my favorite.

Awww, little Pink Nose. You know you’re my favorite.

Oh, wait. Maybe it’s Black Nose With Pink that’s my favorite?

Dark Face From the Nose Up. Are you my favorite? I think so.

Aww, White Face, how’d you get on the bottom again??

“Meez Poo luff yew.”

Previously
2010: Fred’s company and their largest customer have parted ways – and as a result, Fred is looking for a job.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: (Nevermind that Mister Boogers’ way of protecting me would be to go hide in the closet.)
2006: “Hard liquor is the first stop on the train to Gaysville.”
2005: I had no idea that leaving the top of the washstand bare meant that you didn’t appreciate the washstand.
2004: (Yeah, yeah, cry you a river. I know. Bite me.)
2003: No entry.
2002: Apparently Fancypants’ evil twin (except that I’m sure Fancypants is actually the evil one) now lives in our neighborhood.
2001: No entry.
2000: I guess there’ll be no physical fisticuffs for me to go break up.

Today’s going to be a super-quick post, because we were gone all day yesterday and I have a ton of stuff to get done today. Just some baby kitten pics – my goal is to get in there and get pics of each individual baby’s face when Fred gets home this afternoon. They all look a LOT alike, and if anyone has a tip for simple ways to mark them so I can tell them apart, I’m all ears.

I’m trying not to spend a lot of time in the foster room right now, because Maggie will run over to be petted and loved on rather than tend to her babies, and even though I know they’re feeding just fine, they’re certainly not starving, and for the love of GOD, she doesn’t have to be in there with them 24/7, it still bugs me.

It seems to be a fallacy that newborn baby kittens sleep all the time, because what they actually do is lay in a big pile, everyone sleeps deeply for about a minute and a half, and then the guy on the bottom of the pile is all “Hey! Why am I on the BOTTOM of the pile? I belong on the top!” and starts squirming around, setting off a squirming chain-reaction, and they wiggle and squirm and wiggle some more for an hour, then fall into a deep sleep for another minute and a half.

It’s exhausting to be a wee bebbeh kitten, is what I’m saying.

Okay, here are some baby pics. I’ll have a bunch more tomorrow, I promise!

Those two in the back apparently felt that they were too cool to run with the rest of the litter.

Little white face (note that the toes are a blur because he was wiggling about) wonders how he always ends up on the bottom of the pile.

Tommy and Sugarbutt show those little ones how brothers are SUPPOSED to snuggle.

Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: New/ old couches.
2007: 002. Do you have a pet? Six cats. Six. NOT EIGHT.
2006: “Brrrrrrrrrrp!” Mister Boogers said with great displeasure.
2005: E’gar comes home.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Hi. What R U doing to loose weight and how much weight have U lost?”
2002: Burned fucking beans.
2001: No entry.
2000: Diane Sawyer is so uncomfortable around kids, it’s laughable.

This was Maggie yesterday:

As big as she was when we got her – and she seemed HUGE to us – she expanded quite a bit. Yesterday she just wanted to be petted, and the thing that piqued my interest is that she went into the box and stood there, kneading. That was the first time I’d actually seen her do that, and I decided (and told Fred) that I was sure it meant she was nesting.

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but we had set up a big carrier/ kennel in one corner of the room, covered it with a towel to make it darker, and lined the bottom with towels. That was this one:

(We actually also draped a towel over the other end, where you can see light shining through).

Then, because we wanted to make sure she had a choice, I lined the box that Fred built several months ago with a couple of cat beds. That was this one:

This morning when I was in the shower, Fred reported that all Maggie wanted was to be petted, and that she was purring louder than he’d ever heard her purr before. He also reported that she’d paid no attention at all to the food bowl, and that was the first time that had happened. I went in and spent some time with her before I scooped her litter box, and she seemed very very calm. She just sat and let me pet her. I put canned food on her plate, and she went over and licked at it. I scooped her litter box and left the room.

