Daily Musings: December 2015

The naughty foursome!

Here they are! Presenting to you the Naughty Foursome - the 4 little kittens that have captured all our hearts at home. We are completely enamoured by their playfulness, their idiocies, and their antics. Our girls have give them names - the slightly fat one is Moksha Gundam (has nothing to do with the famous scientist and hope he doesn't turn in his grave at this atrocity!), the curious and inquisitive fellow is Holmes, the silent one is SJ (expands to Silent and Joyful- I seriously don't know how my younger daughter gets such ideas!), and the last fellow who has a squeaky voice and mews squeakily is, well, Squeaky!

Mommy with the kittens

Less than a month old!

They were born on 11th Oct 2015; their mother who we had named Mommy used to visit our place frequently to have a cup of milk. She decided to have her next litter in our home and thus started our association with the foursome. Sadly, when the kittens were less than 4-weeks old, Mommy got bitten by a dog and died. The kittens were not yet ready to drink milk from a cup; so we spent the first few days feeding them with a syringe. Luckily, they quickly learnt to lap up the milk from the saucer.

Milk being fed through syringe

Now, they are nearly 2 1/2 months old, - healthy, sprightly and with a voracious appetite. As my younger girl says, "Oh, they are so lucky. All they do is eat, sleep and play the whole day!" Their playful antics are a treat to watch; and sure to draw a smile from even the most hardened heart! Any small thing that rolls, moves, swings or shakes is their toy and needs to be played with. A bottle cap, a small piece of coconut fallen from the tree, a spool of thread, a straw, shoe-lace - anything is fine. Or even if there is nothing, they playfully pounce on each other, bite the others' tails and roll around, have mock fights and thus learn the art of hunting and duelling.

Playing with the straw!

Father cat trying to help his kitten

They have now learnt to climb the grill and jump to the neighbour's place. Their father (at least, he looks like he could be the one) visits them sometimes and watches their antics. He once tried to teach them how to get down the grill, mewing to them gently and prodding them to step down.

Clean-up time

It is amazing to see their natural instincts kick in. Despite their mother not being around to teach them, they have learnt that dogs are not friends. They run back into the house if they spot a dog near the gate. Or make themselves look bigger and menacing to scare the dog. They also clean up after they go potty or take a leak - they pull the mud over their poo. After every meal, they spend some time cleaning their faces and licking their bodies.

They still have the need and desire to feed from their mother. The female kitten (Squeaky) becomes the de-facto mother and the other three pretend to be suckling from her. It amazes us to see this and we realize how young and child-like these kittens are!

Here are a few more random clicks of them.