First foster this year. I love fostering, but it absolutely consumes me. I can't get anything done; I can't really do much of anything. Some of it is stress, which I recently read shunts your thinking from your executive brain to your amygdala. Nice. Thinking with your dick or your fists or your insecurity complex.

So last Monday, August 4th, I got them kitties. Rhianna has been feeding a site in a low-income project down at the south end of Seward Ave. First Rose, then Rhianna have worked the site for years, and many cats have been pulled from the site, and there are a few altered permanent residents. Rhianna was tracking a couple of black DMH cats; a few weeks ago she TNR'd one which turned out to be lactating. She put up her cameras and saw kittens. She was on her way out of town for a while, to Luxembourg, and really wanted to get the kittens into foster before she left. So there I am volunteering.

It took her minutes to catch all five kittens, and a few more minutes to catch the mother. She brought them all to me and I set them up in the kitten room.

That first day they seems OK--shy but manageable. I hadn't weighed them yet, so I didn't know their approximate age, but them seemed a little old to be so lacking in feral behavior. Even mamma was fairly tame, though not completely. I mostly left them to themselves and their plate of food that day.

That night, every cat shot vomit and diarrhea into all horizontal spots in the room all night. Tuesday morning was like the aftermath of a tsunami. I didn't quite know it yet, but these guys were really quite sick. The only treatments I had on hand were Advantage and some expired Pyrantel, both of which I gave them in the evening. I posted to vet-concerns, which really took longer than I'd have liked to get back to me. I was instructed to give them everything, and arranged to pick up meds from Amy over on Denny on Wednesday.

I started them Wednesday evening on three days of Pyrantel, five days each of Ponazuril and Panacur, and a bottle of Amoxidrops. By Tuesday, I'd weighed them and found that the littlest one, at 1#12oz and the biggest at 3#3oz were very much in different categories of development. As I weighed them twice a day, I found that everybody was losing weight; I didn't realize at first, but nobody except Mamma was eating. The little one was quite concerning, so I started her on fluids. Wednesday they all got their antibiotics and antiparasitics, but it would take a couple days for them to push through the momentum of their troubles. I had a small amount of Cerenia which I gave baby, but it didn't help. I could see them looking at mamma and thinking about milk, but them swallow as if throwing up a little in their furry little mouths. While watching videos by Kitten Lady, I was reminded of Gerber's baby food and ran right out to get some. The stuff is thin enough you can suck it right into a syringe. I have tiny 4ml twice on Thursday and again Friday morning. By Friday evening, she was eating on her own. Magic. You have to jump start the system when it's stopped for a couple days. Watching her chomp maniacally on the plate of food was rather heartwarming. Everyone else was also eating by this time except the middle kitten. I turned my attention to him--gave him fluids and a few ml of food. By Saturday, he was eating.

I believe I calculated that they ate 8# of food on Saturday and Sunday. Now, on Wednesday, they are playing and eating; they're all rotund. They aren't super friendly to me, but they aren't at all antagonistic or even scared much. They just don't see the point in humans yet. Except Mamma, who LOVES to be pet. In fact, they all do--they purr, but don't quite know why I keep touching them.

Monday was very hot. Yesterday was even hotter, so I moved everybody down to the basement into a small cage. They tolerated it pretty well, though I lost some trust. I opened the windows to vent the third floor too early and delayed their return to the cat room by a couple hours. Today is cooler and they get to stay put.

I've gone with an Egyptian theme for naming. Mamma, DMH black with a little white locket on her throat, is Bastet, queen of cats. The big, dark DMH tabby is Osiris--he's a sweet and gentle dude, very big and handsome. Next comes Nefer, a gray DMH tabby, who's the most shy, but not that shy. The three short-haird tabbies are: Set, golden and clever; Serqet, gray and thoughtful; and tiny little Ma'at, halfway between gold and gray, and hard to distinguish from Serqet at times.

They've all come a long way in a week. I experienced a LOT of relief, but still they're commanding all my attention. Stacey and Karen are nonplussed, not sure why their litter boxes aren't where they usually are, and why we aren't occupying the third floor like usual. They're pretty much ignoring me except at meal times. I guess I can't blame them.

When the kittens' poops are good (I saw Nefer and Serqet's poops today which looked great!) I can get them on the clinic planning track. It could easily be another couple months before I can get them out of here.

I have so much trouble remembering my cats a year later.

Fall 2024 - The New Testament Family

Magdalene, Meowtthew, Martholomeow, Peturr, Barnapuss, Clawdia

Spring 2024 - The Allpet Kittens (Dalmatians)

Fea, Mina, Puck, Thor

Fall 2023 - The Ballard Family

Mora, Mpingo, Raie, Vermeil, Scura, Malkin.

