Kitties and more kitties

We got home from Australia to little kitties with their eyes open but still so small and helpless.

The girls loved to have their friends over to see the kittens but Shai soon grew tired of all the strangers handeling her babies so she moved them out of the box and under the chairs against the wall to put more distance between her babies and the unwanted attention.

However, more friends and potential kitten owners came to see them so Shai moved them all upstairs first in Kate's closet then under Emmy's bed.  So we accommodated her by moving in a litter box, food and water to help them stay put - I didn't wan't to wake up to kitties in a new spot every morning.

They spent most of their time deep under the bed sleeping but the started coming out to play more and more every day.

We tried feeding them cat food but they weren't very interested - but Shai was eating a ton and the kittens liked to play in her food and water.

We stared having scriptures in Emmy's room every night so we could watch the little cuties.

We tried bringing them down for conference weekend but Shai quickly put an end to that by bringing them back up stairs.

The girls named each of the babies:

Kronk -first born and biggest, mews whenever picked up

Tuxie - the only black and white one, 1st to eat solids

Baby Shai Shai - the only non-black kitten and the smallest

Yzma - all black, second biggest, sweetest

Jean Luc(from Bluey) - the other runt

They got good at climbing up our legs - Baby Shai Shai could get all the way to my shoulder.

But all good things come to an end.  Our method of keeping kittens in and still letting Shai go in and out started to fail - kitties were escaping! And they had started peeing and with no way to get under Emmy's bed for clean up a change was in the wind.

We released the party and corralled them into the toy room where we could put up a better barrier, put out lots of liter boxes and have less hiding places for pee accidents.

Everyone still spent lots of time playing with the babies and hanging out together in kitten land.

The girls might have had a little fun with their doll's dog cone of shame.  Jean Luke didn't like it.

After a while we let them play in the game room too and they loved to all cuddle together on the recliner.

Look how big they are! This was one of the last photos of them together.  At 7 weeks we took Shai in for a spay and declaw -she was not happy about leaving her babies.  The vet told me to keep her away from the babies so they wouldn't hurt her.  When she got home she went crazy trying to get into the toy room and didn't calm down till she was back with her babies.  She was such a good mama.  

That week Tuxie and Kronk went to their new homes with Ysma following close behind and being renamed Charlie (more appropriate for a boy).  We were sad to see them go but at this point they were all over the house, no barrier could keep them in.  One had fallen from the banister and Ditten was hissing at all of them whenever she was in their presence. Suddenly, we were down to just 4 cats and so far we still have 4...still looking for homes...we will see.