here you go, they were there last week – and when I walked into the cat room, Miss Priss was laying on her side, and Christopher was… nursing. Or attempting to nurse, since I don’t suppose she was producing milk. I hope not, anyway. She was laying there patiently, and he was kneading and nursing for the LONGEST time, and it was extremely disturbing. I don’t know WHY I was so freaked out, it wasn’t like it was a sexual thing, but it just seemed WRONG.
I thought about calling the lady who runs the shelter, but I’ve called her an awful lot since we got these kittens, and Fred likes to jokingly (I think he’s joking, anyway!) say “If you don’t stop calling her every day, she’s not going to let you have any more kittens!”
Besides, I have a feeling she’d just tell me it’s a normal thing, that kittens who are taken from their mother too soon or weaned too soon tend to do it.
It’s still freaky, though.
* * *
I’m so helpful.
Oh, and I own but haven’t yet read
What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal,
Eleven on Top, and
Gods in Alabama. I read
The Weight-Loss Diaries in October of 2004 and
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in May of 2004. (I gave them five Poos and four Poos, respectively)
(I haven’t seen the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet, if that’s what you were wondering.)
And as for the Bullshit episode we were on (you probably found that with the search, but just in case…) you can read about our experience
here, and we were on the episode entitled
Eat This!
You’re welcome.
* * *
I had a damn busy morning today. I got up when Fred left for work – 6:45 – so I could do some laundry, take a shower, get dressed, and wrangle three of the boy kittens. Today’s neutering day for three of the boys, and I couldn’t decide which boys to take, so I cleaned out the litter box and looked them all over, and then finally decided to just grab the three closest boys and toss them in the carrier. I ended up with
Snoopy,
Edgar, and
Oy. Once that was done, I had to make the half-hour trip to the vet. I was dreading the drive, because little kittens have surprisingly loud meows when they’re scared, but except for a few sad little “Why do you hate me?” meows from Oy, they were pretty quiet.
At one point I stupidly stuck my finger in the carrier so they could feel… I don’t know, comforted? Which sounds stupid when I really think about it, ’cause why exactly would a finger comfort them? “Oh, look a finger! I feel so relaxed and unfrightened now…” Anyway, one of them decided that a good reaction to the finger would be to sink a claw into the end of the finger – you know, where all the NERVES are – and I ended up driving down a country road screaming loudly while the man in the truck behind me probably wondered whether I’d been drinking.
I dropped the kittens off at the vet – and the vet assistants immediately fussed over how cute the kittens are, which means I LOVE the vet assistants – and drove back to Madison for a 9:00 hair appointment. I was about ten minutes late, because I’d made the vet appointment without realizing I had a hair appointment, and the vet appointment was at 8:30, which didn’t give me a lot of time to get to the hair place. I did call and leave a message that I’d be a little late, so all was okay.
The woman who cut my hair did her usual faaaaabulous job. She’s pregnant and due in a few weeks, and I think she’s really ready to get this whole pregnancy thing over with. We spent the whole time talking about her kids, my kid, the kittens, and various other things, so the time flew.
I left the hair place, put gas in my car, and went to Sam’s to pick up a few things – bottled water, gum, trash bags – and for probably the only time in my life, left without spending over $100. That almost never happens, so I gave myself a high five in the parking lot (not really), and headed for home.
Where I am now. Waiting for the vet’s office to call and tell me I can pick up the kittens. After I pick them up, I have to run them over to the shelter so they can get their vaccinations (the lady who runs the shelter – and I need to come up with a name for her, don’t I? – offered to show me how to do it, but I’m such a klutz I’m sure I’d only end up vaccinating myself, and since I’m not (so far as I know) in danger of developing feline leukemia, I’d rather have her do it).
So yeah, it’s been a busy day for me. I’m not complaining, though – I like the occasional busy day. I just don’t want every day to be a busy day, because I’m too damn lazy to deal with that.
* * *
After Fred went to bed last night, I turned on the laptop and settled into the chair in the corner of the bedroom, and finally, finally, FINALLY got caught up on my email. It took me about an hour and a half, and there were actually emails that had been waiting for a response since the END OF MARCH (god, I suck), but I got every last one of them answered.
The later it got, the chattier I got, so there were a couple of emails that people had sent just a paragraph or two, and I responded with pages and pages of yammering.
I’d like to say that I intend to keep caught up on my email from here on out, but even I don’t believe me when I say that anymore, so I’m sure sometime mid-Fall I’ll be talking again about how I just got caught up on all my email again…
* * *
Now. I’m not much of a jewelry wearer, except on special occasions, you know how it goes. When I heard that Bonnie and Suzanne were going to be
selling their stuff online, I took a quick look and liked what I saw, but never got around to ordering anything.
Yesterday, I went to the post office, and what do you suppose was sitting there waiting for me?
Bracelets. YELLOW bracelets. Now, like I said, I don’t usually wear any jewelry at all, but these bracelets are so cute and comfy and very much ME that I’ve been wearing them since I got ’em.
(They also sent me something for the spud, but I won’t show a picture of that, ’cause the spud reads this journal and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)
Do I sound like a cheesy commercial? Because I don’t mean to, but these bracelets are so cute and well-made that I think y’all should go order one. Or a pair of earrings, or even an earring and bracelet set. You know, whatever strikes your fancy. Go on, go
check ’em out. Don’t forget to come back, though. I’ve still got cute kitten pics to share.
* * *
Those darn cats.
The vet’s office just called. Oy, Edgar, and Snoopy are just fine, and I can pick them up in a few hours. Poor babies, they’re going to need a lot of snuggling tonight, I bet.
Flossie in front of the window.
Fightin’ kitties.
