The news these days is often depressing at worst and frustrating at best. It’s easy to let it get us down. Never fear… The News Blender has you covered. Once a week we feature Something Good and, in return, all you have to do is tell us something good that has happened to you this week, something you are thankful for, a joke, a cute animal story, an inspiring tale of heroics, a Random Act of Kindness… SOMETHING good!
The story I’m about to tell is either Something Good or Something Awful, depending on your viewpoint.
Two months ago today, my daughter, the animal lover, breathlessly came and told me there was a skinny, starving cat in our garage. By the time I got to the garage, she and my husband had already fed her, so the die was cast. Resignedly, I brought her in and quarantined her in the hall bathroom so we could feed her and slowly introduce her to Boo.
I named her Willow – if I was going to be the one burdened with dealing with all the nonsense of acclimatizing her to the house and our furry residents, I figured I should get to name her. She’s very pretty and very chill.
As we started fattening her up, I quickly started worrying that she was pregnant. In fact, I was convinced she was almost immediately. The timing of taking her in was terrible, because we had to leave for our Maine trip, so we couldn’t get her into the vet until after we got back. By that time, there was no question that she was pregnant, it was just a matter of when the babies would arrive. I’d never had a pregnant cat nor helped one deliver but I figured we’d do our best.
We’d been gone much of the day on July 23rd and when we arrived home and checked on Willow, she was in labor. About 30 minutes after we got home, she had the first and over the next 6 hours or so, she had 6 more.
They’re adorable, of course, and she’s a great mother, if not frazzled by the whole thing. I don’t blame her!
So, here are some pics of my 2 1/2 week old kittens.
They’re too young to tell their gender so we’re basically just making assumptions. I don’t think they’ll care. Also, they’ve been given TEMPORARY names, because it was too awkward to call them by their coloring or their collar colors. The names are temporary because we are NOT keeping them!
First up are Mouser, one of our gray babies – he’s very stripy and got that big M on his forehead. Is anyone else familiar with the legend that Mary blessed a cat in the stable with an M on his forehead and all cats with an M on their foreheads are great mousers? Or were my parents nuts? Anyway, no pressure buddy, just an ancient legend predicting your future!
And his sister Buffy, who is a mini me of her calico mama – gray, white, and buff – so “Buffy”. She’s going to be very pretty, like her mama, but we don’t have a single good picture of her. She’s the runt of the litter, I guess, but Willow is VERY tiny and I suspect Buffy will be too.
Next up are Gandalf (Gandalf the Gray, get it? From LOTR?) and Simba, one of our ginger-ish kittens. Gandalf has the prettiest face, in my opinion. He’s very stripy like his brother Mouser but has more white on his face. Simba is nearly white and so fluffy and scraggly. From the back, he looks like a tiny lion cub. And sounds like one too, when he’s getting weighed and is unhappy.
Then we have Creamsicle and Dandelion. Creamsicle’s got a big personality (can be a bit of a bully at mealtime!) We were very concerned because his left eye didn’t open like the right one, initially. After a few days, it was fine, so whew. Dandelion is so incredibly fluffy – reminds me of a dandelion, a bit. Also, he has a yellow collar, so it made sense. (The orange babies look SO much alike, we had to get color coded collars and put on them so we could tell them all apart. Creamsicle’s collar is orange, hence the name.)
Last but not least is Curly. He’s got a blue collar but he got named immediately after birth because his coat is wavy, noticeably so. He’s easy to tell apart from his siblings. He and Buffy are unique. The others? Not so much. The collars have been a blessing – we’re weighing them daily so we know they’re all healthy but what’s the point if you don’t know who you’re weighing? Curly is extremely sweet and there is a relentless campaign of “can we keep him?!?” going on and I’m doing my best to resist.
Oh, and that last pic… I made Willow a lovely nesting box after conferring with the internet. She used it for a week, then I woke up one more to find that she’d dragged all the babies out and had them on the cold floor next to her litter box. She’s refused to take them back in, so we gave up and just put a blanket on the floor. They’re all thriving, so I guess it’s ok.
So, I suppose it is Something Good that we took in a tiny starving pregnant cat and she was able to give birth to seven kittens and the kittens all survived and are thriving and so is she. I’m proud of that. However, it is Something Not Super Fantastic that we now have seven kittens we have to find good homes for and if said homes don’t pass Emily’s stringent qualifications they won’t get a kitten, but I guess I can check “Adopt a pregnant cat and help her successfully give deliver her babies” of my bucket list.
Anyway, now it’s your turn… Tell me something good!