I was out in the garage, dragging all the recycling out, flattening the boxes, and loading everything in Fred’s truck, when he came out with a very smug look on his face.

“I called it!” he said gleefully. “I said she was gonna go!”

“What?” I had no idea on earth what he was talking about.

“She’s in labor!” I practically ran into the house, grabbed my cameras and cell phone, and went straight up to the foster room.

Maggie was sitting in the middle of the floor, and we sat down with her and petted her. She just sat there for a moment, and then you could see the contraction happening by the look on her face. She sat through it, then got up and went into the box and sat down. She was in there for about half an hour. I started timing the contractions (“We need to start timing her contractions!” I announced importantly. “Why?” Fred said. “Is that something you’re supposed to do?” Heh.) and first they were coming every couple of minutes, and soon enough they were coming much closer together.

Fred, petting Maggie.

Fred announced that he saw something hanging out of her back end, and she cried out, and then she stood up and ran to the middle of the room. I wondered if having us present was bothering her, and Fred decided that it was, and left the room. As soon as he did, Maggie went into the covered kennel and laid down. A few minutes later she gave a great push, and out came baby number one, at 8:42!

The kitten wasn’t moving, and Maggie was more interested in chewing through the umbilical cord, and I hovered and dithered about what to do, and finally stepped outside the room and bellowed down to Fred to bring some rags. By the time I got back into the room, the kitten was moving and Maggie had started cleaning him (or her. I truly have no idea of the sex of any of these babies).

Do the little pink toes and the wee claws KILL YOU DEAD like they do me?

Before I knew it, Maggie was pushing again. A few short pushes, and baby number two was born at 8:57 am!

Maggie’s looking at that little climber like “WHAT are you doing, child?” A moment later she turned and looked at me like “What is going ON, here?!”

Baby number three was born at 9:20, and number four was close behind at 9:32.

Do you see the wee leg thrown over the kitten next to him?

I had literally JUST posted Maggie seems settled in for the time being. We may be at a grand total of four – or maybe she’s just resting up for a second round! when she started having contractions again. Moment later I was pretty sure that there was a number five, but I had to lift the towel on top of the kennel to peek inside to be sure. That one was born at 10:07.

I think this was right after #6 was born; Maggie was attending to the newborn, and the other ones were kind of wiggling around yelling.

Baby leg slung over Maggie’s foot.

She was SO good during this entire process, doing her job like she knew what was what.

We just now went upstairs to change out the bedding in the kennel because the towels that were in there were pretty wet from the birthing process. Fred carefully lifted the babies and put them on a cat bed. Then he reached in to get Maggie, and as soon as he went to lift her out, she appeared to think “Oh, okay. They’re taking care of the babies. I’m going to go eat!” and then went and did so.

It was touching to have her trust us that much, to have her unconcerned about her babies since she knew we were caring for them. I got the bedding changed out, snapped a few pictures, and the instant Fred lifted the last baby back into the kennel, Maggie climbed in after them.

I posted after the first one was born that I thought it was black and white, but as it turns out, we have all brown tabbies, some with lots of white. Hopefully they’ll look different enough from each other that we’ll be able to tell them apart.

I’m hoping to get individual pictures of them tomorrow and perhaps even get a glance at their backsides to see what we’re dealing with. It’s probably too soon, but Fred’s pretty good at sexing kittens – I think he was able to tell what Kara had had within a day or two of their births – and of course as soon as I know, y’all will know.

Lori T. was the winner of the Maggie Pool – she guessed 9 am today – and once we can tell who’s who and what’s what, we’ll let the naming begin. I do intend to still go with the Irish naming theme simply because I wanna. 🙂 Lori gets to choose which kitten she wants to name, and once she’s named hers, we’ll name the rest.

Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who took part in the Maggie Pool. I have to pull up the Paypal report, but I do believe we raised in the area of $500, and that is WAY too cool!!! You guys are beyond awesome, thank you!!!