Two More Weeks. Two More Weeks.

Ohhh the kittens are sooo cute:

Buuuuut... We're having some issues with Xena. She has started weaning the kittens, which means that she doesn't eat their poop and pee anymore. We have set up a little litter box next to their little bed, and some of them have even used it, which is great. But Xena wants to use their litter box instead of hers. Which is a problem, because Xena is really bad at burying her stuff. She tries, but ends up kind of spraying litter all over the place. A few months back, before all of this cat pregnancy stuff, we had to get her an enclosed litter box with a cat door on it so we didn't have to sweep up litter all the time. And it has helped a lot.

The kittens are in a large closet in an unfinished room in our basement. We had to kind of put up a barrier so that they wouldn't get out and poop and pee all over the place, and it was working fine. Xena was able to easily jump over the barrier to go in and feed them. The closet has old pink carpet in it, and we have been putting towels on the carpet to kind of protect it. Not like we'll keep the pink carpet, but until we have time and energy to rip out the carpet, we want to protect it. Wellllll, Xena started pooping on the towels, and then "burying" it by folding over the edges of the towel on top of the poop. Ugh. I HATE cleaning up animal defacation. Which is why I've had problems keeping animals in the past. And cat poop is seventy times stinkier than dog poop, I swear. So is cat pee.

So now we have put a big door against the opening of the closet and shut the kittens in there so that Xena doesn't go in and do her thing and make me want to vomit from the smell. I have a really, really sensitive nose. It could be a superpower, seriously. I clean her litter box every single day, and I gag the whole time. It's like torture. So to have her pooping all over in that little room that is just feet from my bedroom is more than I can bear. She is still weaning the kittens, so I have to let the kittens out of the little room several times a day for her to feed them - but I won't let her in there. I bring the kittens out and have her feed them wherever.

The kittens have gotten quite mobile, however. They like to climb the stairs and hang out with the family. So there have been some kitten pee and poop incidents which have also been traumatic for me. Sadie stepped in a poop mess in the kitchen today and was freaking OUT. I don't blame her!

So my life is really smelly right now. Which is hard for me. And Ben got some cheap kind of litter recently, and it is the worst-smelling litter ever. It smells like formaldahyde. I can smell it on Xena's fur and it makes me want to vomit.

In two weeks, we get to send the kittens to the Humane Society lady's house. We'll let her know which ones our friends and family members have called "dibs" on. The kittens will get spayed when they're twelve weeks old, and at 13 weeks, our friends and family can go get them from the lady's house (and pay her). I'm still trying to figure out if we can afford to keep one for ourselves. If we keep one, I have settled on my very favorite one, which we have named Fluffbucket:

She has so much fur, and she just loves to cuddle. The never claws at your shirt when you're hoding her. She walks kind of funny. I love it. And she is my little shadow. She follows me all over the house. I'm seriously in love with this kitten. She is a lover.

We named the other fuzzy black one Fuma, which means "smoke" in Portugese. Because her hair is kind of a dark gray color. The Humane Society insisted that we name them, so we're like, um, okay... The one with a striped ribbon around her neck is the current biggest whiner, so we named her Burgandy, like the wine. Get it? Cheese doesn't need to be named. I'm trying to figure out a name for the green-ribboned one. She is very shy, but also very gentle. She really likes Natalie. The one with the white patch on his throat is named Patch. And that's all of them!

It's been so fun to play and cuddle with them, and the kids have been loving it so much, but I'm ready to reclaim my house from the stench. Two more weeks, baby.

Slides: