Introducing... Champion Catarosa Dolly Mixture

Friends, I must write and tell you all about what's been going on here since we last wrote. The human slacks terribly when it comes to writing, and to be honest, I've pretty much given up on the idea of ever having a regular update on this blog any more. She says that as she's day hunting for such a long time every day, it doesn't really give her much time to write. She's lost touch with all of the peoples she met through blogging too. She says this is cuz Computer keeps deleting email addresses, and it will only sometimes let her leave comments. If anybody wants to get in touch though, she'll answer an email. She might even be able to bully Computer into giving her some lost addresses this week, as she says she's "regressing the software to an earlier version which should help". I don't have a clue what she's talking about, friends, but regression sounds painful. I hope it is. I hate computer! Well, except when he's playing nicely and letting the human tippy-tap what I tell her to so's you can all read it.

Life continues as ever here, except that the human is trying to introduce new kinds of stinky goodness into the diet. Millie's tummy turns ever so un-yummy whenever the human does this, and it makes her trips to the litter tray a bit of an event in our house. The human is to be seen lurking right outside the entrance to scoop her and clean her whenever she's done. My kitten hasn't managed the art of remaining clean even with a runny bum yet. Mind you, one of the flavours upset my yummy tummy too, and that takes some doing! Needless to say, that food has been removed for now. The horrible human hasn't given up on it altogether though. She has ideas of sneaking bits in with our normal stinky goodness in the hopes that our tummies won't rebell if we get it in small portions. She won't fool us though!

Luckily, the kitten got herself better in time for Saturday, as we had a big show to go to! Millie was in a very fancy pen which the human said was called an exhibition pen. I got to go in there for a while too, but was swiftly removed whenever I politely pushed Millie out of the way to eat her foods, then ever so politely tapped her with my paw until she jumped out of her bed so that I could steal, I mean lie in it. The human would have it said that I barged her out of the way to get to the food bowl and that I used smackypaw of doom with claws out to get her out of her bed, but really, you can't be expected to believe such poor lies. I mean, me? Be rude? You know this isn't possible!

I was soon taken to my own pen which was drab in comparison to the kitten's. Mine didn't have nice, fancy curtains or a padded mat. It was the same colour as everyone else's, and it didn't have a nice, frilly bed to lie in! It was barren! I was left to sit in the middle of a stinking cage, to rest my poor bones on nothing more than a warm, padded, fluffy fleece blanket, to drink nothing but water from a bowl and to have nothing to eat except a pile of dry foods. The privation was terrible! I almost didn't survive!

There was one good thing though. My prison was one of a row of prison cells with peoples jeering and taunting us with horrid phrases like, "hello, puddin. Want a cuddle?" and, "I'm gonna come back and take you out in a minute for some lovins and brushing. You enjoy that, don't you!" and, "Oh, what a pretty ladycat you are!" My prisonmates were similarly stoic when it came to the peoples taunting. We all sat in silence. Ok, so I rolled around and showed my yummy tummy, and I even slept upside down for a while, and I might have even said miaow a couple of times, but while I was making my feelings of outrage clear, I couldn't help but notice that either side of me were boys, very handsome boys who weren't like the usual braggarts. They didn't say anything rude or sallacious to me. They didn't make innuendos, and they didn't ask me if I was free this evening. One settled down to sleep, and the other one was making love eyes and head rubbies on the bars where my human was standing. They were so nice that I didn't even feel the need to hiss! In fact, I found eau de mancat very, very interesting. My human, trator that she is, went and cuddled the boy next door for a while in the afternoon, but he was so nice that I didn't even mind his stink on her. She says that he owned a friend of hers, and she'd been asked to feed him and love on him while his slave was helping the peoples in white coats that take us out and say how pretty we are. I only wish I'd been instructed to love on him a bit too!...

Anyway, my human disappeared after that as she usually does, and took all the other peoples with her. When everywhere was quiet, the peoples in white coats came to have a cuddle of us all. They cuddle strangely. They love on us by feeling our heads, checking our teeths, looking in our eyes, touching all over us, but then they finish with a normal cuddle session.

I had quite a few peoples to come and look at me. The first one said that I was absolutely scrummy. I won't go into detail about what she said, as a modest ladycat would never boast, but she said some words that I know would make the human very pleased. Some other peoples came and cuddled me, but I didn't like them as they gave me no prizes. the last people in the white coat was an old ladypeople who really knows how to cuddle good! She liked me too.

In the meantime, the human had come back and gone to see the kitten who was having a whale of a time! She had absolutely wrecked the pen. Just as she was leaving, she said that she saw the kitten stand on the edge of her bed which is raised up, then take a big jump into the middle of the pile of cushions, grab one and start rolling around with it. When she came back though, she discovered that Millie had gone swimming in her water, kicked the bowl over, flipped her bed, spread the cushions around, and then had dug her way under the mat with her straw so that she could kill it in peace. She wasn't frightened, as she came straight out whenever the human came back. She got taken out for lots and lots of cuddles which she absolutely loved! She met lots of nice peoples who said what a lovely, purry girlcat she was. Well, of course she's lovely. She's my babycat! Some of the peoples even came to see me and give me lotsa cuddles, and I didn't even grump at them! I only grumbled when they wanted to put me back in my pen, but I'll admit secretly to you, dear friends, that I only grumbled cuz I was enjoying the cuddles so much and cuz being out gave me the opportunity to stare in at the handsome mancats!

My human got really, really pleased when she first came back to see me. "Tia," she said as she slobbered kisses all over me (Ok, I purred, but I'll never admit it to anyone else), "You've got a CC! Do you know what that means, Puddin?" "Miaow," I said, and she agreed, "Yes, that's right. That means that you're now a GCCF champion! Isn't that fab?"

Well, of course it's fab! I started showing back in the summer of 2010, and although I did nothing regular up until a few months ago, it's taken me 2 years from start to finish to get that title. I went through nine shows to gather all the certificates I needed, and me and the human are just so thrilled that we're finally here!

I told her in no uncertain terms that she should buy me something real, real nice to celebrate, and do you know what she said? She picked me up, gave me a squidge and said, "too slow, girlie. I already have bought you and that monkey of a kitten the most wonderful thing! Just wait till you see!"

The full extent of what she had done didn't become apparent until we arrived home later that evening. After a lot of clattering, a bit of swearing (on Dogman's part only, as a good ladypeople would never swear...) and some grunting as they moved things around, my palace was ready! She had bought me the most wonderful new scratching post! We'll put photos up when we have them, but basically it's a gorgeous pinky granite base, lovely big, thick poles, a soft platform bed that sinks in the middle so that you're real, real cosy in it, a hanging hammock underneath, and a gorgeous full wicker basket on the very top post. She complained that it cost her a small fortune, but I told her that I didn't mind that, and that I was worth it anyway.

After the show, myself and the human had a long talk. We've decided that for now, I'll be retired from showing to have some yummy babies. She's found a gorgeous mancat for me to go and spend time with, and anyway, now that spring is here, I'm feeling the urge to make more. Meanwhile, my babycat will take up the mantle of showcat extraordinaire. I give it to her gladly!

I had some photos taken of me on the day, but I don't know how they'll turn out. They put me in the photo booth right after a big, stinky mancat had been in there. He was rude. He left his calling card so that I'd know he'd been there and was willing to help me in the making babies game, but I wasn't interested! I had to hiss and spit at the flashy box a few times just to get my message across. The human says she'll post photos when we get them anyway.

For now, I'll just be happy with my new title of Champion Catarosa Dolly Mixture. Doesn't that sound grand! All the grander when you've worked out that, being such a highly titled cat, you're entitled to extra perks such as more stinky goodness, more frequent tuna sessions, and extra sleepy time in the bestest scratchy post ever!

Things I thinked on Thursday

Hihihihihihhi friends! It's me again! And it's my turn to write to you somebodies on this blog thing! Did you miss me all the way through reading what my boring old mummycat had to say? She's not as exciting as me, right?

I don't really have anything spe, spec, pacific (yeah, that's the right word) to weeeeow about today, so I think I'll just weeeeow about whatever I think about. Is that Ok? Oh, I just thinked of something! I don't only say weeeeow any more! I've learned to say rrrrrrreow, just like my stinky brother Paws who's now called Manny by his somebodies did. And the human thinks it's cute. And I say it to her in a real, real loud voice whenever she comes back from the thing that my mummycat says is called her day hunting, cuz I haven't see'd her in ages and I want her to know that I missed her and I need her lovin, now!

And my human's gone forever and forever all the time now. Mummycat says she's only gone for a few hours, and she's only been gone for 4 days so far, but she hasn't. You somebodies know I don't tell porkies, and if I say she's been gone forever and forever every day, then she has! Oh, I spose I should tell you that a porkie is a porkie pie which is my human's mummypeople's name for lies.

