Cat Parenthood, day 45

photoAssuming their approximate birthdate at the beginning of April is correct, the babies are about twelve and a half weeks old now.

They’re getting noticeably into adolescence. Lorenzo is still bigger than Chinchilla, but she put on a recent growth spurt. Overnight, it seems, she grew the face and long legs of a teenager cat.

We are keeping them out of the bedroom at night. I’d like to get to a point where they might join us, but a good night’s rest is more precious than rubies. And right now they’re hitting the stroppy and disobedient phase of kittenhood, so there’s no way we want them cycloning around the bed in the wee hours.

I expect to be shouting “You’re not my supervisor!” on their behalf a lot in the next few months, by way of channeling their obvious response to our trying to introduce them to the laughable concepts of No, Bad Cat! and/or Geddown! I found Lorenzo sleeping on the dish-drying towel last night, having shoved all the glasses and other things aside to make room for his lanky body. CinCin dove through the hanging metal measuring cups this afternoon–clang, clang, dangle dangle!–and knocked the coffeemaker over on her way back to the floor. She’d probably been checking out what’s behind the microwave after a wander around the stove.

Even in naughtiness, they are adorable.

 

I had been keeping an eye on the various kabillions of photos I take of them, looking for something that might make the cut for Cats of Instagram, and when CinCin yawned in the face of the iPhone not long ago I got one that I knew was a great prospect. CoI put it up on Monday, and within 24 hours something like 60,000 people had liked it. Holy crap, eh? My baby’s a star!

Just now, to blow their little kitty minds, I put some ice cubes in their water fountain. They are staring at it in wonder and terror–you’d think it had grown tadpoles.

Another manic lunedi

Miriam Williams at Inky Realms liked Child of a Hidden Sea to the tune of 4.5 out of five stars, praising it for having a racially diverse cast and gay characters, and even shipping Parrish/Bram. (Pramwell? Brammish?) She also felt the book needed a map, while acknowledging my earlier note about why this was challenging. (Short answer: too much ocean, not enough land.)

The review gave a nice lift to a peculiar weekend; I had an anaphylactic reaction at immunotherapy Friday. While it wasn’t serious, it wasn’t fun either. I was at the clinic for hours, in what turned out to be a real hip-wrecker of a chair, and was left creaky and wheezy all weekend. On Saturday we took the kitties in for their second round of immunizations–they are in perfect health, and have put on another half-pound or so each.

Though CinCin has a feather allergy–did I tell you this? I feel extra smug about having plucked her out of the wild given that she’d have sneezed constantly whenever hunting or eating birdkind.

July is busy time at K’s office, so we both worked a fair amount on Sunday.

Good things abounded: we made it to the edge of Pride in time for a Stonewall reenactment and the obligatory sighting of a well-built guy dancing in sandals and a posing pouch, the Met in HD rebroadcast of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte was delightful, and we followed that up with delicious, delicious sandwiches at Corned Beef House. We watched Austenland and I liked it–which wouldn’t have stopped me from rewriting it significantly if I was in charge of the universe–and tried out The West Wing on Netflix.

How was your weekend?

Kitten achievements unlocked

Points have been awarded for:

  • Three a.m. bed pouncing and mommy toe biting.
  • Fleeing in terror from Mr. Squirty Bottle.
  • Identifying a secret napping locale behind Gillian Gill’s excellent Nightingales, a family history of Florence Nightingale’s family.
  • Standing somersault.
  • Alchemy: turning kibble molecules into yet more of this:

Still required for level-up:

  • Total mastery of the litterbox.
  • 100% leap from floor to couch, without paw contact.
  • Crockery breakage.
  • Tripping an ape level one – squawk and stumble.
  • Leaving dusty litter prints on food preparation surface.
  • Ecommerce.
  • Hacking NORAD.

Minimal animals, the latest

imageCinZo are about to lose their feral appellation, I think. We started giving them their wet food by hand a few days ago, and not surprisingly this has chilled them out considerably on the issue of whether we are big scary giants who will eat them. Petting them induces purring and they will snuggle for as long as thirty seconds at a time. (Hey, they’ve got important pouncing to get back to!)

They have also figured out the sandbox, as far as we can tell, and thus have the run of the apartment as of bedtime last night. Finally, the TV no longer terrifies them: I subjected them to three hours of The Life of Birds on the weekend.

They aren’t yet convinced that being sung to is a particularly good use of anyone’s time, but one short week after being pulled out from under a porch in Etobicoke, it’s all looking happy, secure and friendly.

Now the question is: can we get them to accept snuggly worship from our friends? Perhaps especially our Peter Watts shaped friends?