kittens!

so yesterday, when i went to pick up the kids, i happened to hear this mewling coming from somewhere outside aunty joan's house. i mentioned this to her, and she said that, yes, some cat had given birth the night before, and her kittens were keeping her up at night. aunty joan was thinking about calling the humane society. after a quick hunt in the backyard, i found a kitten (and later, two kittens) under a metal grate propped on hollow tile. they were nearly buried beneath the detritus of an old mango tree...

to make a long story short, lynn and i decided to try to care for the kittens. whether they had been abandoned by their mother or not, aunty joan was going to call the humane society on them, and that would spell certain doom for them (apparently, kittens below a certain age or weight are usually euthanized; it takes too much effort to individually nurse very young kittens to health). we put them in a large box with an old t-shirt lining the bottom, went to the pet store to pick up formula (and some tips), and took the kittens home.

since i was struggling to work on my final project for my sped class, it was kind of fortuitous to have the kittens keep my company as i pulled an allnighter. roughly every two or three hours, i would hear the two of them mewing in the garage, and have to feed them, and get them to eliminate (by using a paper towel or rag to rub their genitalia; apparently, cat mothers lick that area with their rough tongues to get their kittens to piss or s**t - now that's motherhood!). usually, after this, the two of them would near instantly fall asleep, after crawling on top of each other.

i will attempt to post a video of the two of them. we haven't named them yet; it's far too soon, we're not out of the woodworks. but they do seem very healthy, and plumper...

i passed out relatively early this evening (like 9 or 10 pm), and had to get up at roughly 1 am for their feeding/grooming/bathroom break. as i posted on my facebook account: "feeding them, combing out their fleas, stimulating their genitalia, at all hours of the night... reminds me of dating!"