Cats part 5- births, and leaving home (several of us)
I gave up my rented house to go away, and my daughter, Mini, Minx and Bell set up house with her boyfriend. She got Minx neutered in time but Mini got pregnant and when I came home in the spring, a barrel shaped Mini met me. Ellie had a much softer spot for Minx and Mini was a bit like Kipper in both personality and our natural affinity. She also had this incredible dexterity on account of her “thumbs”, the extra claw on her front paws – she picked things up with them and became, accordingly, a master criminal thieving things all over the place, including food off your plate.
I came home one day to find
her pacing restlessly and she’d been bothering Ellie all morning. When I came
in you could almost hear the sigh of relief, the where have you been, I was
waiting for you. She rounded us both up and herded us upstairs, lay down on the
landing and set about giving birth. Ok, we’re all here, I can start now, you
got here just in time. Everyone tells
you they do this in private and resent human interference to the point of
horror stories about eating kittens who have had human contact at birth. Not
our Mini, she wants moral support, we have to be there pleeeeeeeeease don’t
leave me on my own.
Touched or what, and I mean my reaction not her state of sanity. Who is the most nervous here, I’m a mum myself and I’m so scared for her, can she do this, will she be ok, will she make a good mum, what if anything goes wrong, Ellie is cool as a cucumber and matter of fact. We both grimace at the messy bits and agree birth is a fairly disgusting process. Number one is hard work and I wonder what happens if she just can’t push the little bugger out. Two is easier, a rest and then number 3. Are there more, yes definitely but it’s getting hard work now, four is a bit pathetic and then a long long rest, Mini is clearly exhausted but I think there is another one. And this looks touch and go and Ellie has to help her, it takes so long I think this kitten will die. And then there they are, five of these funny looking little things which are far from cute yet, and Mini is happy but tired and asking for our approval and we are so thrilled she trusts us to have been there as well as with these tiny new scraps of life. Yes. Pick them up, sort them out and pass me that one please.
And now we have eight not three. Thank God they are not mine and I’m going back to Spain!!
When I come back the next time, only two have found new homes. They have names and personalities, Mini has been a good mum but she’s bored with it now, will you all just bugger off and LEAVE ME ALONE! Bell has turned out the most tolerant of aunties and quite willing to play (after she she is not so old herself and did not have much of a kittenhood), Minx is behaving nicer than we expected but hasn’t much time for her sister, letting the side down like that! There is a territorial dispute over the trampoline in the garden. Minx thinks it is hers.
My daughter’s boyfriend does
not do cats on the bed, kittens or otherwise so the feline view is that the
kittens can sleep with human Grandma (me) while Mini clears off for some peace.
I don’t mind at all except Napoleon forgets his manners and craps on the bed.
On two separate occasions. So he gets picked up and shouted at and hides his
head under his human mum’s arms and cringes away from me for a while. Boys and
toilet training eh?. But they are such fun, they romp and play and are ace fly
catchers and just wonderful happy little things (except when chastised for
abusing beds) and I am really sorry to have missed several months of them
growing up and the two who already left home. They hurtle round the house and
shin up the cat tree and roll under the carpets and it is a good job they
nominally have the spare room to themselves.
By the time another few months have elapsed, Mini has taken to doing a Susie to avoid the kittens – her own kids! and more or less moved out. Ellie moves again, and Mini finally comes home the last night I am alone in the house before she gives the keys back. She sleeps with me and purrs a lot, we haven’t seen each other for ages. Great, I can shut her in and Ellie can take her to her new home………
..........Where she promptly clears off never to return, and I am sad because she was more or less mine amongst this disparate collection and I will miss her. What is the point in getting attached to ANY cat??
As the kittens grow bigger, they still tear round the house. Fudge is Kipper reincarnated, a brindle girl with a serious worried face and her mother’s ability to steal things even though she hasn’t got the thumbs. A big chunk of broccoli off your plate, I mean……and which one is it steals socks and underwear? Although I think it was really mean of Ellie to pretend her granny pants were mine when Pickle ran round the living room with them in front of her friends. Shut the drawer next time! They have regular places to sleep on the cat tree, how sweet.
Minx puts up with as much as she feels like and then whallops whoever annoyed her before insisting on a separate room. Even tolerant Auntie Bell gets a bit bored with this and the nice lady next door is very nosy, very lonely and spoils her rotten and she thinks actually being a fat only cat and completely indulged is not a bad idea, so Bell and the neighbour are happy and Ellie is only mildly miffed.
Which is just as well,
because Ellie is moving again to a flat and that is not a good place for four cats
let alone the six it was shortly before Mini and Bell moved out. And where are they going to live?
With me of course. I can’t say no to cats, can I?