The human somebody has started calling me porkie. She calls me Porkie Pig who she says was a little fat piggie who used to be on the box with moving things in it but that you can't catch or touch that my human somebody says is called a TV. And she says he was really cute, but I thinked that I didn't wanna be called a Porkie Pig, even if he was cute. Cuz he's a boy, you see, and everybody somebody knows that boys stink. They're yucky! But she says she calls me Porkie Pig and Puddin and "Wee Fatty" and roly poly cuz I'm getting big and fat. But I know I'm not. It's all muscle and Ok, it might be soft muscle, but a girlcat's muscles don't firm up till she's much, much older, right? Like older than mummycat maybe? But then it's Ok, cuz then you're old enough to tell porkies about how you've only got a saggy tummy cuz you had babycats in it who wriggled and kicked and growed really big and stretched your tummy so that when you popped them out, they leaved a saggy tummy for you. But everybody somebody knows that babycats can't come from your tummy. It's only weewee and poopoo that comes from there, and so I think that mummycat's belly is saggy cuz she's a Porkie Pig too! And I got evidence, whatever that is, to say that that's not a porkie. Cuz my human put her in the bowl of the scary thing that talks to you when you sit on it, and it sayd "3645 grams!" And that's fatter'n me! Cuz then she maked me sit on it and it said "3185 grams" and I said weeeeow and climbed up the human to get away from it, cuz I don't like it very much at all. But them's some real big numbers! So we must be big cats! Do you think I should let her call me all them silly names she has for me?

Dogman has lotsa silly names for us. He makes up songs for mummycat, and he calls her mee-wow cuz when he used ta say that, she used to talk to him. And he calls me kitwin cuz he called me and my stinky brother Paws who's now called Manny the kitwins when we were both here, but now that he's gone, it's all my name, sept it's changed to just kitwin. Sometimes he calls me and mummycat kitwin and catwin and the human calls us double and trouble, sept she doesn't say the and bit. And she calls mummycat munstermunch (they're a kind of crisps over here) and she calls us both the munsters and she calls me "No, Millie" and "Stop it, Millie" and "Get off there where you're not supposed to be, Millie" a lot. So how're we sposed to know our names when they call us all them crazy words? I think we should just be called Mummycat and Millie or Mummycat and Girlcat, cuz I'm not a babycat any more so you can't call me babycat.

I gotted to try some real, real nice stinky goodness the other day that I haven't had ever in the world, and I loved it. And I eated the whole bowl, and the human said she was expecting me to get a runny bum cuz it wasn't the type we usually have, but we didn't. So now she thinks it might be something called grain that is giving me runny bum, cuz the new stuff was turkey pate and didn't have any of this grain stuff in it. And she says that I had it before when I was a very small babycat and that I loved it lots and that I decided after a while that I didn't like it, thank you very much, and I wouldn't eat it no more. So she gived it all away and then I started to like it again. Well, I know she's telling porkies, cuz there's no way I'd not like this stuff. It's great! But she only had 1 carton of it left, so we have to wait for the more that she buyed with the papers that she day hunts for. I don't wanna wait!

And I can't think of nothin else to say now, so I think I'm gonna go and tease mummycat that she's a porkie munstermunch mee-wow catwin pie. Um, I think that's the right name, right?

The Human and Millie and Me

Friends, it's a hard life being me, do you know that? This time last year I thought I had it hard, what with wooing all those mancats and keeping up my untouchable reputation, but honestly, I had no idea of how tough life could be! Now, not only do I have to manage a dull-whitted, recalcitrent human, but I have a kitten to contend with who regularly steals my food, my napping spots and, more importantly, my blog! What's a ladycat to do, friends? I've got no idea!

Anyway, life just got a whole lot tougher. You know why? Because that human, that uncaring, unfeeling human, has abandoned us today! She says she had to return to her day hunting, but I think she's secretly disappearing off to have a good time without us. Couldn't she just stay sick and at home if she cared about us? She reminded me as she gave me a big goodbye cuddle this morning that if she didn't go to her day hunting, there'd be none of those silly papers that she keeps in her purse and doesn't let me play with, and without those papers, there would be no cat food, no nice new toys, no more showing myself off at shows, none of it. I suppose she has a point, but I'd never admit that to her face.

But what to do, friends? I'm stuck at home all day now with this crazy kitten, with no decent company. Not that my human classes as decent company. More of a distraction than anything else, but you'll take my point, I trust. There's not even the addition of new stinky goodness in the bowl at lunchtime to break up the monotony of being the only sensible, clear thinking being in the house. Ok, so the human heaped our bowl full for us this morning. Ok, so there's always dry food down, so much that we'd have to eat until we were sick to get through it in a day. But you know what? I like the stinky goodness best when it's fresh. I mostly only lick the gravy off, and gravy isn't half as appealing if it's been in the bowl all day and Millie's been at it. Ok, the human'll give me more stinky goodness as soon as she gets home, but again, you'll take my point, won't you?

In my less guarded moments, I'll admit that my kitten is growing up nicely. She's not as manic as she used to be. She doesn't take every opportunity to attack me when she finds me sleeping. She doesn't stalk my tail all the time any more. In fact, sometimes she's quite fun. She's really good to play chase with all over the house, and we regularly do the wall of death around the sofas in the living room. Well, she does. You know I'm too much of a well mannered ladycat to go hairing around over the top of peoples and on their furniture, but the baby isn't well mannered at all, and she does everything to excess.

The human has been thinking about excess lately. She has found it fascinating to watch the development of Millie and compare her to me. Millie gorges on food. She's effusive in her snuggling. She plays hard, sleeps hard, loves hard. In fact, she does everything to extremes. Her purr, just like her brothers' is mega loud compared to mine. I, on the other hand, never eat too much when I'm not caring for or feeding kittens. I regulate my own weight beautifully, in fact, too well if you ask the human, as she thinks I'm getting too skinny again. I always ask politely before stepping onto a lap, and I never jump directly onto a people. My human wonders how much of this had to do with my upbringing. I was raised in a multi-cat household, in among many other breeding cats. For many years of my life, I lived in not very great conditions. Long term readers of the blog will know about this as we spoke about those conditions whenever the human first got me. I was always with many other cats, having to share food, and even people attention. The human looks at me sometimes and thinks I'm almost apologetic when I ask to do things like have a cuddle. I'll always understand if she's too busy to cuddle me, but because of this, she always makes a special effort to give me more attention, and hardly ever ignores me unless her hands are dirty or she's really, really busy. I don't even purr loudly. Even Dogman has noticed how quiet my purr is in comparison to Millie's. Millie will bounce in and out of cardboard boxes, but I don't really understand the fascination at all. I can't really work out what they're for. They're a box. Nothing special, right? Or is it because, being born and raised in catteries, I never had the chance to see cardboard boxes at an age where I would have investigated and discovered how fun they were?

And toys, there's another one. I didn't really know how to play until I came to live with the human. She had to teach me that it was Ok to catch the dangly toys that she flicked around, but when I discovered what ping pong balls were. Well, that was a glorious day! Did I have toys as a kitten? She doesn't know.

She's a good human, really. She tries to make sure I have lots of chances to explore new experiences that I might not have seen before. If I show an interest in a new toy, she'll help me get over my nervousness of it (I'm always a bit wary of new things), and she'll show me how to play with it and that it's Ok to play. She lets me try lots of different foods, and the only thing she doesn't really compromise on is that she won't feed me the low quality stinky goodness that I love so much because it's only 4% meat. It also gives the kitten a case of the runny bum, so that might have something to do with it. She takes time out of her day to spend with me, and doesn't let the kitten muscle in on that time. In short, she's pretty all right, really.

I'm so pleased that my baby is being given chances and experiences that I may never have had. It's making her a really rounded cat, and when I see the small things that my human does for her, it just reaffirms why I put up with all her idiocy. The kitten took a real fancy to a shoe box when she was a tiny baby. Her and her brothers used to play in it all the time. Now that was months ago, but because the kitten liked the box so much, the human wouldn't throw it out. Even though it was in the way, she just filled it with toys for the babycat instead, and kept it until Saturday. She only got rid of it because it was falling apart and she knew she'd have another shoe box arriving in the post that very day. Now, there's not many peoples that would do that!

My baby has the best of everything, just as she deserves. And I suppose the human's daily abandonment of me is a small price to pay for that, small when you see how confident my little girlcat is. There's nothing quite like snuggling your baby against your tummy (cuz we do snuggle now that she's stopped fighting me) and knowing that you picked the best human you could to give her a super start in life.

Now, before this gets any mushier, I'm gonna go throw up a hairball in one of the human's slippers... That'll teach her for leaving us!

Questions Galore

Hihihihihihihihi all you somebodies! Guess who it is? Do ya know yet?? Would it help if I said "weeeoooooow!" Now do you know?

It's me! your friend Millie! Least, I think I'm your friend. You all like me, right? Even though Mummycat telled you that I telled fibs bout last time when I said she was too lazy to talk to you all? Cuz she was! I promise! I wouldn't tell fibs cuz mummycat says she'll give me the smackypaw of doom for being a bad babycat. But I'm not a babycat! I'm a big girl now! Even my human says I'm getting real, real heavy. She's started calling me fatcat now same as she calls mummycat. Mummycat doesn't care cuz she says it's just more yummy tummy for the human to snuggle. I thinked about thwapping the human for calling me fatcat, cuz I'm not! I have no saggy tummy like mummycat, and I don't care if mummycat says it's my fault that she gotted it in the first place. How can it be my fault! It's not my tummy! She says me and my stinky brothers were in there and stretched it with all our growing and kicking and wriggling, but I know she's joking me. She thinks I'm still a babycat who'd fall for stories like that, but I'm not. I know it's only weewee and the other smelly stuff that mummycat says is a bad word that comes out of your tummy, and that goes in the litterbox. You don't make babycats whenever you go for a weewee. I wish she'd stop telling me fibs, cuz I can't even give her smackypaw like she threatens me with, cuz she's still too big and she wins all the time.

