And Thimble Falls Asleep Too

Yesterday, on 12/13/14 (I love those kinds of dates and this is the last one, boo hoo), anyway, I traveled to Br'er Coon to visit my kittens, Colby and Thimble again.

The drive down was quite lovely, if a bit cold. I wear knit shoes with solid soles for driving, and my feet were freezing. The sun started pouring in the window onto my cheek, but where my feet were was still so cold. So I took off one shoe and hung it on the end of the visor which I'd pushed to cover the window. This worked amazingly well, warming up my shoe and then my foot when I put the shoe back on.

When I got there the kittens, all five of them, were out in the main room (which is huge) having fun. Ginger hands me a short wand toy with a jingle bell and feathers on the end of it. I have never played with kittens with something like this; only straight-up toys and wand toys with a long string between the end of the wand and the toy. It works amazingly well. The kittens stay at the toy end of the wand but you don't have to move around as much physically to make the toy move quickly.

I managed to take video of this. I was playing with Thimble, mostly. In the reverse of the last visit, this time Thimble was the monster play kitty while Colby ended up watching most of the time. Hiro, helped Thimble with the playing. So Thimble is the one with lots of white and a faded-looking nose patch of color, while Colby is the one with lots of white and an intense black spot on his nose. The kitten like Thimble but without a lot of white is Hiro.

Colby watches from underneath the coffee table.

I tried to include Colby but with three kittens in the way (Wolf joined in) it was difficult for him, and he just backed out most of the time with a few swats at the toy. In the video is actually the only time I got him fully engaged with the toy. And while he's playing with it, the ears of the kitten who is on my lap watching belong to Thimble.

Laurel, one of the older cats, has arthritis, but she'd had a double dose of her medicine and was feeling quite spry. I didn't get a photo of her playing with the toy because, in deference to her known arthritis, I only let her play with it for a very brief time, just a few swats (like poor Colby had) without moving forward at all. She seemed content with this and left for a resting spot afterwards, but she also seemed to have had fun. See, I can be a kitten too! Okay, enough now, I go rest. (For some reason I hear Laurel's inner voice with a German accent.)

I'm the purple pants.
Thimble's the kitten.
The yellow toy is a rabbit with an orange brush tail.
The wand toy is in my hand (at right)
going to the toy on the end in Thimble's paws.

 Ginger and I talked about a lot of stuff related to the kittens, and this is why I prefer email for that sort of thing because I forget a lot of it! But I do remember the most important part.

Thimble slowed down after a long time playing.

I bring them home the Monday after Christmas. I'm getting kittens for Christmas! Woot woot!

Before we started talking I played with the kittens for probably a half an hour or more. They had my arm worn out! I told Ginger I was very glad I was getting two so they could wear each other out.

Cinder. Pretending she has no designs on my hair.

Then we went in to visit Cinder. She has gone into heat like three times already, and Ginger is moving her back to the girls' room the Monday before I bring Colby and Thimble home. She told me this, and it still didn't occur to me that this would be the last time I see Cinder. 

Phooey. I wanted to thank her for making such lovely kittens and taking care of them so well.

She's her same silly self when it comes to hair, though. I had washed mine before the drive, and so instead of the way I normally have it, or in a ponytail, it was held back by a towel-fabric band. This keeps it out of my face while it's drying. Cinder decided the band shouldn't really be in my hair and proceeded to try to fish it off my head while I had my back to her. 

That picture above was taken over my head with the front-facing camera on the phone so I could see her. She looks very coy, I think.

What? What?!

Ginger told me that lying in the sink with her tail out like that and her front paws out the other corner is Cinder's favorite way to watch over the kittens. She said she didn't know why. I think I do. The counter is higher than the kittens want to jump right now, so it keeps her from being pummeled by five rowdy kittens and she still gets to watch them!

It's odd how a camera can see things we don't. Cinder, in the pictures, has this glorious blue glossy sheen to her coat. I didn't see that sheen without the camera. But either way she's pretty.

And speaking of the kittens jumping: when I was out playing with them, every so often there would be this loud thump and the kittens would scatter, momentarily startled. I never had all five kittens at once, mind you. I finally learned what was causing the thump when I saw Wolf fall off the bottom ledge of a cat tree onto the wood floor. 

That incredibly loud noise was being caused by kittens falling onto the floor. Just one. Every so often. And not the same kitten, either. They all did it. Ginger told me Maine Coons are very clumsy. I already knew that from poor Pippin (my sister-in-law's favorite line for her cats really applies to Pippin "and you call yourself a cat"). But the kittens having, er, issues with gravity brought that fact home. I'm glad most of my cat stuff is stair-like, and that most of my house has carpet!

