Our family has grown by three, at least for the next few weeks. Two weeks ago, Terri was awoken by mewing coming from under our porch. A neighborhood stray had had three kittens only a couple days before. Though she later admitted that she hadn’t fully thought things out, Terri decided to take them in. They weren’t abandoned, but Terri thought that it would be better for them to be raised by humans and adopted out instead of growing up wild.
The kittens are of course adorable, and it’s been a good experience for Peter. We’ve had a bit of trouble with Alex, who doesn’t have the word “gentle” in his vocabulary (actually he doesn’t have any words in his vocabulary). Still, after a few weeks practice we seem to have trained him not to strangle the kittens upon sight, so we count that as progress.
The downside is the kittens need to be fed every 3-4 hours. It turns out that shelters don’t take kittens this young for this reason, instead placing them in foster homes who care for them as we are. So, for now the plan is to keep them until they’re weaned, at which point there should be no problems adopting them out. In the meantime, we’re frequently traveling with the kittens and have taken them on our anniversary outing and to two weddings (they stayed in the car). We’ve found that they make a great conversation piece—when you bring three kittens to the park everyone wants to stop and talk to you.
