Explorers

When they get their forever families, the kittens should be possibly be named Dora (the Explorer!), Neil (for Neil Armstrong!), and Amelia (for Amelia Earhart) - they are interested in every little thing and are wonderful explorers!

Ermine likes to sleep in the basket of toys,

Another reason they're like explorers is because they don't seem to be afraid of anything!  Here's Orca sleeping on the couch (Bjarne is on the back of the couch, keeping his eyes on the kittens).

Orca sleeping again.  They do a lot of exploring, but they also sleep quite a bit.

Three kittens all on top of the scratching post!

Ermine sitting on Greg's lap.  That kitten LOVES people!

Orca likes to sleep between the layers of this faux-fur blankie, and one time he started spurting out!  He just dribbled over the side.

Of course, I also have a number of very cute videos!  At least 30 minutes per day, Christie & Greg let the kittens and I all out at the same time.  They still have to watch carefully because the Ermine likes to try to nurse, and that's not good for her (because my milk got infected when I got mastitis) and it's not good for me (it hurts!)  But we have lots of fun racing around and playing.  I am still pretty young myself, and I love to play with mousies!  Live kittens are even better!

Here's some video of me playing with the kittens:

And the kittens discovered TISSUES!  I never thought tissues could be this much fun!  Ermine discovered them first (I'm whispering because Greg was taking a nap when I recorded these videos yesterday).  In the video, I say it's Orca by accident, but it's not.  It's Ermine.

Then Orca decided it would be a great idea to attack Ermine in the tissue box!

Then Otter discovered them:

Then kittens just went crazy with the tissues!

Please keep your ears open for people who are interested in adopting.  As I mentioned before, some of the homes we had all set up before the kittens were born have fallen through.  Christie & Greg said they would be willing to help with spay/neuter costs, if that's prohibitive to you or people you know.  If you have been following the kittens' development and have a place in your heart and home for a small fluffy person who loves you, e-mail Christie or leave a comment if you'd like to set up a time to come visit the kittens (and me!)

Photos of Little Crazies

Of course, in the photos they always look adorable and calm and peaceful.  If Christie tries to take photos when they're not sleeping or very, very tired, the photos are blurry!

Thanks for asking about my health.  I am feeling MUCH better!  In fact, my big open wound started healing and I don't have to go to the vet every single day anymore.  On Thursday, the vet put in four staples to hold the edges of my wound together to facilitate it closing all up.  Once it closes, I don't have to take the horrible antibiotic by mouth anymore - hooray!

I haven't been the nicest kitty in the world today.  I'm ashamed to admit that I attacked Bjarne, Christie & Greg's middle cat.  He decided to hang out in the garage all day after that (there's a cat flap out there and Christie & Greg don't park cars in there or open the garage door ever).  Christie yelled and grabbed me and put me (gently because of my wound) back in the guest bathroom.  I knew I had been naughty, so I purred and tried to be extra cute.  Hopefully once I get spayed, I won't have the desire to be that fierce.

Here are some photos from the last couple of days.  Christie has some videos on tap, too, for posting tomorrow.

Three kittens eating all in a row!

Little Otter, looking sleepy!

Otter, again, adorable!

Ermine in the magazine basket!  (Reading this month's InStyle!)

Orca sleeping in the fetal position.  They're very floppy when they're asleep.

Orca awake on the couch.  Looking curious.

Orca peeking from behind the quilt.  (Thanks, Jillian, for the BEAUTIFUL quilt!)

Otter chasing Bjarne's tail.  The tail is in motion, as is the kitten's paw!  But Christie & Greg's older cats are getting used to the kittens and they aren't minding them quite as much.  It does take a little bit of supervision. I must say, the older cats aren't in love with the kittens yet like everyone else is, but they are very tolerant of the little ones.

Otter looking alert and interested!  (If you look carefully in the background, you can see Baltazar, the handsome orange cat on the chair).

Goodness!  All the photos seem to be of Otter today!  Here she is looking cute AGAIN!

Orca giving sleeping LOVE eyes . . . (one of Christie's graduate school colleagues used to say his cat was shooting "sleepy vibes" at him when she did eyes like this . . . "you are getting sleeeeeeeepy . . . "

Orca getting comfy in Greg's slipper.

Ermine sleeping upside down - ahhhhh!

Happy Friday to you all!  It's the weekend!  Christie and Greg are very happy because this has been a difficult week for them.  Good thing they have me and my kittens around to help them appreciate the beauty and humor in every day life!  God did a great job when He made us!

Running WILD!!!

