Kitten Diary

Kittens are 3 weeks old today!

Timeline: Born in the middle of a rainstorm Saturday, April 6, in my next-door apartment neighbor's backyard. Around dinnertime that late afternoon--in a break from the rain--Henny (after not showing up for dinner on Friday) finally answers my calls, and I'm able to see where she's huddling (and shivering) with her babies (which at the time just look like two rather than the three they turned out to be). Right then, the neighbor, not seeing the kittens or me, lets his dog out into the yard. Luckily, "Yahtzee" (I later found out) was kindly... AND scared of the miserable cat hissing and yowling at her so fiercely! I run over to my neighbor's front door (where, I'm ashamed to say, I'd usually only gone to complain about his loud stereo) and quickly explain that a stray cat I'd been feeding had just had her babies in his backyard, and could he please hold back his dog... He (Nick) was SO nice and solicitous. In the next day, he puts a tarp over the corner where she's had her babies, plus leaves food out for her.

Sunday, April 7: More rain. And Henny irrationally (well, weather-wise irrationally, but probably, in her mind, to avoid the activity in the neighbor's yard with the set-up of tarp and all) moves her babies to the fenced-in air-conditioning-unit area between my neighbor's yard and mine. Where she's no longer protected from the rain. She and babies continue to get drenched. When I lure her to my yard with her usual food, she comes by herself, and is shaking while she eats. But when I attempt to climb over the low fence and scoop her babies up into a box I was carrying, she rushes over the fence (right past my face) with a yowl/growl. I back off.

Monday, April 8: Home from work, where I'd been pondering all day how to bring those kittens into my apartment without getting my face mauled! (Especially since I knew the next day, Tuesday, was leaf-blower day at my complex. Those guys would either spray debris randomly into the kittens' faces without seeing them, or else see them and do something stupid with them. In either case, the noise would be scary as hell for them.) Since Henny had often sassily liked to come into my kitchen whenever I left the sliding-glass door open as I prepared her dinner, this time, I fixed her food and set the dish about 20 feet inside---AFTER already setting my "kitten box" outside on the air-conditioner. Her reflexes had been super-quick the day before, so I didn't know if this would work. But... The second she started eating, I quickly stepped outside and closed the sliding-glass door behind me! Heh-heh-heh. She was now trapped inside with her food. In a few seconds, I snatched up all three babies, put them in the box, and carried all back inside, again quickly shutting the glass door. Henny immediately fussed at me, of course. And the second I set the box with babies down, she immediately grabbed one by the scruff of its neck and hauled him to the door. "Nope," I said. And, amazingly, she brought him right back to the box and jumped in after him! Here are Henny and her three 2-day-old babies that evening:

Wednesday, April 10: When I wake up for work that morning, the first thing I do is check the box --- babies are gone! I immediately ask Henny (because she's a weird little cat): "Where are your babies? Did you eat them?" No answer. But her belly didn't look suspiciously fat. Based on the last time I had a mama-cat who had kittens in my house (1990 or so), I checked under my bed: There they were! After that, I pretty much left them alone. Although I did get worried when Henny nearly completely disappeared Thursday the 11th; I think I saw her maybe twice all day, when she came out to eat. By the 12th, though, she had recuperated enough to come out not just for food but also to come over to me and say "hi." We see each other probably 6-8 times a day when I'm not at work.

For the next couple of weeks, I didn't bug them. One reason: I'm too old and creaky to get down on my belly on a hardwood floor in order to check under my bed! Plus, I didn't have a flashlight and couldn't see anything anyway. But an animal-lover at work convinced me that I needed to see what was going on and gave me a flashlight. First check was still just three little squirmers all nestled together with eyes only half-opened. But when I checked again on April 23, the three babies were walking around in completely separate areas under the bed, with eyes fully open and looking startled at the light shining on them!

Just yesterday, April 26, I tucked up the dust-ruffle of the bed. Previously, the ruffle had extended only about 2 inches above the floor, leaving the babies in semi-darkness most of the time. With the ruffle tucked up, there's nearly a foot of light all the way around, and the babies get a much better idea of what's going on in the outside world (i.e., what that tall creature is doing out there---I feel guilty every time I blow-dry my hair in the en-suite bathroom every morning!).

I'm no kitten expert, but I kind of thought that they'd have ventured out beyond the bed by this point. Today, April 27, I took a few more pictures on the kittens' 3rd-week anniversary. One is of Mama Henny at my feet, and the next is of a suspicious Mama Henny as I stuck the camera under the bed to see what the kittens were doing!

Can't wait for them to come out to play with me! Though the next step of this journey will be sad: Obviously, I can't keep four cats. I plan on keeping Henny and one of the kittens. The choosing, and then taking the other two to a no-kill shelter, will be depressing.