Mealtime-Soffit, Cricket (formerly Eave) and Gimble

Me with Soffit

Another shot of Soffit’s adorable patterned face

Meet and greet with Cricket

Gimble- note the positions of the ears-Clearly, not in a relaxed state at the moment. Not surprisingly they haven’t even been here three days.

MudBug and Cricket

With the final name change- Muddy is now MudBug-It has always been my experience that they name themselves. I was tempted to call him Mudster. (A play on Monster) because of his aggressive streak. But I also believe if you name a kitten, a negative name, they just grow into their name over time.

MudBug  is clearly a strong Alpha. He bit me this morning on my finger when I picked him up to flea-treat him. One growl was the only warning before he was latched onto my finger. (I am thankful that I recently got my tetanus updated.) His other aggressive tendencies include being the first one at the food bowl.

It’s quite interesting during feeding time because I can have the first bowl dished out. They all run to the bowl. He’s there first. All of them try to cram their head into a very small feeding bowl. What MudBug does then is he shakes his head back-and-forth so aggressively that all of them go tumbling.

I’ve had to adjust my feeding pattern and bring in the already loaded bowls on a tray and put them all down in a circle close enough together so they can feel each other around. They still run to the first bowl but at least if they run to the other bowls ithey won’t be empty. It’s  hard to figure out who’s getting how much food.they all get 1 tablespoon of this wonderful canned kitten food  3 times a day. I found this food at the local Wilco store the foodhas 89% protein! They desperately need that protein right now in their life stage The food is Open Farm kitten food-Chicken and salmon. They are large cans for $2.99 apiece.Yikes!

MudBug will immediately turn fun wrestling into a rumble in the jungle. Dropping a towel on the aggressively fighting kittens startles them apart. No one gets hurt, including me.

Although at this point in my life, these beautiful kittens are a bit of a hardship for me. I also cherish the fact that they are here. They are my therapists. Last night when I was sitting with them quietly just observing. Gimble was behind the drape and Asphalt was in front of the drape. They were chasing each other-one behind and one in front and it looked like a double shadow and they were going back-and-forth and back-and-forth it was hysterical. Of course I didn’t have my cell phone within reach and by the time I grabbed it they quit. That would’ve been a cute video.

Gimble’s talent lies in swan-diving into the water bowls. He and my bath towels are becoming fast friends. although I can multitask it’s hard to carry your cell phone and fill up water bowls at the same time. But in a few days, I hope to get lucky.

Speaking of three days, it only took the kittens 4 1/2 hours to discover and learn that the litter boxes are the best place to potty and poop. That’s pretty good for their age.