Colby in my arms

As we talked about take-home protocols and stuff (like the fact that I have to get their last vaccines done on Friday after I bring them home if I want to bring them home early, which Monday is three days early), I would pause the conversation and go after a kitten and hold him. Generally my two but I had to resort to Hiro at least once.

They are wearing H-harnesses all the time and don't seem to notice. I think I will keep those harnesses on for a while (like months) when I bring them home. It makes them so much easier to grab! (Ginger says that will be fine. She didn't add make sure they keep fitted as the kittens will be growing out of them. She didn't have to. I knew that part.)

She is even teaching Thimble to walk on a leash in a next-to-you heel position. I got video of this because it's just incredible.

I don't know if I'm going to manage to get him to do this. Colby, by the way, still thinks the leash is something dreadful that's been attached to him from above. It makes sense, actually; cats can get attacked by large predator birds like hawks and eagles.

And that's Spice, beside him in the video. No, they aren't harnessed together, just the power of the toy!

After I left: Wally (big) and Thimble (small)
fell asleep; Wolf (awake) didn't. Obviously.

 So, they were bigger than last time. No, I mean really. And they had much more control over their own bodies, falling off cat trees not withstanding. They could run and leap and twist about like anything. They climbed all over the Car-go I had left there, playing King of the Mountain on it as well as having fun inside. Spice, the girl kitty who I barely noticed last time I was there, was much more in the front of things this time, although still more reserved than the rowdy boys.

And although I haven't seen a weight spread recently, I could tell Hiro was heavier than any of them simply by picking him up. Thimble and Colby, weighed by this method, seemed almost even. Thimble might have been a bit heavier but I may think that just because he had been heavier (by scale weight) for so long. And coming up on Hiro from behind when he was sitting down ... oh my. He is broad across the shoulders and neck. He's going to be one hefty kitty. I'm really glad he's not one of my two. Although I don't think I've been spared much. Five pounds? Maybe?

Colby: winner of
Best Christmas Ornament Ever
(Thanks to a hanging lamp
positioned just right)

About two hours into the visit, I saw Thimble over near a cat tree. I got down on the floor and did Giant Head at him. This is where you line up your body so that your head hides it from his viewpoint. You have to be down on the floor for this to work. I had just my hands under my chin. I called, Thimble, Thimble baby, come here.

And he did! He jumped up and ran right over to me. Tickled me pink, it did.

But even better; a hour later when I was finally getting somewhat out the door with all my stuff, including the Car-Go, I made the mistake of sitting down to finish one last commentary/conversation with Ginger. And Thimble wandered by, and I picked him up and settled him in my lap.

Apricot's sleeping behavior last Saturday not withstanding, I still feel deprived in the lap-cat-asleep-cuddle department, so snagging Thimble on his way past and cuddling him was almost instinctive. I didn't even think about it.

And Thimble, having been nicely worn out at this point, rests his chin on my hand and his paws over my arm and falls asleep. I don't have pictures. Kind of wish I did, but that would have meant getting the phone out of my pocket and disturbing the kitten.

I did have to leave though. At 3:30 they were closing Main Street for a parade, and I needed Main Street to go home on. So I put Thimble down where I had been sitting, up against the back of the chair as it sloped and he was in that boneless kitten sleep.

Thimble, still asleep.

Ginger took this while I was driving home. He apparently stayed asleep for a while!

And of course I didn't get out quite in time, and had to find my way out of town in a different direction. Oddly enough, I found my way out in precisely the same way I'd come in when I visited last time and had gotten lost! So that time of getting lost was actually helpful this time.

When I got home, Apricot was intensely interested in my clothes. He still wanted me to pet him (Ginger says this is a very good sign) but he kept having to have me pause so he could sniff a spot better. Given his focusing on the clothes, I decided not to overwhelm him with the Car-Go.

I opened that up out of its carry case today, when he showed interest in the case. He sniffed all over it and even went inside to sniff. Keep in mind all the time it was up in the house before I took it to Ginger's house, he'd only once gone inside it that I saw. So he goes inside it the minute I unpack it? I think that's a good sign too.

He's not been distressed this time, just really interested. And he did get himself overwhelmed by "new smells" a few times and had to go sit down across the room, but each time he came back. And now the Car-Go is nothing interesting, nor are my clothes (I'm still wearing the same outer clothes I was yesterday).

Apricot inside the Car-Go

I really really really hope everything goes mostly smoothly in the introductions. By bringing them home that Monday (two weeks away!) I have a whole week before I have to go back to work. Here's keeping my fingers crossed!