Mummycat's good to attack though, but she's not as good as my stinky brother Paws who the human says is now called Manny by his new people somebodies, cuz Manny used to always lose to me and I could make him scream like a big girlkitten. Maybe I should weeeeow very, very loud to his new peoples, cuz they're getting his name wrong and maybe I could help them get it right so's he knows they're talking to him when they say Manny. And she's definitely not as good as my stinky brother Porker. He sometimes even used to win with me. Ok, he mostly winned, but that's cuz he was bigger and he was a bully and he used to just throw his fat on me so's I couldn't move. But I could still make him squeal like a big girlkitten. Hahahahaha! I'm the bestest! I only made mummycat squeal once, but I don't think I'll do that again, cuz the game wasn't very fun after that. She came and chased me and she gotted real mad and she catched me and she held me down with one paw and she gived me lots and lotsa smackypaw with the other one and then she put the bitey on me until I squeaked, and then she cleaned me all over. I know I'm sposed to stay still when she's cleaning me else I get more telling off, but it was so, soooooo boooooooring! And by the time she finished I was all wet and smelling like mummycat and I had no energy to fight any more. So now when I attack her I member to keep the bitey from hurting.

Mummycat's sorta fun cuz she holds me in her paws when I fight with her, and she doesn't hurt me and we can roll around together. And even if I roll loads I'm still in mummycat's paws or on her chest and it's all nice and warm and snuggly, and she doesn't get cross unless I make the bitey too hard, but it's Ok cuz I mostly member not to now. And my favo, favou, my best place to attack her is on the soft rug in front of the stinky horrible bath. My human doesn't like this cuz she says she'd quite like some peace when she's in there, thank you very much, but I know she doesn't mind really.

Seeing as we're speaking about weewee, well, we kinda were, my mummycat is so, so weird sometimes. She keeps cleaning her bumbum and she's saying meeeeeeeeeeow! a lot in a very loud voice and she's walking around as if she's looking for something. And she keeps going in the litterbox all the time and making real, real smelly weewee, sept that she's not being polite about it. she's putting it all up the walls of the litterbox instead of in the litter. And I've tried to cover it up for her by scraping the walls, but it doesn't go away. And it smells real weird. Mummycat says it's to tell the mancats where she is, but that's silly cuz we don't have any mancats who live with us. And even if my brothers were here they'd only be stinky boycats, not mancats, so why's she doing this? And anyway, why would she want a mancat? Everybody knows that boys are stinky and horrible, right? And they cry all the time or bully you or things like that, so why's she looking for one? My human laughed and told her that she didn't need more of a saggy belly just yet, thank you very much, and that got me thinking. She said she had a saggy tummy cuz of us when we were babycats. And I think she's lying, so the human should give her smackypaw and not let her have any fish, but then mummycat's going in the litterbox all the time. Is she trying to see if a babycat comes out? Cuz if she is, it's not working. All she gets is smelly weewee, and I know babycats aren't made of smelly weewee! I'm so conf, um, I don't know the answer and I want one of my friends to tell me!

My human is loving me coming to bed with her, specially cuz I rubrubrub all my body on her now as well as my head, and when I fall over, I make sure to always land on her face so's she knows it's me and where I am. And I try to only do this when there's no light in the sky and she's making the loud sleep noises that sound like my stinky brother Porker Fatboy did when he was choking and nearly stopped breathing when he was real tiny. Stupid Porker! I never did that! But then girls are more smarter than boys anyway. Everybody somebody knows that, right?

My human always says things like "Go away Millie," or "Millie, did you have to wake me up?" or "Millie, it's 3 in the morning and I have to get up for work in 2 hours. Leave me alone!" But I know this is just her pretending, cuz the next minute the bed thing sicks up her arm and her hand cuddles me and gives me scritches and strokeys till I get so excited that I fall over for real and have to snuggle in with my body in the bed thing's tummy under the blanket and my two front paws just over the top of the blanket and my head in the human's shoulder right under her chin. And the human melts, but she goes mushy when I say purpurpur real hard. But I like to say purpurpur, so that's Ok. And then it's still Ok cuz there's two whole hours for her to cuddle me before she has to get up for work, and if she stops cuddling and starts to make the sleep noises, I get up and walk on her face and on her head and then fall over and say "weeeeeeow!" till she starts again. I'm sure she enjoys it as much as I do! And she gets enough sleepy time. She makes the sleep noises even in the early evening now. She says it's cuz I make her so tired, but that's not true. If you had sleepy time in the evening you wouldn't mind getting up when it was dark to cuddle a cute girlkitten, would you?

My human buyed me the coolest toy ever in the world yesterday. Well, sept for Da Bird and my treaty ball and the crinkly balls and the ping pong balls, cuz they're the coolest toys in the world too, don't you think? this new one is a ball that's got holes in it, and in the middle of the ball is a mousey that says "squeak, squeak" every time you give him smackypaw or try to put the bitey on him or try to pull him outta the ball. And if you whap the ball so's it rolls, he says "squeaksqueaksqueaksqueak" and does somersaults all the time the ball's moving. How cool is that! Do you want one? Mummycat says I need to start making a list of toys I want, cuz Santa Paws is coming soon.

Mummycat says that Santa Paws is a big, fat, jolly old mancat who is red like my stinky brother Paws, sept not like him cuz he only had red face and tail and feets, but Santa Paws is red all over. Sept a patch he has on his front starting at his mouth. That's white, and it goes all the way down his front. And she says that he comes in through the catflaps of all good boycats and girlcats and mummycats and daddycats and even big mancats and ladycats who aren't mummycats or daddycats. And he has a big bag with him, and in his bag is lots and lotsa presents, like super presents, like balls and feathers and treaties and lots and lotsa things. And if you're good, you get to have your presents and open them on Christmas, or Catmas, and then you can play with them all at once! She says if you're bad though, all you get is a bath instead. I think I should work on being good. But friends, is mummycat telling the truth? I see'd a cat who looks just like she says Santa Paws does at the last cat show I was at, but he didn't give me no presents, and I was real good that day too! I also thinked that he wouldn't be able to come see us till mummycat taked me to the kitchen and showed me the catflap in the back door. We don't get to use it cuz we aren't allowed to go into the scary outside room, but mummycat says that the cats that lived with the people somebody that lived in the house before we came had cats who used it. She says not to worry, that she'll tell the human to unblock it so that Santa Paws can get in, but that I gotta be good else I'll not get nothing! Is this true? I need you to tell me!

Well, now I really can't think of nothing else to say, and anyway, I'm hungry, so I'm gonna go eat all the stinky goodness I can fit inside of me! Maybe then I'll make a babycat next time I go for a weewee!

Mo cats, mo blogging cats and mo treats for you!

Friends, it's going to be a short post today. My human went to the human vet people called Dentist today, and when she came back, she could hardly talk or anything! She says that Dentist did a lot of stuffs to her teeths which hurt her, so to stop it hurting, they put a big fat needle in her mouth about 6 gazillion times so she wouldn't feel it any more. That made her mouth go real numb and it meant that she couldn't talk propperly. She couldn't make the P sound for ages! I politely raised a paw... So that I could laugh behind it at the stupid human! She says now that the numbing stuff has worn off, she wishes it was back even though she doesn't like the feeling when it is there. She says it feels like she's been kicked in the face a few times, then once more for good measure. She wants to go to bed, so I promised to keep this short mainly because I can't be bothered listening to her whining about her teeths. They got fixed, didn't they? So I don't see what all the fuss is about!






I couldn't let this day go by without posting though. Why? Cuz it's Mo Cats day, and that makes perfect sense to us! After all, even when you think you have enough cats, there's always room for mo, right?





Right! If you noticed our sneaky references cunningly slipped in last week, you'll know that we really do believe that's right all the way down. Soon we'll have more cats here. Little tiny ones! Yep, you've read that right. Casa de Tia will soon have another furry new arrival.





Now, put away those claws, mancats. Stop fighting with each other, Ok? I wasn't available for any dirty weekends to make this new arrival so you didn't miss out! However, if you'll form an orderly queue and register your interest... Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, little furries. Nope. This one is coming from a different mummycat. She will come from another breeder to join us and make babycats of her own. We know she'll be a she cuz mancats can't make babies, sept when they're working the peoples for more foods, of course, and then we know they need the extra to support the pregnancy! Right, lounge cats?





This little girlkitten will come from a lady people who has mummycats who make kittens. She lives in a lovely place by the sea, and she actually used the same mancat as my babies were made by in a lot of her breeding! So who knows, the new addition might be a half sister to my little girl! Wouldn't that be something? At the moment, she's only just over 4 weeks old, so we'll have to wait a while to see if she's coming to stay with us. You know how the stupid human is about show quality kittens, and the ladypeople is just the same, so we need to wait to see how she develops. Watch this space!