It's always hardest when the last one leaves. Before the adoption event in early December, I did my crying at home. At the event at the Swedish Club, I let four go with no stomach aches; I was ready. then a month more with Maggie and Peturr, every day spending lots of time with them. Mags left on Thursday morning. I transferred Peety to another foster parent on Friday. That's really hard. I can't have him as a solo at home--I can't spend 24 hours a day with him. I tried to sleep with him, but abandoned him at 2am. I took him to Lena's where there are two adults, three boys, two resident cats, a big old good boi dog, and three eight-month-old foster cats who are skittish, but not fractious.

Plan A, as Lena says, it Peturr gets along with the Greeks (Hera, Athena, and Ares). I'm hoping he learns to play with them. I'm hoping he gets comfortable with the dog. I'm hoping he teaches the Greeks how to trust human a bit more. I'm hoping his adoption proceeds quickly.

I'm so in love with this boy. He's cuddly, purrs, plays. I started wearing motorcycle gloves so he could be rougher, but I was hesitant because hands aren't supposed to be toys. He had this little cheetah-colored tube that he loved, with a little label--I'd hold it by the label and he'd grab it. His paws were usually very soft, but he obviously wanted to sink his claws and teeth into things. He also liked the plunger part of a feeding syringe--the green one. He loved how when it rolled, it'd go in circles. LOVED the laser pointer, running all over after it; until he started stalking it. He loved his mommy, continuing to try to comfort nurse long after she was empty.

This wonderful baby came to me in mid-August. She seemed to have swallowed a grapefruit. Looks a lot like Stacey, but much smaller. We thought she was about to explode. Turns out, she was twelve days out; her size made her look closer. So she slipped through our usual spay procedure, and had kittens.

It took her a few days to get used to living inside, but not long. Then she just settled in and remained forever calm, watchful, and seemingly tranquil.

Five beautiful bouncing kittens... without the bouncing. She took such good care of them. So patient, so attentive. Eating massive amounts of food--a pound and a half a day for a six-and-a-half pound cat. Already it's hard to remember all those days in the first five weeks. Eventually, the kittens started getting older and wanting to play more. After that starts, they eventually get to come out into the bigger room. It became a routine: I'd bring food first thing in the morning, and leave them in the cat room; I'd come back around 11am to let them out for playtime and company. Maggie soon would happily come out and sleep on the cat scratcher in the hall. Eventually she'd come into the room with us. She started asking for human food whenever I had any. Pretty confident; pretty direct. Loud noises, quick movement, anything sudden or new would send her sauntering back to the cat room where she was most comfortable. After Martholomeow, Barnapuss, Meowtthew, and Clawdia were adopted, it was just Mags, Peturr, and I. She'd spend most of her time in the big room watching us play, sleeping, hanging out. Peety didn't have any kittens, so he taught her how to kitten. They'd chase and wrestle and play with toys. Maggie's favorite was the clear rod with the fluffy white blob dangling from it. She'd grab it like a mouse and rabbit punch it in the face.

Around Christmas, Peety was getting a lot of hits on the Adoption Questionnaire, but everyone was flaky. Then Mags got one, and within a couple days, she was gone. Off to Ballard with a young woman named Grace. The second picture above is her at Grace's house. I think she's going to do well. Grace was instantly smitten by her--at the meet & greet, I told Maggie that Grace was the one to impress, so she went to Grace and knocked her socks off. Love at first sight. I'm hoping for an update.

I've witnessed kittens eating from the bowl! Good babies. Let Mamma relax a little. Probably it's because she's getting sick of them. I'm going to have to weigh them daily for a while.

They're also, sometimes, using their little litter boxes. Just for pee, though I did see one tiny strip of poo once. And there are still puddles on the floor, though I'm not sure it that's kittens or Magdalene. Still, they're coming along!!

I have to post some new pictures. Been working on WebNotes; can't post pictures with the new RTF editor (Quill) yet.

Got all my babies together, running around like little fluffs, waddling and crashing and falling and climbing back up.

Magdalene is wonderful. She's had a spot on her nose that won't go away. Litter box? I don't know--Meowtthew and Barnapuss had them as well. The kittens are all so terribly cute, almost, but not quite acting like they know everything.

Barnapuss is the big guy, gray with a half-pink nose and a white strip across his nose/face. Bartholomeow is a standout in that he's the only brown tabby. Clawdia is also gray, but has a totally gray face. The two gray tabbies are Meowtthew (smaller, pink nose) and Peturr (brown nose). They all have white feet.

At a month old, I'll probably have them for another five weeks (they turned a month old last Thursday). It's going to kill me when the leave, but that's the name of the game.

