And if you think Your Lucy’s giving you A LOOK, check this one out.
Isn’t that statue awful? It does make me laugh, though!
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Is it me or does “Sweet Sleepin’ Gilda” look like a baby otter?!
I can see that! Someone else said she looks like a mole, and I can kinda see that, too. She’s got that sleek look to her, unlike her fluffier brothers.
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In gardening, if a plant has spent too long in a pot that is too small, the roots can get tangled and the plant grows to the limit of the size of the pot and it is said to be pot-bound. If you transfer it to a larger pot (or plant it in the soil) it suddenly shoots up in size, putting one a great deal more growth and activity than you’d see in a plant of similar initial size that had been in the larger container all its life.
I think your kittens were womb bound and are now growing like weeds.
WOMB BOUND! I think you’re right, and that’s the best description ever. (Also, I have to admit that after I read your comment, I thought “Hmm… a litter of kittens named after Weeds is a good idea!” Yes. Yes, it is. Duh!)
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Are kittens that are super hissy at this likely to grow up to be big talkers? I ask because my little girl was a VERY hissy kitten, and now never shuts up. We joke that she likes to hear herself talk because she walks around all day making little throaty meows to no one.
That is a good question! I don’t know the answer, though, I’ve never thought to pay attention. We’ll have to see if these kittens are talkers!
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Robyn, do you know why you seem to get more boy kitties than girl kitties? I was reading through the archives and you said [some kitten I can’t remember, Arya Stark?] was the 100th girl and you’d had 118 boys, or something like that. Is this just a coincidence or are there more boys born than girls? Googling “kitten sex disparity” is not as helpful as you might think.
ETA: Just watched the video–if I didn’t know they were hissing, I’d think something was wrong with their breathing! I wonder what sets the hissing off? Just mama not being right there?
Yeah, I think Mama not being right there is what sets them off – if they were in the wild (thank god they’re not), I imagine they’d do it when Mama was off eating, in an attempt to scare off predators who might come poking around.
I’m not sure why I get more boys than girls – someone once told me that the sex of kittens tend to come in cycles and could have something to do with the weather at the time of conception, but I don’t know if that was just conjecture or if there’s actual science behind it. I figured out at some point in the past few months that I’ve had something like 54% boys, 46% girls (a few years back, it was 52% to 48%), so there is a difference, but it’s not a huge one.
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The trouble in my house is that the container for dried cranberries, one of my favorite snacks, sounds just like the cat treat bag. So every time I get a snack, the cats have to get one too, or else I’m teasing them.
We keep the cat treats in a quart-sized Mason jar, and every time we open ANY jar, the cats come running. A few of them also come running when they hear the can opener, although we’ve never fed them food that needed to be opened that way, so I’m not sure why that is. Jake goes crazy every time I pop open a can of cat food for Lucy… and she eats several times a day, so he goes crazy a lot!
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Have you been able to give them kisses yet?!
I’ve managed to sneak a few kisses in, but kissing training will need to start pretty soon. Lucy’s good about letting me kiss her, but she gets annoyed after a while. And those kittens need to learn how to take a kiss and keep on going!
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Sometimes, when the kittens are curled up sound asleep, I SCOOP ’em up in my hand and hold them. They eventually wake up, but in the meantime it’s fun watching them all curled up in my hand.
This is Rickles’ belleh. It is white.
And this is Louis’ belleh. It is delightfully spotted.
8 days old! Compare that to:
One day old!
Sweet girl.
She has such an expressive face. “I see what you’re doing there, lady.”
Gilda, apparently dreaming about nursing.
Roseanne, yawning and stretching.
Couldn’t you just snatch that girl up and kiss her?
Just gorgeous.
She spends a lot of time with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. She better watch out, it’ll dry up!
And Roseanne with the tip of her tongue sticking out. Apparently it’s a family trait.
Seriously. I can’t even, with these kittens. How dare they?
Roseanne with Belushi’s foot in her face – and she don’t carrrre.
She also doesn’t care that Skelton is lying with his back end on her. (Please note Lucy in the background, there, keeping an eye on me.)
No new eyeballs yet – Shecky’s the only one so far. The others are very very close, I think. I’ll be surprised if at least a few don’t open this weekend.
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Video! Shecky, the one-eyeballed boy, was the only one awake and was trying to tell me something. I love how, at 14 seconds, he looks away all “You don’t GET IT! Hmph!” Also, bonus hissing from Roseanne at the end. (By the way, his eye was a bit goopy when it first opened, so I put some ointment in it, which is why it looks a little rough here.)
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Sheriff Mama keeps an eye out for trouble.
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Previously
2014: Of course, this brings me to my favorite two duck pictures.
2013: In cuter and fuzzier news…
2012: And Razzie’s all “Hey, I’m tiny TOO! Tell her!”
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: Wild thang!
2008: No entry.