We will also have more cats on this blog very, very soon... Intrigued? Well, you'll just have to come back and see who it is. I promise you, it'll be worth the wait! The mystery blogger is very cute! There will also be something else going on this week that's worth watching for. If you love cats, then you could be in for a very, very big treat! I'm a tease, aren't I?... Oh wait, I'm going off topic again aren't I?

Week six, and changes afoot

Friends, yet again it's my human's and the kittens' fault that I haven't been writing in a while. If you read the Moonspun blog, you'll know that she hasn't helped because Computer wouldn't listen to what she was tippy tapping in, and kept ignoring half the letters she was tapping. That's because she cut up an old box (I was most angry!) and put lots of yummy selotape on it and stuck it round the wires at the back of Computer. I thought she was packing him up and sending him to a new home. I got hopeful. Sadly though, that wasn't the case as he's not moved an inch. What it does mean though is that the signal that goes from the tippy-tapper to Computer is apparently dulled and not as effective.


Anyway, my babies were six weeks old yesterday. Well, they're actually all the way 6 weeks old at 10 this morning, cuz that's when they were born. I understand that my human put seven weeks on the CB. Just shows how tired she was, cuz she actually put seven weeks on the blog initially too until she realised that she was having another case of the sleepy stupids and changed it.


My kittens have already been asking some questions. They're getting to that stage, you know. Everything is why. "But mummycat, why should I not eat the yummy smelling stuff that I do peepees in?" "But mummycat, why should I actually do a poopoo in the yummy stuff when it's nicer and more fun to do one on the floor?" "Mummycat, why do you make the happy rumbly noise that you do when we are having a drink when the big scary monster picks you up and changes its voice so that it sounds real soft and stuff?" Why, why, why, it goes on and on! And no matter how much I answer, there's always another one in the next miaow! My little girl is the cleverest. She's occasionally pulled herself past the why stage and has started asking what instead, which is a big improvement! "Mummycat, what is that place outside of our world (the pen)? I like it out there a lot, but is it safe?" "Mummycat, what happens if I beat my brothers up? Would you mind?" Of course, I told her I would, but did she listen?


They're fighting so badly now that I don't even wanna be in there a lot of the time cuz they all jump on me and bite me and generally put paid to the idea that well raised children will be well mannered! I'd say that myself and, yes, even the human I spose, have done a great job in bringing these kids up, but you wouldn't know it to look at them. If you're a mummycat, your tail is subject to pouncing, your ears are subject to chewing, and your whiskers were put there purely for their enjoyment. If you're a human, not The Human mind you, your hands will be attacked, your fingers will be bitten, albeit very gently, and your clothes will be clawed. Now, with consistent handling they have learned that a bite to the human will get their noses tapped, that attacking with claws will get the same, or get them put back in the pen, and that if you climb up the human's hand and miaow pitifully, you're guaranteed to be picked up for a cuddle, a tummy tickle and even kisses! My little girl has this down to a fine art now, and just loves peoples company.


You'll notice that I haven't been calling her the Baby lately. This is because I really need to come up with a propper name for her. She's staying here, so whereas we're trying hard not to give official pet names to the boys (it'll make it much harder for us when they go), we do need to find something soon for the troublemaker. My human and I really like Dora, but we also love Tilly. What do you all think? And do you have any other ideas? If so, we'd love to hear them!

My human's been putting boxes and rolled up towels and screen everywhere. She calls this kitten proofing, but sadly, it's Tia proofing as well. As many of you will remember, I don't like to jump. We Persians as a breed prefer to have our feets on the floor and keep 'em there. The highest I ever get is the window sill which is about 3.5 or 4 ft off the ground, and I don't stay there for long, I can tell you! But with the babies, things at floor level have to be blocked off. This means that, thanks to a baby gate which is screened, I don't have access to the kitchen any more, and when they do come out, the human tells me that for the first few days, I won't have access to the hall either, cuz the door will be closed. I'm not happy about this, I'm really not! I spose they have to come out some time though.


I've been eating lots of stinky goodness lately. My human says I'm gonna grow to the size of an elephant! After giving her smackypaw for her rudeness, I sweetly explained that I was doing this for her benefit. She loves the yummy tummy and has always said that I could do with putting on a pound or maybe two just to fatten me up a little. Well, I've taken her at her word! "I said a pound, Tia, not 20!"


Those babies get some mighty fine foods too. And they're eating it like little hoovers! My human has to put down almost half a tin now overnight. That's only 100 grams, but when you think about it, that's in a 6 hour period, and most of it's gone the next morning. I may have had something to do with it, but I ain't admitting nothing. Anyway, they eat just as much in the daytime when she's around to be horrible and prevent me clearing their saucer. That's incredible really. A 3.5 kg cat needs only 200-250 grams of this food for a whole day! They're not even a kg yet and they're eating far more than that already.


I'm afraid I've gotten no further on the photo quest either. Stupid Dogman hasn't given me the ones he took last week, and what with the human on a kitten proofing rampage for the last few days, I didn't manage to persuade her to take some yesterday either. She's gonna ask Dogman to take some today though, but I ain't holding my breath that he'll give us them today too. Stupid Dogman! I'll have them up as soon as I can, I promise you.


As usual, I'll give you their weights so that you can see how much they've grown. They've gotten very big in the last week!


The Baby: 596 grams.
Hamster: 655 grams.
Porker: 774 grams, the fatty!

Gooshy Food!

Friends, you might be forgiven for thinking I'd died a horrible, lonely death in the freezing wilderness of Oxfordshire, or that I'd been catnapped, stuck in a PTU for a year, tortured, poked with sticks and generally abused. Well, you'd be right! About the abused part anyway. I've been neglected, forgotten, thrown by the wayside by that human of mine who can't even be bothered to write for me any more! The words I hear her say are, "Not enough hours in the day," or tired, oh so tired, shattered, need sleep, other things to do. Well, you get the picture. I won't go on about the inadequacies of my slave. We've been there. you're smart. You get that she's a challenged people, so I'll not revisit.






My kittens have reached five weeks old today, and boy have they changed from the mousies that they used to be! In a way, I wish they still were mousies, and that I'd cherished that time more, cuz now they're crazy! If I leave them, they come to the front of the pen, climb the wire and scream and scream and scream at the human to be picked up until I'm convinced that they're being brutally assaulted even though I can clearly see they're not! I have to climb in with them then, pull them down off the wire and get them in a headlock or lie on them or lick them until they be quiet. All that crying makes my ears hurt, and it leaves me feeling awful anxious!





But if I'm in there with them, they jump on me, attack me, claw my face, bite my tail, use me as a spring board to attack someone else... The list goes on. When they're not running around like something possessed, they're either sleeping or trying to drink from the milk bar. I don't like it when they drink now. They have teeth, and if they're fighting for a nimple, the one holding on will bite hard to make sure to keep their grip and not be pulled off by someone else. For those of you who have nimples, just imagine how it would feel to have someone rip one off and you're getting close. It's unpleasant! Thankfully, they only feed for short periods. Since they started eating propper gooshy food, they haven't been as hungry which means that the milk bar is starting to dry up. They lose interest pretty quickly when nothing comes out of my nimples.





There is a massive plus side to having babies around though, and I've already mentioned it. The gooshy food. To say that it is heavenly doesn't do it justice. To say it's the best thing since life's tuna doesn't even come close. Normally I avoid stinky goodness once I've licked the sauce off, but with this stuff, I'll eat everything the human sets down, which frustrates her no end. "That's for the kittens!" she keeps telling me, but I ignore her. Why? Cuz it's fun, and anyway, she deserves it! I'm getting a very nice yummy tummy with all this food. In fact, when the vet lady people came to look at my lump the other day, I got weighed and I'd put on 200 grams! That's good for a ladycat who could never get above 3.5 kg. I wasn't even 3 KG when the human took me on as her new owner, so I think I've done all right!





The babies' food is gooshy, not just stinky. The human mashes it until it's very creamy so that they can eat it easily. It's Bozita, the stuff she got me before and the stuff I wouldn't touch. Well, tastes change! She says that she only has one more carton and then she's run out, so we switch to another type tomorrow. I bet I like that just as much though.





Hmmm, I can't think of what to tell you other than that. I did mention that my lump was nothing, didn't I? The vet lady people thinks it's my kidney. The organs often become more prominent after pregnancy, and ever since she's been to look at it, the human hasn't seen it again, so I know I'm all right.





Ok, that's really it now. I'll have pictures for you tomorrow of the babies. We think we know what colours they are too! Until then, I'll leave you with their weights.





The Baby: 448 grams.
Hamster: 488 grams.
Porker: 588 grams.





Oh, one last thing. Today, my human got featured on a very popular blog written by another breeder. To read it, visit The Cat's Whiskers
Please do comment, as I'm sure she'd love to hear from you! Until next time, friends.

From mousies to kittens

Friends, I've had my mousies around for a month now, and I think the time has come. Yep, that's right. Today they graduate. They are no longer mousies. They are now kittens! It's true. They look like kittens, they talk like kittens. They are clumsy and fall over like kittens, and most of all, they smell like kittens! At least, Hamster does.