When I see pictures like this, I realize just how much the kittens have grown. I mean, compare that picture to this one:
Amazing, isn’t it?
Snoopy, trying to nurse. He was unsuccessful.
I’ve become just a piece of furniture to these kittens. Here, we see Peanut and Flossie sitting on my shoulder and fighting with each other.
Snoopy on my shoulder.
Peanut and his toes.
Is she yawning… or is she screaming?
“Momma, your feet stink.”
The Floss-monster shows that ball just who the boss is around here.]]>
I’m not sure what I’m going to do once the kittens are gone… They are the highlight of my day!
When I was growing up in the country people would always dump pregnant cats in the road, we usually had multiple litters of kittens popping up in the barn each summer.. sometimes older, like 6-8 month old kittens would nurse from other mama cats with new babies, we had to put them in a room in the barn to keep the big kittens from stealing all the milk, they had food, they just wanted the milk. We also had a male cat, full grown, who would try to nurse off our male dog. Weird!
Back in ’89, my son and I picked up a couple of “free to a good home” kitties. He picked out a buff colored male from one family, and I took home the last little female from another. That evening, D.C. (boy cat) cuddled up next to Emma and started rooting around her belly. She gave him a “WTF” look, but settled down and allowed herself to be used as a pacifier. This continued every night. Emma developed one rather calloused nipple with stained hair surrounding it. This continued until we had them spayed and neutered at six months of age. After coming home from her surgery, Emma stuck her foot on the top of D.C.’s head everytime he tried to “nurse”. She weaned him VERY quickly. D.C. dealt with this blow by sucking on the hair on one of his front legs!
D.C. died from FIP at the age of 5. Emma is now 16 and I can still feel that calloused nipple when I rub her belly!
Love all the kitty stories and pictures!
My cat (who’s 13) still occasionally (very rarely) tries to nurse (he did it last night, in fact, on my knee). He did it a *lot* when he was a baby, and my vet said it was very possibly because he’d been taken from his mother too early (he was abandoned, and only about 3 weeks old when I found him; I had to dropper-feed him for a while).
When I brought Sister home at 12 weeks old, Sidney was about 2 years old (and male) and Sister would try to nurse from HIM!
Like Shelly said, I don’t kow what I’m gonna do when the kittens are gone…I need my daily dose of Peanut and Oy…
Anyway…I’m glad you like the bracelets =o)
I was just thinking yesterday that the kittens are looking more and more like cats as each day’s worth of photos is posted. Yikes, Robyn … your babies are growing up!
That had GOT to be one of the BEST cat yawning pics I have EVER seen…..and we all know how many of em we’ve seen here lol!!!!
Why when I read the caption “Snoopy on my shoulder” did I suddenly think of John Denver?
Kay – I thought about saying that, but I used it just last week about Flossie and I didn’t want to overuse it. 🙂
Too funny! I had a kitten once that nursed on one of my older cats until she 1-2 years old. Tubby just…..let her do it. It was disturbing and I would try and figure out (safe) ways to discourage it like putting a little Listerine on Tubby’s nipples, etc. That didn’t work but Nitwit eventually grew out of it. *shrug*
Hi Robyn. My mom had a cat that used to nurse off our dog. Our dog had never had puppies, but it loved letting the cat nurse off of it. Matter of fact, the cat did it so often, that the dog actually started producing milk. I remember walking into the room and seeing them like that and they’d both look at me all guilty, like I caught them doing something preverted lol.
Actually my mom has had a lot of unusual cats over the years. One cat she had was born with 7 toes on each front paw. Each litter of kittens it had, were also born that way. It looked just like a mitten.
One litter of kittens it had, it was about 5 kittens I think, they were all deformed and died within a few days after being born, due to the mother rejecting them. One of the kittens actually had 2 faces. There was a big divot down the center of its face and on each side was lips, nose and an eye. It was pretty sad.
Sure will miss your kitten pictures when they are gone. Hopefully you’ll adopt somemore soon.
Thank you so much for introducing me to the Trinket Trunk. That’s *just* the kind of jewelry I like! I’m so happy! I sent the link to my work email addy so when I get bored at work tomorrow I can shop!
Isn’t Christopher just beautiful? I fell in love with him at first sight at the store. And yes, he attempts to nurse on Miss Priss, and she allows it (for the most part). Pretty cute. And yet also very “Flowers in the Attic”-y.
If you went today, then you saw my (former) babies there with their momma. Rotten little guys! Hee.
Whitters: Christopher is ADORABLE. I love the orange kitties anyway, but he’s just a cutie.
I did see your little guys, and I wanted to bring them home with me, they’re so damn cute. And their Mom was hissy with the other cats, but she let me pet her. In fact, insisted that I do so! 🙂
Many years ago we adopted a 5 week old kitten whose mother had died. We also had 2 year old male dog at the time. He used to nurse from our dog so hard that the dog had little hickies all over his nipples!
When Cat was tiny, he tried to nurse on Lena and got smacked down for his efforts. So he turned to the (male) dog instead. Poor Loco obviously hated that but seemed to think he had to put up with it. It went on until Cat was probably 5 or 6 months old. He also used to wake me up in the middle of the night trying to nurse on my chin. It was adorable until I got cat scratch disease a couple of weeks after we got him. (Fortunately nobody else got it, and people can only get it once, I think.)
Those kittens are so adorable!! What a good kitty mom you are. 🙂
A friend of mine fostered a litter of 5 orphaned kittens and 4 of the kittens ganged up on one of the litter and decided that his weenie would make a good momma-nipple replacement. Needless to say his weenie wasn’t up to the task. They would up keeping him and naming him Rocco after a famous porn star.