Yesterday's thoughts...
...The Archive
January 4, 2012
To me, one of the hardest things of being a breeder is letting kittens go to their new home. No matter how many times I go through it, it never gets easier.
Over the last two weeks, Jiggy's babies, one by one, have been leaving with their new families. I have held these babies in my hand, wet from birth and gasping with their first breath. I have seen them open their eyes, watched their faces the first time they taste food, held my breath as they climb to the top of the cat tree for the first time...
Letting go is sooo hard. 
Well...unless your kittens are leaving just after Christmas. I'm convinced that the kitten Christmas moto should be "No ornament left behind!" and I have to confess that my usual sorrow over releasing kittens was tempered with relief this time. A holiday season with 12 week old kittens is absolute craziness.
Nothing is sacred. Jiggy's seven might be lovely, but they could strip a tree in no time flat!
At first, we contained them in the living room, with the tree in the dining room. We could still see it through the French doors, lights shimmering and the fresh pine smell fainter than usual but definitely present.
But kittens grow... and by the week before Christmas, seven in one room was about six too many. They needed space. Sooo....I fenced the tree and turned them loose.
My containment system worked pretty well for about...oh, 2 hours, while they still had new places to explore. But then it was all over with. Boo Kitty (little innocent BooKitty!) led the assault. She climbed on the dining room table, leapt over to the wine rack and then FLEW through space to land inside the forbidden zone. Jack, and then all the rest followed.
No ornament was left behind.
December 24, 2011
I have a lot to celebrate. It's been a good year.
My oldest son Geoffrey and his wife Christine are visiting from Atlanta-- tonight I sat at the dinner table, stuffed with roast beef, and listened to my two sons joking and ribbing each other...watched my daughter-in-law and my husband smiling, and I realized that this was one of those Moments that stay in your memory. We haven't all been together for the holiday in a long time.
Two rooms over, the Christmas kittens nuzzle against their mom. They were born Tuesday, with perfect timing. Camille purrs proudly everytime I walk in the room-- she has given me another gift, another reason to celebrate with these tiny furballs.
I have heard that cats have have the ability to delay birth to the hour of their choosing. Certainly for this litter, Camille had it all planned. I had thought she was in labor on Monday night. She alternated a restless pacing with laptime, leaning against me while she rumbled softly and kneaded my arm. I like to be there when the girls have kittens, just in case something goes wrong, so I settled in to sleep on a mat beside her birthing box. I hoped that she'd have her kittens before it was time for me to go to work.
No such luck. By 5 am, all activity had ground to a halt and Camille snoozed peacefully, giving me no reason to stay home. I watched her all day on the kitty-cam from work. She slept, she ate, she stretched, she visited her litter box... completely relaxed, with none of the night's agitation. I checked her one last time before I left work at 3:30-- sound asleep, belly up, with one paw in the air twitching ocassionally. I thought about what a mess it would be if she didn't have them before the holiday.
I have no idea what happened during my 20 minute drive home, but Camille must have had a timer set--I walked in to find her waiting for me. I might have known that Camille with her sweet accomodating nature would never inconvenince me. Thirty minutes after I got home, we had the first kitten. Perfect timing.
December 9, 2011
So, you can see who has top billing by the order of things-- obviously, the cats come first.
I keep protesting that I'm not a crazy cat lady, but I have to admit that even I am beginning to wonder. You see, it takes a broom to manage the masses these days.
Jiggy's beautiful kittens have taken over the living room. There're SEVEN of them, and it's a big room, but...they're EVERYWHERE. Worse, what they want most in life is to be where I least want them to go-- our study. Our study is a room that just drips with electric cords, computer wiring and paperwork piles that I can never seem to get caught up on. When I think of sharp little kitten teeth and busy little kitten paws in this room, I feel faint. We have to go through the living room to get here, and that means thwarting the hopes of seven kittens.
Merlin and Goblin in particular have made it their life's work to run the border. Everytime I open the door, I'm greeted by a kamikaze of flying fur, intent on going where no kitten has gone before. (That's not really true...they were BORN in this room. But all they did THEN was snuggle up to mommy and maybe wiggle around their birthing box. Certainly, they did not fly like trapeze artists over and under and between our limbs to reach their destination).
Even with their persistence, getting in and out of the study is normally not a big deal. We open the door just wide enough to edge through. They make a dash for it. We step through, scoop them up and slide them back in where they belong and close the door.
The problem is that I had surgery last week to remove bone spurs from both my right shoulder and left knee-- a two-fer-one special to finish up my 57,000 mile tuneup after our long hike last year. Right now, I'm not so swift on the scooping part. Actually, even the getting-through-the-door part is a feat to be proud of. Crawling under desks to retrieve wayward kittens from hazardous wiring is just not possible at the moment.
So even if I AM (literally) sweeping kittens out of the way, I really am NOT a crazy cat lady. It's just that the broom works. Really! It's the best answer for all of us!