My human woke up this morning, and when she went to do what she always does, which is to climb in the pen and smoosh and cuddle us all to within a very inch of our lives, she found Hamster with a very dirty back end, and a little pile of stinky poo on the bedding as a present for her. Now, just for a moment, allow me to reflect on the injustice of the whole thing. If I'd done that, I would have been told off, but when he did, she made lots of silly smooshy noises and told him what a good boy he was. She says this is a big thing, cuz it's the first solid poop he's done, and on his own too, but really, did he have to do it right where we sleep? She has put a kitten tray into the pen now though, right where he went before, and everything got washed, so it now smells lovely and clean and like my human's clothing things that she uses instead of sensible fur. The kittens all had fun investingating the litter tray. They romped and rolled all over in the litter, and when my human did their bums tonight, she made sure they were in the tray when she did them, then buried the wipes so that they would get the smell of their own wee to guide them back there again.

Hamster

They are all making leaps and bounds, literally! Whenever she takes the front off the pen now, Porker and the Baby automatically try and escape. hamster is a little more reserved, and will just put his paws up and watch, but the other two make a break for freedom. I don't like it. I tell them off all the time, and try and herd them back into the pen, but they just don't listen to me! They're so disobedient! If the front is on, all three will climb the mesh and squeak. The Baby squeals at my human to come and pick her up for a cuddle, and sometimes the boys do too.

Baby

She's so quick at everything. She's the first to really understand what a tail is for, and she's already talking to me with it. When they walk, she keeps herself low which means she can really move when she wants to, but the others try hard to stand up tall when they move, which usually means they fall over. I must admit, it's cute to watch.


I take myself out of the pen when they start to fight though. I've had to discipline them so many times for getting too carried away and clawing my face! I won't have it. It's rude, and they need to learn manners! Whenever they do this, I take them in my two front paws, wrap them around the bad kitten, then squeeze them in very tight to my chest and sort of give them a little shake. I'll hold on until they go limp and stop whatever it is they're doing. The human is now doing this as well when they bite her, as it seems to be much more effective than tapping their noses. She says that she thinks the cutest part of them is their noses at the minute, and that she could just eat them all up. I hope she doesn't!


She made me some yummy blended stinky goodness today which means that it's easy to eat, and it won't hurt the kittens if they want to try some. I sorta hope they don't want to try though. It's mine!


Soon, the babies will be getting their propper, forever names. They will be registered soon, you see, so will need them. We think that we already know what the Baby's name will be, but we aren't sure yet about the two boys. There are a number of options, actually, as the Baby could still be registered under a pedigree name, and we could use the name we have for her as a pet name, like the way it is for me. Anyway, we could have a themed litter. My human likes some drinks names. Maybe Georgia Peach for the Baby, then the choices of Southern Comfort, Heart Stopper or Cryptonite for the others, but we don't know. Remember, Moonspun will come before all of those names. We could also have Arianwen which means silvery white for the Baby. It's Welsh, and we really like this one too. There are so many choices! What do you all think? We'll keep the pet name of the Baby a secret for a little while longer, we think, just till she gets old enough that she can decide for herself if she likes it or not. I think it's only fair!


Porker is doing well, although when he talks, his miaow still sounds a little bubbly. He is still beating everyone up though, and he gained good weight today. I swear, whenever I'm in there, he's constantly at the milk bar! He's such a greedy kitten! Hamster lost lots though, so I'll need to make a special effort to make sure he gets fed more tonight. Because it's their fourth week, I'll give you the weights again so that you can see just how much they've all grown. Pictures will come soon, and, if you're lucky, perhaps even some videos! Watch this space, but they'll be here soon! Thank you all so much for praying for Porker. It means so much to me, and you can see that the power of the purr is working once again!

Porker

The Baby: 392 grams.
Hamster: 395 grams.
Porker, 481 grams.

And here is some video!

If the video won't load, see it HERE

Friends, if any of you are up for a spot of wrasslin with unruly children, please, please, please, be my guest! I could do with some peace!

Stealing my friends!

It seems, friends, as though this is going to be a weke of stealing posts. First, they stole my attention. That was all right though, cuz I went and cuddled the human and reascerted my position of number one catness in the house. Next they stole my foods, but thanks to all of your reassurances, I'm not so worried about that any more, cuz you've made me be able to hope that I won't starve! But I don't know what to do about the next thing they've stolen. They've stolen my friends! Well, not mine, but the human's, and what belongs to the human is mine by proxy, so they stole my friends!

The human had a friend over this afternoon. She always cuddles me and says nice things to me, but this afternoon, most of those nice things were said to the mousies instead. She made talk noise to them and told them how cute they were. She cuddled them, she stroked them, she even sat on the floor with them! She took lotsa pictures of them, and she forgot about me! She didn't even look at me, not once! I showed off my great mummycat skills by washing my mousies, then by brrrrping at them, and even showed off how well I was eating my stinky goodness! But it was all in vain. She didn't even know I existed! My human says that she did make a big fuss of me, that she came and made a point of cuddling me and telling me how beautiful I was, for a long time, but for the other eleventy zillion hours that she was here, she was with the mousies. What's a girl to do! If I was a people, I'd put my feet up, put on a good movie and have some chocolate to make myself feel better, but as it is, if any of you are up for a mammoth snuggling session, then I could do with one. Who needs peoples friends! Well, I spose my human is a good one. She always gives me all kinds of love, and I'm sorta glad she doesn't use the baby talk she does with the mousies with me.

Hamster ate some of my stinky goodness this morning, but the Baby wasn't interested at all. Thank Cod, I say. more for me! My human abandoned me again this morning for 13 weeks, or it seemed that long, and when she came back, she wouldn't even talk to me but went straight away to get into the shower. She smelled funny too! She says she was only gone for about an hour and a half and that she smelled funny cuz she'd been horse riding. An hour and a half? I could have died of starvation in that time, and she wouldn't have cared! Horrible human! She did give me all kinds of lovin when she was done with her getting soapy though. And she gave me a fresh plate of stinky goodness, cuz I'd eaten all of mine. Well, I spose her priorities are right when she's here, cuz she reminded me that she didn't even have breakfast this morning so that she could make sure I was fed before she left.

The mousies all gained weight through the night which pleased the human no end. She does worry so when they lose, but she doses them with drops which give them a ravenous apetite, so it all comes right in the end.

The HG is coming tonight to see my mousies, and she's bringing someone with her. The human says I'm not to worry, cuz he loves cats just as much as the HG and he'll love me. Well, I had no doubt of that. After all, what's not to love! But I wonder if they'll give the mousies all the attention too and ignore me? They'd better not!

I got my human to steal some of the pictures that her friend took today. Do you see how big the mousies have gotten? The first one is Porker. I'd say he's big enough now that he's almost a kitten. What do you think? The next one is Hamster. He's still pretty small, but he's getting there. The last one is the Baby, and isn't she yummy! My human says that Hamster and the Baby are so similar in size and shape that she wouldn't be surprised if Hamster turned out to be a girl when they go for their check up at nine weeks. Well, we'll just see about that! I hope you enjoy the pictures. Can you tell them apart yet? I know I certainly can!

Porker

Hamster

Baby

Tia & Porker

Thirsty Thursday

Friends, my babies were thirsty all right when the human finally got up this morning. Why? Cuz I did exactly what I did the night before. I yelled and yelled, and when that didn't work, I chirrupped at her. That woke her up. She told me to lie down and give the babies a drink. I listened to her the first time, but the second, third and fourth I pretended I couldn't hear her.






She gave in at three in the morning and took me out for a cuddle. Of course, I tried to run off, but this didn't work so good, as it got me put very smartly back in the pen. She says she hopes I'll learn soon enough that if I whine (how dare she call it whining!), I can come out, but only for a cuddle and not to abandon the mousies and go adventuring. I say forget it, lady. Anyway, when she put me back, she laid me down again and helped me stretch out. Then she plugged the babies in and went to bed thinking she was scot free...





She gave in again at 5, and then again at half 6! Boy am I good! The chirrup seems to wake her more thoroughly than just yelling. She says she's able to tune out the usual yelling, but she can still wake up if Hamster is crying too much, or if my screaming turns urgent or distressed. She's far too clever, my human.





Hamster's umbilical chord fell off today. His was the last to go. The human held each of my mousies today while I had a really good wash of their bums and tummies (they aren't as yummy as mine yet, Ok?). It's easier when she holds them. If she doesn't, they squirm away from me, and I end up having to follow them all round the box. I get fed up of trying halfway through and come back to it again later, but when my human had them today, no matter how much they squirmed and wriggled and squeaked, they didn't go anywhere. I was able to give them a very vigorous cleaning, and I wonder if it was that which made the chord fall off. Either way, his tummy is yummier without that hanging off it.





The baby had another tickle from my human today, and she even got to licking her finger, the tickling one, that is. Then later, when she was sleeping, the human came and stole her for a cuddle. I didn't mind. I'm slowly learning that my human always brings the mousies back to me, and even if they cry when she has them, it's not cuz she's hurting them or being mean or anything. She curled the baby into her hand, and even when she woke up a little, all she did was sniff the human, then settle back down to sleep again. This is the first time she's been able to pick up any baby, asleep or awake, without them crying like someone was killing them!





