Our resident kitten turns one-month old on Mother's Day, May 11th.Raising a single kitten is a calmer experience than with quintuplets. (Tickles' usual litter size) However, we recently had trauma (maybe "drama" is a better word) when mama disappeared for 14 hours.
About 7 AM, I let out Tickles for her daily stretch. Every hour I hollered out the porch door for her to come in – without results.
She likes fresh meat. So, I thought: "She must be hunting." About 4 PM, baby began meowing for mom – still gone! By 5 PM, I couldn't take the squeals any longer. I called Dan at work.
"Tickles has been gone for hours," I said. "This is highly unusual. Maybe she's stuck in someone's garage. Maybe she's trapped in a tree. Or maybe... some fox picked her off and we've got an orphan on our hands. I don't know!"
"What I do know IS there's one wild kitten in our bedroom closet. He's gone from a tiny, sleepy slug to a noisy, hungry monster – standing on all fours, tail high up in the air and squealing at the top of his lungs!"
Dan met my request and stopped at Fleet Farm for kitten formula and a bottle on his way home. By 6:15 PM, the boys were each having a go at bottle feeding. I surfed the web, found a few kitten-feeding tips and instructed Aaron. He faced the kitten away from him, propped it up on his lap, tilted the bottle at a high angle and tried to insert the nipple in its mouth.
The kitten showed complete RESISTANCE – time and again. We tried other angles. Same story. I sputtered, "Imagine if Tickles would've had five kittens!"
We managed to get a few squirts down this one during the hour-long feeding. Then Isaac took over, put kitty on his human belly and coaxed it into a nap.
I returned to the kitchen thinking: "This is NOT going to work. Not only is he resistant, but how are we going to fit an orphan kitten into our already busy schedule." I prayed, "Please let Tickles come back."
At couple hours later when I opened the porch door to holler for her again, Tickles was waiting to come in.
She strolled over to Dan who was sitting on the couch. To the mama cat, Dan said, " What's this? Coming home at 9:30 at night? You can just bend over and take your spanks right now. I just wasted $7 on kitten formula."
"Whatever!" I scoffed.
"I'm just
glad we
haven't got
an orphan
afterall."
Maybe – like most moms – Tickles just needed a break.
To Motherhood and all who mother – in many ways. Happy Meow-ther's Day.
3 comments:
Is it just me, or in Tickles' photo does she appear to have a secret lurking in her eyes?
;-)
I agree with Jodi, there appears to be a secret in her eyes AND a coy smile on her face!
Tickles has a secret alright. I've often asked her, "Who ARE you?" In those moments, she looks deep into my eyes as though she's prepared to answer and I withdraw my question saying, "Maybe I don't WANT to know."
In this photographic instance, I was shooting the kitten-feeding gear on the couch next to the picture window to gain a haloing effect. Tickles jumped onto the couch and into the picture. My first instinct was to shoo her away. But then I understood how much more effective the image would be with her in it.
Tickles looked out the window away from me no matter how much I called her name or encouraged her. Frustrated, I said, "This kitten formula cost $7. You can at least look this way once."
Tickles promptly turned and I snapped this photo. She is mysterious.
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