Christie & Greg have introduced the kittens to the rest of the family!  I haven't met the rest of the family yet properly (except under the bathroom door) because I'm still sequestered.  My infected mammary gland has opened up and is a huge horrible awesome gaping wound that looks like you can see right into my abdominal cavity.  The vet said that the mammary tissue is all dead now and even (look away those of you who don't like gross things) clipped a bunch of it off on Saturday.  I didn't cringe because it doesn't hurt!  It's oozing a lot and super icky, so I'm staying in the guest bathroom until it's all better.

I am feeling TONS better, though!  Thanks for your prayers!  I am playing with toys and eager for attention and eating and drinking lots all by myself.  Hooray!

Meeting Baltazar:

Otter meeting Bjarne:

Chasing Baltazar!  Eek!

Baltazar watches them quite closely.  Who knows when they will chase him again?!

They do amazingly cute things CONSTANTLY.  I could record everything they do and it would still have a very high watchability factor.  They were created to be admired and adored.  (Well, really ALL cats were created to be admired and adored!)

Biting on the ball:

Playing with the ball:

Chair legs are fun, too!

In fact, the whole world is fascinating!

Practicing running:

Three racing kittens!

The situation at Christie & Greg's house:

That WAS the situation, anyway, but now Christie & Greg have erected a force field (made of boxes and boards) around a good portion of the kitchen so that the kittens can have a large area to run around in when we don't want them to have access to the whole house.  It looks bad in an aesthetic, home decor sort of aspect, but it's functional until we find them homes.

Becky sent another photo of Bear & Oreo.  They play hard and sleep hard!

Two of the homes that Christie & Greg had all set up for kittens have fallen through for various reasons, so please keep my sweeties in mind if you know someone who has been thinking of adopting.

Hope you're enjoying the videos of the mobile and entertaining kittens!

Argh - But Then Yay!

It's Christie again - Juvy's mammary glad opened up yesterday and started leaking, and we had to go back to the vet (fourth day in a row!)  Thankfully, Juvy is a trooper and doesn't mind the car so much.  Well, at least she doesn't howl the whole way.

The vet said it's not unexpected that Juvy would lose some tissue.  In fact, they have been telling me that her skin may "slough off". . . I just didn't expect it to be so disguisting and oozy.  So we have to go back every day for a little while in order to have the wound flushed.  Thankfully, it's mostly a cost of time - they're not charging us much for the actual flushing.  

Please be praying that Juvy would start eating and drinking on her own.  I still have to syringe food into her a number of times per day because she won't eat on her own, even though she thinks it tastes good and even though she sniffs it appreciatively.

We had to move everything around in our house, because we only really have one place for a cat to be in seclusion, and it's the guest bathroom.  Since Juvy has had to be separated from the kittens, we had her in the master bedroom, but she hid under the bed all the time and I couldn't get her out to feed her and inspect her.  So now Juvy is in the guest bathroom and we have blocked off the kitchen (tile floors!) with big boxes so the kittens have a nice big space to roam.  They are very personable and have done a great job continuing to use the litter boxes appropriately, but they do a LOT of howling because we can't be with them every minute of the day.  

On an up note, the kittens are hilarious and FULL of personality!!!  They are racing around in a little herd, and they LOVE people and other cats!  They follow our three non-related-to-them cats around like little puppies (even though our cats aren't thrilled by it!)  They play with everything.  And when we stand still for 5 seconds, there's at least one kitten on our feet!  

I took videos yesterday of them racing around and coming into contact with our other cats.  Hope to edit, compress, and post tomorrow.

Bear and Oreo are doing well at Becky's house.  They, too, are getting along great with the previous inhabitants of their house (big dogs!)  Kittens just aren't afraid of anything, and other animals seem to think, "Hmmm . . . I don't know what that is, but it doesn't seem right to eat it."

But sisters are nice to have, too.

Later addition:  the vet said Juvy is much better hydrated today, and the wound flushing went easy as can be.

    I am typing this with three kittens playing on my lap.  Orca is pressing keys and biting my fingers, Ermine is climbing up my shirt to play with my hair, and Otter is attacking the other two.  I think all 0- ----------------------------i8----------onf them are purring.  The whole house to explore and they just want to be right wwwwwwwww='''''''''''hon top of me.  Very cute.

They all just climbed up on the keyboard and added their own particular kitten flair to the above paragraph! Hope you enjoy it!  

I DO actually have work to accomplish today, though, so I hope they go to sleep on me or next to me on the blanket so I can get some things done!

  

Greg playing under the door with little white feet (ignore the weird grafitti on the cement floor - we're redoing our flooring!)

Happy Becky Mommy holding her babies!

