Plunging into Pet Ownership

Okay, okay- thanks to Bethi and others for the encouragement to get my butt back into blogging mode.  Actually, it's too soon to say that I am in a "mode"- but hey, one post at a time, right?

I'm starting with the easy news:  We now have two pet kittens, Ladybug and Lightning [Bug].  They are sisters and litter-mates, about 3 months old.  I've been going back and forth on pets for quite sometime now (Remember Dogs on the Brain?), and figured I could continue oscillating forever on this issue. So when I saw the "2 for 1" deal at the humane society for the kitten adoption fee, I decided now was the time.  Matt graciously went along with it.  What can I say? He loves me.

Ladybug has got to be one of the sweetest, friendliest kittens ever.  Just the fact that she still wants to show her face in this house after almost a week of being terrorized loved on by the kids is a testament to that. She follows us around the house, is always happy to be cuddled, and loves to play. Lightning is much more reserved and likes her own space.  It hasn't helped that a few days ago she developed a cold.  She's been sneezing a lot and now has quite a bit of eye discharge (still clear). Hopefully we can avoid a trip to the vet.  It's been fun to watch the kittens play and wrestle together (when Lightning is feeling up to it), as well as take naps together, and groom each other.  Cuteness!

Logistically, bringing the kittens home has been pretty simple so far. The girls have used the litter box perfectly from the start, and have also taken to their scratching posts very nicely. They have not yet tried to play with or bite our hands or ankles, not even once.  At night we close them off in the kitchen, and we've never been bothered by them during the night.  We have removed one set of dried grasses that we had displayed, since it was an obvious cat magnet for chewing and playing, and we used some spray to keep the kittens away from our drapes.  They were attracted to the drapes swaying in the breeze and this was quickly becoming a problem, as the drapes already have a bunch of tiny claw-size holes in the bottom.

The toughest parts so far have been 1) teaching the kittens to stay off the kitchen table (they sure seem to be attracted by the smell of food) 2) keeping the kittens out of the kids rooms while the kids are falling asleep (since the kids insist on open doors) and 3) the added stress of having our family equilibrium disrupted by making such a big change.

Assuming you promise not to contact PETA after reading this post, I will expound a bit on point #3, so that when the time comes when YOU want to bring an animal into your house to join your small children, you can be fully warned! Basically, the past week has been stressful for me because I've been supervising a) my own kids, b) the kittens, and c) the kids interacting with the kittens.  "A" by itself is enough to drive me crazy much of the time, but "C" really takes the cake.  I've got a 2 year old that can't seem to recognize the difference between a kitten's belly and it's neck ("If your hands are touching the kitten's collar when you are carrying her, you are holding her in the wrong spot."), a 4 year old that is set on experimenting with the all different possible ways to play with and carry a cat (including several that you've probably never seen before), and a 6 year old that it so worried about the 2 year old and 4 year old with the kittens that at times he wishes we had never even brought the kittens home.  Meanwhile, I am worried about helping the kittens transition ok into their new surrounding. Ha! You can probably see why I've felt stressed throughout the week, and if Mama is stressed, the rest of the family tends to feel stressed.

So there's your glimpse into our experience with bringing home kittens.  Fun, but stressful.  Then again, that's how it almost always feels around here. =) Below are a few video clips from this week.  FYI, Avery is on the phone with Grampa & Gramma.