A Quick Update

My first full week of fostering is coming a close. It's been quite an adventure! The babies seem to be doing very well. Snoopy has stopped turning his little mustachioed nose up at the canned food, and now vacuums the stuff down like a teeny, tiny Hoover. He was also the lone holdout when it came to purring, and I'm pleased to announce that he's doing that, too.

It's not uncommon to walk into the bathroom (after rounding up all twelve kittens who run out the door at first opportunity) and have a mass of teeny Peanuts purring at my feet. Especially when there's food involved. : )

Lucy continues to be the most vocal, and the biggest cuddler. She's the smallest of the gang, and very, very sweet. Charlie Brown and Linus are also very, very sweet and eager for a cuddle. Snoopy is a wee bit more independent and doesn't seem to want to be held as much--he's much happier running around the bathroom and stirring up some epic wrestling matches. He doesn't object, however, to having his back scratched.

I have to admit, I will be glad to get my bathroom back. My apartment is 750 square feet. I have two bedrooms, and Millie and Harley's litter boxes are kept in the spare room. I didn't want to move their boxes AND bring four kittens into the mix, so the bathroom was the only place to quarantine the little bits. I'm used to showering with my door open--my bathroom is windowless and tiny, so the steam builds up, even in the shortest of showers. I've been running the fan a lot more to keep the steam in check (don't want mold!) and also the smell...those kittens can poop.

Much as I want my bathroom back, I know it will be hard to let them go next week. I already talk to them and call them "my" babies. I'm keeping that little wall up, though (hence the complaining about my bathroom being a constant stinky mess!) so that it doesn't completely break my heart to give them up!

So we have one more week with the Peanuts Gang, and then they go to their next foster home. It won't be long after that that they are old enough to get their necessary vaccines and spayed/neutered. By sometime in August, I'll probably stop by PetCo on a Sunday morning to clean cages and see my sweet Peanuts Gang there, looking for their forever homes. It will definitely be bittersweet. My wish for each baby is a long, happy life with wonderful human companions.

More pictures and videos to come! I got busy today, cleaning the bathroom (it's a daily thing now, and when they leave, I'm going to bleach the hell out of the room, top to bottom), doing laundry, working out (I saw G. the Meanie Gershom and he said he liked the blog I wrote about him the other day), and getting some other stuff done around the apartment. Tomorrow I might head over to PetCo and help out with adoptions for a bit. That is, between Mid-Day Tuna Time and Early Evening Tuna Time.

I should've named them Hoover, Bissell, Dyson and Oreck. ; )

Continued thanks for the words of encouragement! Everybody is fat and happy--their little bellies are getting bigger and their whiskers are growing out (I know that babies sometimes chew each others' whiskers off, but all of these were missing all of their whiskers, so I wouldn't be surprised if some asshole cut them off). They're gaining tons of confidence. I still don't think of them as cats, or felines, because that implies a certain amount of grace and agility--not to mention the ability to get their claws unstuck from my clothing without assistance--that these wee sweeties have yet to learn. Having never spent an extended ammount of time around very young kittens, it's been fun to watch them develop their feline skills.

And with that, it's time for bed. I have some cuddling to do with Millie and Harley. : )