I'm still not too sure about this mothering thing, but I like the little mousies well enough. I think they'll be good company, and anyway, it's cuz of them that my human gave me a whole cod fillet yesterday, all to myself! I've never had cod before, and this was fresh and still warm, and oh so juicey. Friends, as you know, I don't eat a lot, but I ate half of that in one sitting, and then the other half with my stinky goodness! The human says she has one left which I might get next week as a treat, but only if I'm extra special good. I can do that, oh yes I can! And if I can't, then all I gotta do is come and smoosh her for five minutes and she'll give me whatever I want! She has her faults, but at least she's easy to manipulate.

One week old!

Friends, I'm exhausted which is why I haven't been writing so much lately. It takes too much effort to think of things to say, and then when I do think of something, these eating machines decide it's time for their next feed and I can go nowhere! They are a week old today, and it's been the longest, longest week, both for me and the human. For her, it's been long cuz she's so tired. She's up in the night with little Hamster still, and it does take it out of her. Well, I'm up with them all the time, and let me tell you, they take it out of me... Literally! I'm sure each mousie drinks sixteen million pints of milk a day, and they're still hungry! They are still fighting fiercely over my nimples no matter how many times I tell them off, but at least little Hamster is doing it too now, so that gives us one lest thing to worry about. He's getting fatter too. The human says he gained 11 grams yesterday all by himself! Well, kinda by himself, even though she's still helping.






Hamster is the last to do everything. The last to fight, the last to learn to suck and the last to purr. Cuz oh yes, my babies have started to purr. The baby was the first. The human heard this funny noise coming from the box after she'd plugged them all in on Saturday night, and when she touched the Baby, her body was vibrating! Porker was the next to pick it up, and this morning, we heard the first tentative purrs from Hamster. I think he's always gonna be slow, but I can't wait till all three of them purr at once! nor can the human. It'll be marvellous!





Their eyes are almost all the way open now, and their ears are beginning to open, but the umbilical chords are still attached! I know I'm sposed to lick them off, but they're icky and gross and I don't wanna! The human says they may well fall off, but I'm not so sure. What do you all think?





They're starting to try and stand more now too. Soon it won't be long till they're walking around, and then the fun really, really starts!





I keep trying to leave the babies behind and run away to escape them. My human wouldn't let me leave them for long the first few days, but as time has progressed, I'm allowed to come out for longer as long as I don't do it frequently. I even had a little play session this morning! I also did something else that I know I shouldn't have though.





Last night, the human heard me scratching at the mat in the kitchen. I don't normally do this at all, so she came to investigate. It wasn't long before her nose told her what had happened, and I tell you what, she got real, real cross. I'd left a number two on the mat for her. Just a little one, but it was enough to send her absolutely hopping mad! Why? Cuz I had a litter tray in the pen with me. I had one in the living room. I even had one in the hall nice and far away from the babies. So really, I had no excuse to do what I did. She caught me at it again this morning. Both times, she scruffed me just like an angry mommacat, and said lots of angry words with a big hiss thrown in for good measure. I got the message right quick, I can tell you. This morning, she even took me to my hall litterbox, put me in there even though I didn't wanna go, and made me dig in it with my paws. The indignity of it! I decided I didn't want that to happen again, so I ran straight back to the pen and went in the tray in there. I got massive praise for doing that, and a whole handful of treats and ages of snuggling, so I guess it was worth it in the end. My human's scary when she's cross though. Do your peoples ever get mad at you? Is mine the only one that does the mommacat grab and hiss? It's far too effective for my liking!





So, back to mousies. They grow bigger by the day! I'll tell you their weights so that you can see. Tori, to answer your question, the human will record their weights right up until when they leave us, as it's a good indicator of how well or poorly each mousie is doing. When they start eating and gaining well, the frequency will go down, but that's about it. Keeping detailed records is so, so important when mousies are depending on you though!





The baby:
Birth weight: 71 G
Today's weight: 165 G





Hamster:
Birth weight: 101 G
Today's weight: 151 G





Porker:
Birth weight: 92 G
Today's weight: 192 G





As you can see, the Baby and Porker are very healthy weights. Kittens should double their birth weight in the first week, or at a stretch, 10 days. Hamster has only gained half the weight of the others and half his original birth weight, but he's picking up now, so let's hope it won't be too much longer before he's doubled! He's not much smaller than the Baby, but he's a bit weaker which means he works so much harder. Porker is so big that he just bullies everyone else until he gets his own way which neither me nor the human like to see. We know this isn't necessarily an indicator of his personality, but it's hard to remember that when we watch him shove Hamster out of the way to steal his nimple even though Porker has one of his own right at the back, and those are the best ones! Ah well, in two weeks they'll start eating propper food anyway, so this won't go on too much longer I hope. Then maybe I can have a break!





Thank you to those of you who keep stopping by. We love to hear from you and cherish every comment!

Fading baby

The human here. I'm sorry, but I'm too exhausted to write for Tia today. I'm having to hand feed the baby that isn't gaining weight, as he lost again overnight when left with only one feed. This means he's being fed every two hours around the clock. I'm finding it very hard, and so is Tia who wails piteously every time I take him away for topping up. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, but I know I'll go as long as I can. I just hope and pray that he doesn't have some hidden health defect that's preventing him from gaining. Keep praying, folks. I don't know when I'll write again. My priority for the next little while is these kittens, and next to that, I need sleep for myself whenever I manage to snatch some. I'll write every time I feel up to it, and will try and keep mom Trish up to date with what's going on with the little fading baby. Boy do I hope that what I'm doing is enough.






Thank you to all of you who stopped by and left comments, not just in these last few days, but over the last week as well. I'm sorry if I haven't commented back. I've tried with every one of you, but either you have word verification which i can't get past, or Blogger won't accept the comments for some reason. I'll keep trying whenever I have the energy. Know that I read every one of you though. thank you for being so supportive!

Are they really mine?

Friends, it's me back again, and boy am I tired. These babies really do take it out of you.






I can't tell you much about how they were born. I know, I know, I promised I'd remember and tell you, but the strange thing is, I can't. one minute the human was sitting talking to me on the floor. I wouldn't let her move a muscle. Every time she got up to try and organise things, I cried and cried for her till she had to sit back down with me again. Labour is scary. I knew I should be pushing, but I couldn't do it. I knew that something was wrong, but I couldn't tell anyone. I was terrified.





The human called the nice vet lady people who I don't like so much any more. She came to see me, and she had to check that I was dilating. Friends, do you know how they do that? They have to feel around inside your looloo! That's the polite term for it. The human tells me that's the word her family uses (they're weird) so that little kids won't come right out and talk about rude things in public.





Anyway, when the vet did this, I screamed my head off cuz I wasn't dilated and I can tell you something, it hurt. If it hadn't been the human's gentle, reassuring hands on my face, I'd have bit, but it's a mark of how far I've come that I only opened my mouth and screamed. When the human first got me, I'd have pulled no punches. Well, I wasn't dilated, and I was leaking out of my looloo too, and so they thought it best that I had something called a C Section. I don't know what this is, but when the vet lady people put me in a PTU and took me away, I was terrified! I was going with her, and my human wasn't coming! I can't tell you how scared that made me, but the vet lady people kept telling me it would be over quick and I'd be first on the list and wouldn't have to wait. First on what list?





When we got to the vet place, she took me into a room, out of the PTU and then... Well, then nothing. Blank. No memory. I came to a little later in a cage, and there were these three tiny little squeaking things beside me. I sniffed them. Smelled strange so I ignored them. I hurt. My yummy tummy was all sore, and even worse than that, they shaved all of my floof off! I was bald!





To cover the shame of that, I sat up so that only my floofy bits were on show. I started to clean the vet smell off of me, and then I felt something very, very strange. A small tugging was going on in my lower belly region, and you know, it felt uncomfortable and right all at the same time. I felt like I should lie down, so I did, but I don't know why. The tugging increased, and so did the squeaking from the moving things. Then a second gentle pulling started. In spite of myself, I felt my body relaxing. I looked down, and there were two of the little wrigglers, and they had their mouths around my nimples! That was what the tugging sensation was. I was too groggy to complain, so I just let them get on with it and wished that my human would come back and get me. I missed her so, so much.





She did eventually come back, and she took me home with her, but the white wrigglers came too. I wasn't too sure about this. They were kinda like mousies, and I know how upset my human was the last time there was a mousie in the house and I wouldn't kill it. I didn't want to kill these. I sorta liked them in a vague kind of way.





I was very gently placed in a soft bed when I got home. I was too tired to give thanks propperly, but I can do it now. Mom Trish sent the big, deep trays that my huan had lined with vetbed for me. Thank you, mom Trish! I watched in some fascination as the human very gently placed the wrigglers in with me, and made sure they were up against my yummy tummy. Strange. If they were mousies, she'd not have allowed them to get loose. But there seemed little danger of them running away. They didn't seem to be able to move propperly, and they all scrabbled at my yummy tummy as though searching for something.





"Those are your babies ,Tia," the human said some while later as she climbed into the pen with me where my bed was. She spent a lot of time cuddling my head, then fiddling around by my tummy. When she did, the tugging started again, and the squeaking stopped. She gave me a little mouse to cuddle under my chin, but I didn't know what to do with it, and anyway, it went wriggling back towards my tummy. I was just content to be home with the human.