These are the new babies. I got Magdalene from Morgan on August 16th. She knew about this cat down around Airport and Snoqualmie for at least a couple of years. Maggie had five litters that Morgan knew of, and Maggie had been unseen for a year. So she's had some kittens. When we got her, we thought that she was immanent, and that's why I spoke up--it's kind of awesome to have an exception to the spay/abort procedure. Turns out, little Mags, at 6.5# looked further along than she was, and it took twelve days of waiting for her to go into labor.

I only minded a little--it was a long wait, and waiting occupies a lot of brain ticks.

On Wednesday, the 28th, at 7:30pm, I sat to watch the Sounders game. I'd been keeping Magdalene company, petting her, putting doggie diapers all over the floor because she used random parts of the floor and bookshelves to pee. There was a cat bed in the bottom shelf of the bookshelf and a couch pillow on the floor. She'd sloshed the bed over the edge onto the pillow, so there was a sort of couch-shaped bed. She was sleeping sort of propped up on this. I maybe should have thought that this upright position was suspect, but it didn't occur to me. I check via webcam after fifteen minutes. Another ten or fifteen minutes after that, I checked again. She was now up on the shelf with no pillow, and there were odd black objects on the floor. I was all, "What's that?!?" Another few seconds and I realized they had to be kittens. Newborn kittens, making their way across the bare floor. Where were they going? No sunglasses, but on the road; doesn't seem right.

I jumped up and started running around. Towels; how water--these are the things men do during birth. I took a few minutes to gather a few things, including my son from downstairs with a, "Three kittens out of the cat!" Back upstairs, I took stock of the situation. Two kittens on the floor--fuck that, back on the shelf with mom, but she was really preoccupied. The third kitten was still by her back end, out of its sack, but still attached to its placenta. Before this started, I was a little nervous, thinking I might be affected by the ick factor; never happened--never a second thought. I picked up #3 and put (probably him) near Magdalene so she could clean, etc. She really didn't have much in her for cleaning, but she did eat the placenta and cut the cord.

#4 was the slowest, and I think hardest. Labor was a good twenty or thirty minutes. Maybe six rounds of contractions. Mags was tired, and I assume it hurt, and she'd already been at it for a while. I spent some time on Slack letting people know and getting advice. The best advice I got, something Nicholas and I could actually help with, was to dry and warm the old timers (fifteen minutes out vs. two minutes out is like years in normal time). I'd noticed the little guys were cool to the touch (evaporating) so we set up a basket with a towel in it to hold them, set up a space heater pointed in their direction, and cycled through the bebbies, warming them and drying them. #4 was left in (his?) sack just lying on the deck. Maggie was too tired to do anything about it. I set #4 by her head, and she had no more kittens in the way, so when she rallied, which was quite quick, she got the sack off and eventually went through the cord and placenta. #5 really didn't take very long, coming out to join the other four; of course, we didn't know this would be the last, but before labor, I could palpate Mags and feel individual kittens in there. Now there didn't seem to be anything, but there could still be one down in her core, in the birth canal, out of reach. But no, #5 was it; I'd been very confident in Magdalene's ability, and she was a rock star.

With five bebbies in the basket, mostly dry and warm (the room was uncomfortably hot). I gave Mags food, but after five placentas, she wasn't particularly hungry. The kittens were in the 2-3oz range, and the placentas were smaller but denser, so maybe weight as much. Let's call it 2.5oz * 5 * 2, which is 25oz of stuff that came out of her. And most of a pound of dinner. I put all the kittens into the prepared carrier, led Magdalene in, and she settled in to rest and lick them.

Mother fucker! My tab just disappeared and lost everything I wrote. I was writing about my fosters, and blam, fifteen minutes of work all gone in a flash.

Oh well. As I was saying...

Four kittens, five months old. Thor, Puck, Fae, and Mina. All but Puck are black and white, patterned like Stacey. Puck is all black. He's a fuzzy boy and very outgoing. Mina is shy but purrs loudly. Thor is the god of thunder because he both purrs like thunder, and he farts like thunder too. Fae is a darling, though it's a little hard to convince her to come get pet. Churu works.

I've had the buggers for a couple weeks. They came from Dr. Obegi at Allpet; I think they were there in a cage for a month--four to five months old, four kittens, in a cage. Whoa. They are so happy when they get to run free. They don't have much use for me, mostly, but they're getting more and more used to humans, and the sweet, sweet foods and pets we can give them.

Puck is so incredibly outgoing it's ridiculous. The just come right up, stretches out, rolls around, purrs, snaps when you stop petting him.  He's a very excellent dude. Fae is the second most outgoing, but she's a bit shy and independent. She'll give you the time of day, but only when she wants. She loves the toys. Thor purrs thunderously loudly. He seems like a big dumb dude, but he's not dumb. He's kind and huge and a good boi. Little Mina has been very shy, but in some ways, she seems like she'll be the snuggliest of them all. She's growing faster, emotionally, than the others--she started out pretty shy, but is slowly shucking that.