2007: It was, and it squawked and flapped when the light from the flashlight hit it, and again I screamed and levitated across the room, followed by an amazing number of cats.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
Ok, Roseanne is sooooo purdy (and my fav), and Rickles is in second!!! So adorbs! Love his white belleh!
I have a question about kitten holding. Now, I know they are not being hurt in the least, but is there a reason you hold with the hand wrapped completely around them as though they are being squeezed? Again – I know they aren’t being hurt! It just looks weird. I always picked my kittens up with one hand under the breastbone, and another around their back legs. Of course, they weren’t squirmy newborns either…
I think she is holding with the left hand and photographing with the right. I guarantee you that there is no squeezing involved.
Yeah, it’s just so I can get a picture of them in better light and from a better angle. If Fred were a better photographer’s assistant (that’s right! I said it!), he could hold them while I take the picture, but for some reason the pictures I take while I’m holding them come out better than when he’s assisting me.
awwww… Sheckles trying to talk to you was the sweetest thing. He’s got an advantage over the others and was trying to communicate before the rest catch up to him… and you blew it Robyn! Way to go… HMPH!
He’s probably trying to tell her how hard it is to be a wee kitteh!
At least Shecky is trying to talk to you!
Yeah…and the others are telling you to bugger off with their little hisses! Ha!
Shecky looks like he’s ready for “Talk like a Pirate” Day with his 1-eye.
And yeah, Gilda is stealing my heart but she still looks like a mole. I bet when she grows up people think of Gilda from the Rita Hayworth movie.
Lord have mercy, they are precious precious precious! Shecky’s my favorite with his light light coloring, but I love them all!
Lukey (Luke Skywalker)!was looking over the sweet pictures, saw Gilda and climbed up in my shoulder (no small feat since he’s shall we say rotund), saying “ten is a good number.” She is the sweetest little girl; and they are all so adorable. I don’t know how you get anything done, Robyn!
Well, ten is a good even number, Lukey is absolutely correct!
I don’t get as much done as I need to, but they grow fast so if I spend a few hours just watching them nurse and sleep, the other stuff can wait, right?
I’m not certain if the same holds true of kittens, but there are slightly more human boys born than girls. The ratio evens out after a few years, and it’s suspected to be because males are more genetically vulnerable to birth defects, genetic disorders, and so on since they lack a backup X chromosome.
~the more you know~
That’s really interesting, I did not know that! Thanks, Lily. 🙂
omc – the picture of Gilda with her brother sleeping on her….tongue sticking out….looks like she’s being smooshed 🙂
I know, isn’t that hilarious? That girl cracks me up. She’s gonna be T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
Um.. what did you do to Gilda’s ears??
I don’t know what you’re implying, but I CERTAINLY did not bite them right off her head. (They were delicious.)
Do you ever look at sleeping kittens and think, just maybe, that all is well with the universe?
Our old girl Velcro, who finally died last year, holds our household record for the ability to discern when “treats” might be served. She loved tuna juice, not the fish itself but the juice from a can of tuna. When we made a tuna sandwich, she always got the juice. She could be asleep in the back of the house, but when you reached for a can of tuna, she would be in the kitchen in time for her juice. My son did some experiments. There are two other cabinet doors next to the tuna door. If you opened one of those and took a can of tomato soup, for instance, the cat would not show up. If you opened the tuna door and didn’t take a can of tuna down, she would come as far as the dining room door and wait. She knew the sound of the can opener, but if you used it to open a can of green beans, she knew it wasn’t the right stuff. My son was sure she had ESP, but when he just stood in the kitchen and thought about tuna, it got no response. If you said the word aloud, she knew. If you spelled it, she knew. I hope she’s in a Heaven right now where there is an unlimited supply of tuna.
That is hysterical, she could distinguish between the tuna/non-tuna cabinet doors?
That would have been an awesome party trick to show off. Bless her heart – sounds like she was a wonderful family member.
LOL we also called it tuna juice in our house (at least us kids did!)
One of my cats is the same way, but just about her canned food, since she’s never heard of tuna juice! 4 Cabinets, and she’ll only come running when I open ‘hers’.
On the treats bag/cranberries bag line of thought: I have one cat, out of the three, who comes running any time he hears a chip bag/cracker bag. and he doesn’t want me to give him one out of the bag, he wants to stick his head part way in, or his paw, and get it out himself. Mostly, he doesn’t actually eat what he gets, he licks the salt off, but doesn’t eat them, but regardless, he’s got to at least get one. We’ve gotten to where I’ll just shake a couple towards the opening and lay the bag on it’s side open so he can get one out easily. He’ll get one, trot off and leave me be. His absolute favorite that he’ll actually eat and not just lick are the Gardetto’s garlic rye chips. That’s the only one he’ll come back more than once for. Everything else he’s fine just as soon as he knows what it is and he has his one that he gets for himself. 🙂