Every time the little mousies squeaked, I felt an overwhelming urge to protect them. The only way I could think of to hide them was to lie on them, but this upset the human for some reason. She spent a lot of time soothing me, reassuring me that nobody wanted to take the little mousies away, and that I could keep them all to myself. Lots of times that day she reassured me, talked to me, cuddled me and told me that the tugging was ok and I needed to accept it. Eventually I felt calm enough to go to sleep with my head in the human's hand.





The human took us all to bed with her last night. She has another littler pen in there that she put us all into. I wasn't too bothered. I just wanted to sleep, but something about the mousies bothered me. I nudged one of them away from my yummy tummy and sniffed. It smelled like me now, and I didn't mind it as much . I gave it a friendly lick and it shrieked. I almost did too . I hadn't meant to hurt it! I stopped straight away, but when it stopped too, I decided to try again. The same thing happened, but now I knew I had to lick it all over. Maybe if I got rid of the last of the vet smell, the human would forget that the mousies came from the vets and I could keep them.





I washed all of my mousies all over from head to toe, but I didn't like it when yucky stuff came out of their back ends. I had to lick that all up cuz although it didn't smell like the vet, it didn't smell like me neither. I only washed them once, cuz I didn't want to have to do the cleaning chore again.





When the human looked in the pen this morning, she found me and three clean mousies. As she helped the biggest one to find a nimple to suck on, she told me again, "These are your babies, Tia". But I knew they weren't. My babies were stil inside me. I hadn't pushed them out. Still, if she was Ok with me adopting the mousies, then I was willing to give it a go.





For the next few hours, I pondered this strange phenomenon, but the more I looked at the mousies, the more I listened to them squeak, the more I wasn't sure. They sounded like kittens. now that they were clean, they even smelled like kittens. And there was the other fact that I couldn't feel my own kicking me any more. Could it be?





Friends, I'm still very confused about this all, but the human keeps telling me that yes, it could be, and in fact it is. She never lies to me, so I guess I'll have to believe her. She says the vet lady people cut a hole in my yummy tummy and took the babies out that way cuz I couldn't do it myself. Seems a bit weird to me though. I mean, they come out the same way they go in, or that's what my mummycat told me. But again I say that my human doesn't lie to me.





I have decided that they must be my babies, and I will adopt them and feed them. I have oodles of milk, but despite the fact that I have eight nimples, they all fight. If one is having a drink, the other two come and muscle in on them cuz they want some too. It's stupid cuz I have more than enough for three of them to have more than two each! But they all want the same one! The human says that she told you through Mom Trish that the girl mousie, ah, excuse me, kitten, was in a sack with pus in. Well, she's surviving superbly well and is gaining lotsa weight. She gained one and a half times normal daily weight yesterday, and is still vigorous today! The middle boy has gained loads too, but now your prayers are needed for the fattest mousie. he isn't gaining weight cuz he lets the others push him off the nimple too easily. He's a gentle little thing who seems to like snuggling and loving more than fighting, but he will need to fight if he's to survive. The human's friend expressed some of my milk for him yesterday so that he would get all my immunity, and she tube fed him this morning. The human will syringe him tonight with some extra milk if she feels that he hasn't gained again, but all day she's been fighting his battles, attaching him to a nimple and then keeping the others away for ten or fifteen minutes at a time so that he has a chance to get some mummy's milk instead of powdered stuff. We'll have to wait and see if it's enough though.





He got very cold today as well, so had to become what Mom Trish calls a booby baby. He got to cuddle down the human's top so that he could steal her heat and get warm enough to feed again. She says that they won't feed when they're cold, so it's really important. However, she's worried that all the handling is reducing my already fragile bond with the babies. I've been out of the nest three times today. Perhaps she's paranoid, cuz I usually go a few minutes after the babies start crying, but she says I'm either very relaxed and trusting, or not attached enough, as that is not normal behaviour. I do have a lot of cleaning to do though. I'm leaking icky stuff out my back end, and whenever I try to clean it in the pen, the babies scream at me cuz the milk bar has moved. I can't be dealing with it all the time. I have to have me time as well as baby time.





So, are there any of you that wouldn't mind babysitting for a bit? I could really do with the rest!





Now, I really must go off to the litter tray while these squealers are all asleep. Excuse me...

Sleepy Sunday

Friends, as my pregnancy progresses, I find myself wanting to sleep more and more. The only problem is that I can't! Why? Cuz my babies have been injected with wiggly worms that make them keep moving all the time. One baby has gotten itself into a real comfy position next to my ribs, and when it kicks, it plays football with the bottom one. This is guaranteed to make me get up from a comfy position and roll around or walk a little to try and ease the discomfort and settle the baby so that I can go back to sleeping. I'm spending a lot of time on my back now. I find that this alters the position of the wrigglers inside me and gives me a few moments of kick free peace. It doesn't last long though. All those babies weigh a lot, and that weight presses on my organs when I'm that way up. That isn't too comfy either, so I have to keep rolling.






I'd gone off my food a little in the last few days too. This isn't uncommon for a mummycat with a yummy tummy stuffed full of babies. There simply isn't room in there for a big meal. however, the human knows that everything I eat is going to my babies. Even though I have a belly the size of a small whale, she can still easily feel my backbone and pelvis, so she knows it's very important for me to keep eating. She got out the really special treats, the ones I'd do anything for, and she's been crumbling them on the top of my stinky goodness. They're freeze-dried chicken and they crumble to powder which makes the food smell and taste so good that I can't ignore it. Those babies just have to move over and make room, cuz it's not staying in the bowl! So much for not eating...





My safe place has now been augmented by an upside down cardboard box with a hole cut in the front for me to go in and out. It's great in there, very dark and private and cosy. She's set one up in the bedroom for me too after she caught me trying to nest under the bed, but I haven't bothered with that one yet. I prefer to spend most of my time hanging out on the towel she's put on top of the kittening pen. It's comfy up there, and I can watch the world go by whilst guarding my safe place. She says she'd rather I nested, but she's not worried. On the pen or in it. Either's good enough for her until babies come along.





My belly gets bigger by the day, and even the human can easily feel baby movement now. The little footballer even managed to kick her in the stomach the other day when we were cuddling. She found this highly amusing. My ribs did not.





There's almost only seven days to go now, and I fear I may have passed my last peaceful weekend for a long, long time to come. The human's having silly nightmares about the litter, that something will go wrong when I'm delivering. I'm not worried though. What will be will be. Dogman came this week and took some pictures of the yummy tummy, so as soon as he emails them to the human, I'll get her to put them up here.





For the rest of this week, I've asked her to put up some educational posts. We're going to look at genetics, how to prepare for the arrival of kittens, how to help your cat during birthing, and how to care for mum and babies once they have been born. The genetics alone is massive, so will probably take up two posts, but we hope it will be helpful for some peoples who find themselves with a pregnant cat. I'll pop in from time to time to give you updates if anything happens, but this last week is likely to be long and tedious and very uncomfortable. Thank cod it's not stupidly hot here too, that's all I can say!





I have to go to see our nice vet people tomorrow. She's going to cut my nails and probably have a feel of the yummy tummy, as she's excited too about babycats. She'll then show my human how to take my temperature, and that I'm not looking forward to. It's important to take in the last week though. When birth is close, it will drop within 12 hours. The human's breeder friend is coming down to help us if we need it, so that gives the human an indication of when to call her to come. It's a loss of dignity for me though, and i intend to put up a tremendous fight whenever I see that thermometer thingy coming! She may be able to placate me with lotsa treats though... Who says I'm not shallow!





Anyway, friends, I hope you enjoy the week of education. Think of me as I grow fatter, eh? Soon, very soon, there'll be lots of little me's running around. I can't wait!

Kittens and weddings and plane birds, oh my!

At last, friends, it's time to update you all propperly! My human says this post is gonna be hard to write, cuz my safe place is in the way and it's disrupting the signal of her wireless keyboard to the computer box. I'll tell you all about it, shall I?





My safe place is a kittening pen. It's mesh on all sides so that I can see out when I want to. It's nice and big and made of wood framing. The bottom is a solid floor lined in a soft plastic lino. It's cushioned, so I could lie on it without any bedding if I needed to. Of course I'd never need to cuz my human has made it all soft in there, but babies crawl, and they sleep where they fall when they're tired, so it keeps it nice and comfy for them. She's put some huge fluffy towels in there for me cuz next to her fleecey sweatshirt and dressing gown, she knows these are my favourite things to lie on. She's gone one better though.





She got a massive quilt cover which she draped over the top and sides of the pen. Then she got another of those big towels and put it over the top of the cover. Now, not only is it comfortable to lie on top of the pen as well as inside, but inside is all dark and cave-like for me so that I feel safe. I think it'd be a good place to hide my babies away. She's left the front and a little of the sides uncovered so I can still see out. The door at the front is open so I can come and go easily, and the top is also open. Most of this is covered, but there's a small square where I can jump in and out. She's put my scratchy post with the platform near this so I can jump on there and then into the pen. She says this is what I'll have to do when I have babycats, as if she leaves the door open, they're likely to crawl out and get lost. What do you think? Do you think babycats would be safe here, or should I carry on trying to nest behind the TV where I know she doesn't want me? It would almost be worth doing it just for this!