In the time it too me to write this, I thought of situating them right by my head (I'm sitting on the floor with my back against the couch) on a very fuzzy faux-fur blankie that all our other cats love.  After spending some time digging around in my hair, they have decided that the blankie is awesome, and they're now both purring and happy and NOT on my laptop.

P.S.  I unrecommend the Liver and Chicken Iams Kitten Food pictured a few posts ago.  It's probably the liver, but the smell of that food was HORRENDOUS.  I had a headache a few days ago, and just walking into the room where that stuff was being eaten almost made me barf.  Buy the chicken and rice or the turkey.  Liver is GROSS.

More Photos From Becky's House

More photos from Bear and Oreo!

Abbie loving on Oreo:

Alex enjoying Oreo's antics!

Bear making friends:

Bear taking a nap under the protection of a new friend:

Adorable!  That last picture just gets me - how trusting animals are, and how gentle they can be with each other!

More Steps Forward

Thank you, Christie, for posting for me while I was really sick.  I am starting to feel much better, though I must admit that I'm not eating or drinking as much as I should.  I pretty much just want to sleep, but I appreciate my readers enough to use a few minutes to write a short post.  Christie has been spending so much time ferrying me to the vet and trying to convince me to eat and drink that she hasn't had time to take new videos and photos of the kittens, but she'll be back to that soon, because now that the antibiotics are working, all I need to do is sleep and sleep and sleep.  I plan to do that all day.

The news from the vet today is that my fever is going down and the swelling from the mastitis is decreasing.  I am not in as much pain now as I was, and I can walk now, so I can make it to the litter box by myself.  (Sorry, Daddy, that I peed in your pajamas!)  I ate a little food from a dish last night all by myself, but I'm likely to eat more if Christie uses the syringe to help me.  I'm not energetic enough yet to exert a lot of energy eating, but I do love how that Critical Care food tastes!  

The vet said that the bright fluorescent orange pee could have been because I hadn't eaten for a few days.  Sometimes that causes cat's livers to make too much bilirubin, which makes the pee orange.  This does mean that my liver is stressed out, so I'll need a long time to recover.  I'm thankful to have a safe and comfy home in which to do just that!

Here are a couple more photos from Becky.

Here is Bear being fierce!

Becky said that Bear was calm on the ride home, but Oreo tried to gnaw her way out of the carrier.  Bear has always been calm.  That's why Christie took him to the vet with the Ermine when the Ermine had an eye infection.  He's a good influence!

Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers, and I will keep working hard on getting better!

-Juvy

Small Steps Forward

Juvy had to go back to the vet again today because her pee was bright orange and that can be a sign of liver damage/disease in cats!  Happily, she's not yellow (jaundice is a sign of liver disease, too, and can't really be mistaken for anything else), so the vet said we'll wait and see.  I'm going to assume that the orange pee is because Juvy was so dehydrated that her pee was concentrated and extra strong.  Her mastitis seems to be a little better, and she showed a little more spunk today.  Today she drank some evaporated milk before the vet visit, got a whole bunch of subcutaneous fluids at the vet, and then even ate a tiny bit of food off a dish (rather than me having to feed her with a syringe!)  When she started licking food herself and ate for quite a while, then started washing herself (which cats don't do when they're really sick or in pain), I thought, "She is improving."  I am still alert and not exactly at peace in my mind, but I have more hope than I did this morning.  

Hope she doesn't pee in Greg's pajamas again tonight! 

The story behind that is that she couldn't walk far because she was in pain, and without us knowing that, she got up in the night last night, had to pee, and couldn't make it to the litter box, so she used Greg's discarded pajamas (we're night-time nudists at our house) as the best option at the time.

I will keep you all informed what the vet says tomorrow morning and also the signs I see of her getting better.  Hopefully there will be lots of positive signs tomorrow!

More good news: the Bear and the Skunk went home to be with their forever family!!!  Becky and her kids (Alex and Abbie) are the new family of Bear (still called Bear) and OREO!!!  Abbie (even though she's tiny herself!) decided to make the kittens a quilt to welcome them to their new home.  Sweet!  Here are some photos Becky sent me of the kittens acclimating:

They have new family members - BIG ones!  But kittens aren't really afraid of much.

Look at their shiny blue beautiful eyes!

Here is a picture of sweet Abbie with the quilt she made for the kittens!  What a nice "Welcome to your new home" present!

I am thrilled that these precious babies have such a wonderful new home.  We'll be posting updates on them whenever Becky sends some more news.

Please keep up the prayers for sweet Juvy.  She's being well-loved and well-taken-care-of, and we're hoping that (plus all the medical interventions!) will be enough to get her through this and back to health!

Thanks for caring and loving this little fuzzy family!

-Christie