5/31/21

3 weeks ago I was asked if I could take in a second litter. I was game, though the Carb Kittens were getting over a flea/tapeworm treatment that resulted in baths and medicines for my entire household. The rescue approved it with treatment for the new litter as well, so I picked up 3 terrified kittens.

These babies were born under a IBR volunteer's shed when the neighborhood cat gave birth. Though LS, the volunteer, prepared a safe place for her, she believed the kittens had not survived, as she saw no sign of them for several weeks. Then a small blur was seen and they got the traps out. 3 kittens were trapped quickly, but the 4th evaded. They found the darkest place they could to hide, often under the blanket covering my lap. They froze in terror when touched, making them easy to handle, but I could feel their fear. The submitted to a bath with the same frozen fright.

Luckily, the next day the last kitten was caught. The fluffy calico displayed the same shock during her bath and joined her siblings in hiding under the blankets.

All of them were food motivated, especially the tabby with white paws. But what really helped taming the feral felines was my oodie- my ginormously soft wearable blankets with hoods. They were fascinated by it, particularly the brown tabby. He continually buried into the hood, purring and nursing on the sherpa lining against the back of my neck.

In my Oodie, I became a kitten hot spot. In fact, this is why it's taken me 3 weeks to get this blog started. Though easily startled, the new kittens lost all fear of me in my Oodie and became quite cuddly. The Carbs are some of the friendliest kittens.... so I had 8 kittens vying for the same real estate in my lap. This is what I looked like when I tried sitting down at my computer to blog last week- 2 hours of "work" resulted in more purrs than paragraphs.

The weekend after their arrival, we had a birthday party for my niece at my house... because a double litter of kittens is a huge incentive. Approximately 0.3 seconds after picking up the calico, my mom shocked me by announcing "If Beignet likes her, I'm adopting this kitten". When we introduced her to my dad, his eyes crossed and he announced that she was "kukalated! Look at her face... it looks like she's all confused and doesn't know what color she wants to be. Look at her eyebrows! They're crooked!" For a few minutes we called her Kuka, Kukalala, or Kukalated... but then someone said "Jigsaw" and she was named.

The tabbies became Sudoku & Kakuro (like Sudoku-but a lot more interesting, in my opinion). The gray kitten is Tetris.