So, my human's trip to Alaska. Where to start? She said she would update you herself, but in typical human style, she didn't. She says it was hard and slow to access the blog with her little tiny man in a box, the one she calls Laptop. I say that's still no reason not to post.





The plane bird ate her just as I said it would, and just like I told you, it spat her out in Seattle, forcing her to beg another one to take her the last bit to Alaska. I told you she had lots in her suitcase that would make him not want to take her the whole way, and I wasn't joking! She did get there eventually though. my human doesn't like being eaten for a long time by plane birds, so she was mighty glad to get there. She was also super glad to see Bug and his family.





She didn't do tons while she was there, but she didn't mind either. She says that the time to relax sat well with her. Bug's mummypeople cooked her super good dinners though, and she got to try lots of strange foods that peoples in this country don't have like Corn dogs and quessadillas (think that's how you write it) and lots of different sweeties (they call it candy). She got to eat cheese curds again too which she loves so much that she had to go back again and again for more of them.





She says they also went back to the gold mine that she had visited last time she was there. She found a lot of gold in the dirt, and Bug, Bug's step-sister and her little girlkitten gave my human all the gold they found too! She told them she's saving a little every time she goes there, and eventually she'll have it made into a small piece of jewelery. Speaking of jewelery, she bought a bit while she was there. It's a beautiful gold nugget that has been put on a chain, and she loves it very, very much.





They did something even more exciting than that though. They went to a real, real big pet shop! And you know what she bought for me? She bought kitten milk just in case my babies needed feeding up a little, in case I don't have enough milk for them, but that's not the cool part. She also bought Da Bird. the real Da Bird! I like it a lot. This one I can really wrassle with when I catch it and it still doesn't break. I nearly exhausted myself totally when I tried to catch it when she brought it out for me after she got home. I love, love, love that thing!





The human also spent time with Bug's family. His mummypeople is such a good cook, and his step-dad is lotsa fun too. His step-sister came over a lot and brought her two kittens, a boy and a girl. The girl is older, but the boy is way cuter. He sang her lots and lots of songs and even taught her the tickle song which him and his mummypeople made up. That meant that he got to tickle the human while singing it, but she did it right back to him too! She recorded him singing so that she could remember it even when he grows up. She's been singing it to me, but I keep telling her that the yummy tummy is not for tickling, cuz the babies go crazy when she does. I also tell her that the right to give kissies is not, in fact, a right, but an earned privilage. I think all the kissies the little boykitten gave her when he was tickling her turned her soft. This she of course ignores as she plants kissies on the babies.





My human can now feel the babies kicking a lot. There's one that we both think is a tortie like me, cuz that one kicks the most and the hardest. The human is sure she felt all four feet going at one point this morning. I'm more than sure, cuz it was kicking at my poor ribs!





I'm quite uncomfortable today. The babies are kicking hard and I can't rest for long. I think it's about time they came out of me, but the human says I have to keep them for another 11 days to let them grow a little more. Well, aren't they big enough already? The human now thinks I might possibly have more than three, cuz I'm so big. Even though I am not even eight weeks pregnant yet, I am already bigger than Phoebe, and she had five! She's not sure though, as she can only feel three distinct movement patterns in my yummy tummy, and I'm not telling how many I'm growing inside me. I did tell you I'd work hard on growing a big yummy tummy for the human while she was away though, and I've certainly done that!





It took her a massive 38 hours to travel from Alaska to Ireland, and this time it took four plane birds to get her all the way home. She says she never wants to travel that long again. She was so tired when she finally got there that she was doing stupid things like bursting into tears for no reason. She was even like that at the wedding the next day.





The wedding went so well. The bride was gorgeous, and the groom, her cousin, was the most handsome groom ever! My human does admit to being somewhat biased though. He's her cousin after all. He is deaf, and had brought a lot of his deaf friends along. He and his new wife hired an interpretor to stand at the front and sign so that they all could hear the talk noise that the peoples were making. My human thought that was a very nice touch. Glen also spoke all of his own speeches rather than signing them, something which is very hard for him to do. He doesn't speak very well and he knows it. Talking is a great effort for him and also an embarrassment cuz he worries what peoples will think of his funny noises. But he stood in front of everyone and told his wife how much he loved her. It would be fair to say my human had such a bad case of leaky eyes that she used up all the tissues in the place. That cousin is the closest to her in so many ways. They were born only two months apart, and they are the only two cousins who both share a disability. Sure there are many more in their family, but they were the only two in that generation. They looked out for each other growing up, she speaking for him when he couldn't, he taking her places that she couldn't go on accounta her broken eyes. She's so glad that he's happy now with his new wife. They go off to Sri Lanca for their honeymoon tomorrow.





So that's it for my human's trip. She really enjoyed it, but she loved getting home to me too. As much as I'll most likely live to regret this statement, I'm enjoying having her back, and I'm glad she won't be going away for a long time!





oh speaking of babies, even though we weren't, phoebe and her new family are doing well, although the mummypeople thinks she may have a temperature today. The human has advised taking her to the vet, but I don't know whether they will or not. Mom Trish, don't worry. We definitely won't we seeing the same vet! For one thing, we choose better, and for another, she livs in Ireland and I am in England. Thank goodness! I'm so glad that a lot of you found the post educational. I'll remember everything about when my babycats are born so that I can tell you all that too! I'll also do a few genetics posts this week and one on the things in my human's kittening bag if you like. Would you all like to see that?





My human says thank you to everyone who hoped she'd feel better today. She is, in fact, feeling a little more like herself. She says the pain killers are now working, but I say it's all thanks to the attentive nursing I've been doing. Cat spit works wonders!

Phoebe's Family

Friends, I'm afraid our update today will be short and sweet. My human has been very, very sick with a sore tummy, has taken way more pain killers than she normally does, and is too tired from throwing up with the pain and blissed with the meds to write much for me. I'm sorry about that, and I promise I'll get to more interesting things tomorrow or late rin the week!






The only reason I could get her to write at all was cuz I shouted and shouted till she thought I might be going into early labour (Isn't she paranoid? I think I'll start calling her Marvin. Eternal smoochies to any of you who get the reference!). I wasn't, but I wanted to make her think it, cuz then she thought about Phoebe from yesterday and her babycats. That, as I had hoped, made her remember that she'd promised you an update.





In total, Phoebe now has five babycats, one white with cream paws, face and tail, two black with a white paw, one that looks like a tiger, and another that's a little tortie, or so says the mummypeople. They had to take her in to see the vet peoples who are shockingly ignorant when it comes to birthing. Phoebe wasn't passing enough chord to let the mummypeople cut it easily, and instead of giving her oxytosin straight away, the vet lady people advised the mummypeople to pull gently on the chord to ease out the placenta. Well, you don't do that ever, as she found out, as when you do, it tears the mummycat. Hardly surprising when you figure that the placenta is still attached to the wall of the uterus and will let go only when the mum makes an effort and goes with her contractions. Phoebe wasn't. Thankfully, the mummypeople was pulling real gently and as soon as she saw the first drops of blood she stopped, but that could have been real, real bad. The fourth baby was still attached when Phoebe pushed out a fifth, and it was then that she got took to the vet.





They cut the chord on the fifth one, but she didn't pass the placenta. Again, they showed their ignorance by telling the mummypeople that Oxytosin, although it would make her pass the placenta, would be painful for her, and the increased contractions would kill any remaining kittens. Well duh, stupid vet people, how do you think kittens get born in the first place? It ain't by relaxing! Instead, they opted for a course of preventative antibiotics to make sure that she couldn't get sick if she didn''t pass the placenta. If it was me they'd done that to, the human would be filled with dread. She tried to explain this to the mummypeople, but by that point it was too late and the antibiotics had been given.





So Phoebe is at home with her babies. Me and the human will wait to see how things develop. Three babies remained attached to mum with no slack in the chord, and the first born actually got tangled in its chord and mum did nothing to help. The second born was the only one in this litter who won't be at signifficant risk of abdominal hernea due to pulling on the chord.





Why do I tell you all these things, negative as they are? For a lot of reasons actuallly. Phoebe, at nine months old, was too young to be a mum, and made no effort to clean, de-bag or chew the chords on kittens. She didn't have the reserves necessary to complete a delivery due to being too skinny in my opinion (they didn't know they had to feed her higher quality food, and more of it, while she was pregnant). Four out of five kittens may have life threatening health issues in the near future. The mum may also face the same risk through infection. Lack of preparedness and being informed led to the lives of five cats being put unnecessarily at risk, and to the addition of five mostly unwanted kittens into the already over-crowded kitten world. The family now find themselves having to look after a large litter, a sick mum and pay all the expenses, and they're not rich. I tell you these things to illustrate how important it is to have your cat spayed or neutered if you're not breeding to a specific end or for a certain purpose. It's so, so important. I'm also telling you this cuz I know the human needs to rant, specially cuz it's her family who are being so unforgiveably stupid. She loves them, but she thinks they're idiots today!





That's all we have for now. I'll update you as soon as the human makes the talk noise on the phone thing with her auntie, the mummypeople, and I know more about how the new little family are doing today. Thanks for listening to our rant, and sorry there wasn't more interesting stuff to read!