Mew

No posts recently, but for a Good Reason.

I have kittens.

Four foster kittens from the DuPage County Animal Shelter, to be exact. Four-and-a-half weeks old, God help us. Here is the cast of characters:

Molly, who is doing precicely what she isn't supposed to be doing, i.e. Climbing Out of the Prison (or kitten-safe play area, for you non-kittens out there).

Merlin, in a very uncharacteristic shot In Which He Is Quiet. He has no Indoor Voice to speak of.

A 2-shot of Mirabel and Cricket, can't tell from this angle which is which. The dark ones are harder to get good pics of -- everything I had looked like a dark, fuzzy blob. Anyhoo, Miri is a little girl and Cricket is a boy.

And a 3-shot (again, can't tell who the dark one is, although it's a fair wager that it's Miri -- Cricket is far too shy).

As for personalities ... Molly's a bit hard to pin down right now. At first she was Molly the Aggressor, who Bit Noses For No Reason. Then my rehabber friend Liz came by and showed me how to bottle feed them better, and Molly calmed down once we taught her how to actually use a bottle. Now she's mostly Molly the Willful.

Merlin, as I mentioned before, is very Loud. He is an Orphan, and Nobody Loves Him, and Nobody Feeds Him, Ever. -- If you listen to him, that is. He says the same things right after supper, when he's cuddling with us.

Miri is, dare I say, the smartest. She was the first to figure out the litterbox (still a dodgy subject, but at least she's got the gist of it), the first to start bathing herself and the first (egads) to figure out how to Get Out Of Prison (climb to the top and fling youself over). She also has Michael wrapped around her little paw. Her favorite activity is to Go 'Splorin.

Cricket is a quiet cuddlemuffin. Of course, part of that is because he's a little sick. Nothing much, I don't think, mostly gunky eyes. He's learning to stick up for himself a little bit, I hope, because otherwise with 3 sisters he doesn't stand a chance.

Merlin and Miri will be staying with us, which we figured out within about 10 minutes. Cricket has possibly found a home with one of my coworkers, but no permanent home for Molly yet. But I've got hope -- I've only had them since Thursday.

In related news, my dad and stepmom are coming down to visit in two weekends, and they are bringing down my other cat, Daffodil the Strange. I got her in the eighth grade (my cats live long, good lives). She's been driving my dad batty with her incessant crying since Scratchy died, and I could use her excellent bathing skills on these little Stinkies. All in all, I think it's a good arrangement.

But right now, I'm tired.

** Editing note: some of you may have noticed that one kitten's name has changed from "Rosie" to "Merlin." Ahem. Oops. Hey -- those parts are tiny on new kittens, how was I to know???