September 26, 2021
Day 80… The second day without the whole herd reporting to duty in the morning. It still hurts. But little Sipke makes up for that loss by curiously studying the baby gate that is in the door-opening of the cat room. And today he climbed over. We were prepared. We have kitten proofed the landing, inasfar as that is possible. Under supervision only of course…
So I sat with Stipke and instead of venturing out into the main bathroom, she stared through baby gate number 2 because… she saw herself in the mirrors of the cabinet on the landing. I think she was a bit frightened so I have later covered it up a bit. Too much distraction in a direction we are not ready to have her go yet. She wanted to go back into the room. And then she wanted to come out again. We will be doing that together in the coming days. We really do need 2 pairs of eyes and hands to keep the twins in check. I am not sure we want to include mom at this moment in time. She seems to enjoy that she has less pitter patter of little feet and sleeps on the carpet, stretched out, without having to keep the hungry mouths away from her teats…
Vacuum cleaning
It speaks to the resilience of the whole family that, before Stipke explored the landing, I did a thorough vacuuming of their room. I started on the landing, to prepare them for what was coming and by the time I entered their room, they were safely hiding on the window table. That’s a good spot. It keeps them out of the way. The vacuuming was very necessary… So I am happy that is done. With just 3 cats I can do that once a week, instead of twice a week. They have to get used to it anyway. It’s a part of life and I dislike it as much as they do!
Watching cats play is always fun. At the 20 second mark of this video, keep your eye on the middle kitten that is playing with the bundle of stick-toys. One of them has an elastic part and as the twin plays with it and stretches it, it suddenly makes him bounce back towards the carrier. A very funny moment, I think.
Downstairs prepwork
In the meantime we are also preparing the downstairs area for the ‘coming of the kittens’. It is not going to happen tomorrow, or next week, but when it happens or when one of the cats accidentally escapes into the house, it is better to have things ready. We have worked that way from the start: be on time with adjustments so that we are not caught out when it happens. Every cat professional advises against giving young kittens free reign of the house right away. It is too overwhelming. So they will be allowed on the landing in the coming time but only under our supervision. We can tell that, as little as the twins are, they do have smart brains and I can just see new brain cells forming when they do their explorations.
Evening post script
“Man plans, God laughs”. Not sure where this saying comes from but boy, is it true!
Wim and I decided to take the twins out of the room for a bit of exploration. They were cautiously checking out the landing and the bathroom. I sat with my back against the tub (luckily) and without warning the shower curtain rod came crashing down on my shoulders! The one thing I had never thought could happen. The cats flew towards the closed door and Wim was their safe spot. He felt some of their little nails though! It took us some time to calm them down, but then the exploration went on for another 5 minutes and then it was time to call it quits. The twins wanted to go back into the cat room. And so it happened and now they are starting to fall asleep after an eventful little trip…
