My weakness for kittens

Ever since I was a tiny child, I have adored cats, and especially kittens. When I was five and got my first kitten, I was overjoyed and obsessed over him day and night. When I was eight and got my second kitten, I was so happy I cried for the first time in my young little life.

I wish I could have kittens in my house all the time, but without the expense of their veterinary care, the stigma of being a crazy cat lady, or the divorce of my husband. In recent years, I've found  a way to accomplish this: I foster one litter of kittens each spring. This way, I get the enjoyment of having new kittens once a year without having an actual increase in the population of cats at my house.

Tiny ball of viciousness is slapping at my face with her feather paws.

This year's kittens are two tiny, feral little puff balls that had been found wandering motherless in a Tuscaloosa apartment complex. At six weeks of age, the little female was an itty-bitty ball of viciousness who would hiss and swat you in the face with her pinkie-size paw, which feels a lot like being attacked with a feather. Her brother was less angry, but would stare blankly at people like he had no idea what we were. To socialize them, I carried them around with me in a baby sling every where that I went, a practice that I call "attachment kittening."

This was my view looking down for a couple of weeks.

I have found that kittens really want to be warm and snuggled, even when they are too unaccustomed to people to realize that we can be the source of warm snuggliness. By forcing them to be close to you and have the warmth and closeness that they need, they learn. From day one, the little tabby girl would hiss and slap at me when I touched her, but she would immediately start purring when I put her in the sling and held her close to my body.

My attachment kittening worked, and they are now social, playful, joyful little bundles of energy. The little boy loves to come bouncing across the house to land at my feet and rear himself up on his hind legs like a miniature grizzly bear. His sister is still more reserved, but she will now cry to be picked up and let in and out of the ferret cage in which they sleep, and she loves to use my lap as a trampoline. Yesterday I caught her trying to nurse on Jackson's fleece dog bed, making sweet little suckling noises and kneading the fleece with her tiny paws, and it reminded me how much the poor, orphaned little thing had been through, and made me admire her spunk at the way she tried to defend herself and her brother from strange humans when she was so tiny.

They're growing up!

They're getting bigger now, and in just a couple of weeks they'll be getting spayed and neutered and the boy will go to a new family who have named him Zed. We're still looking for a home for his sister, but I'm hopeful that we will find one soon. I'm getting so much enjoyment out of these little guys every day that it makes the daily litter box cleanings worthwhile.