My sweet baby fosters are getting their litter box habits under control, I’m pleased to announce. The first couple of days I had them, I found leavings outside the litter box in several locations – something I dealt with (after I cleaned it up, of course) by adding more litter boxes. Right now we’ve got six litter boxes in strategic locations, three in the closet and the other three in the room. As they’re adjusting to their new surroundings, they’re tending toward using the litter boxes in the closet, though the one by the door is a favorite as well.
I’m also having to clean behinds less often, now that they’re on a regular diet of kitten food. (I’ll still swipe their behinds with a baby wipe if I think they need it.)
These kittens are teeny, but there are seven of them in one room, and they can make a mess, with the scattering of the kitten food all over the place, and kicking litter out and such. I have a little handheld rechargeable vacuum that I use to keep the chaos under control. (I’d link to it, but I Googled around and haven’t seen it.) I got it when we got our first batch of fosters almost four years ago, and I like it not because it does such an outstanding job, but because it does an okay job and it’s far quieter than any other hand held vacuum I’ve used. It has a roller brush underneath and basically picks up stuff and tosses it into a slide-out drawer that you just open and empty. Like I said, it keeps the chaos under control – I’ll still need to get in there with the Dyson (I’ll put the kittens in carriers and put them in the bathroom while I vacuum) every once in a while.
So when I use the vacuum on the floor of the foster kitten room, what I do is crawl around and run the vacuum around with one hand. Beulah thinks this is the MOST FUN EVER, and she crawls up on the back of my leg and hangs on for the ride.
She is such a wee little thing and she just cracks me up. Fred says she looks like a little bulldog when she walks across the room, and I have to agree.
Beulah is an observer. Last night I went to hang out with the kittens after dinner, and she demanded that I pick her up. When I did, she just sat there and watched her siblings run around like their tails were on fire. I thought she’d fallen asleep, sitting there in the palm of my hand, but every time I looked down at her, she was just quietly sitting and watching.
Don’t get me wrong, she can be a scrapper when she wants to be, and she can hold her own against her much-bigger brothers and sister, but she just sits and watches for longer than I’ve ever seen a cat sit still without falling asleep.
I LOVE HER. You couldn’t tell that, right?
::CHOMP::
Jasper says “Who, me? What? I wasn’t doing anything, honest!”
Bessie tempts me with her toes.
Caleb, sound asleep.
Phinneas can barely keep his eyes open.
Jasper, amazed.
“Cannot… keep… eyes… open…”
Snuggly brudders.
Look at that wee belly!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: I ain’t cleaning the frickin’ floors in this house ever again
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
That last pic reminds me of my own runt SO much. A stray in my mom’s neighbor’s yard had babies and we looked after them. The runt was about half her siblings size. She was a feisty thing and even though she was small, she didn’t miss out on the action with her brothers/sisters. She was so lazy, though, that she used to lay on her back in the grass, big belly in the air and wait for a sibling to walk by/over her so she could attack without actually getting up. It was hilarious. Eventually we captured the mom and the babies and turned them in to a shelter, though I kept the runt. By the time I got her home she was a whopping 10 ounces. She’ll be 10 this year.
My Tody had bowed legs and when he’d walk in the room I’d say, “Here comes my bullkitty.” I called him BullTody so much that he eventually knew it as one of his names.
I’m loving me some Phinneas. I so need another orange kitty.
I feel in love with my Kiefer who was called some ungodly name (Bears quarterback – Urlocker or something like that) at my friend’s house because you would pick him up and he’d just sit and cuddle usually purring for the longest time. My friend tended to get rid of her cats – when they would have too many animals – so I ordered her not to get rid of Kiefer before she called me. I got the call maybe 4 months later. He still very quiet unless someone pisses him off and then the chase is on.