My babies are 4 weeks old now and growing like weeds. Pretty soon they won’t want to snuggle with their old mom anymore so I take advantage any chance I get to cuddle with them! They have started to use the litter pan. They don’t quite have the hang of it yet so there is lots of crying and complaining during the “process”. Most of their teeth have come in and they have tried eating canned food but, once again, everyone is still trying to get the hang of things. They are much more active and have begun to wrestle with each other. It’s awfully cute since they don’t have fine motor skills yet!

Our foster parents have decided to name us after characters in “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Jack Sparrow is the black and white boy. He’s the adventurous one and looking to get into mischief. Jack was the first born and is still first in almost everything. He was the first out of the den, the first to try food and water, the first to run and climb. Interestingly, he was the last to figure out potty training!

Hector is the white and black boy. Hector is 2nd born but the baby of the bunch. He’s a big momma’s boy!  He is the only one with long hair. He has a big, round head with the cutest baby face!  He looks a bit like a panda bear.  Hector is the last to try everything and is a bit whiny. Hopefully he will grow out of that. To Hector’s credit he was the first to poop in the potty. He cried the whole time but he did it!

Elizabeth is the brown tiger with white. She looks a little like a calico and is the prettiest of the bunch. She comes running whenever she hears Mom or Dad’s voice and loves to cuddle. She was the first to figure out how to get over the baby gate and out of our room. I get very nervous when I have children on both sides of the gate!

Tia is the gray with white girl. She is just adorable and quite smart. She figures things out very quickly. She was the easiest to potty train and the first to “discover” food.

Everyone had a checkup recently. The babies got their first vaccinations and we all got dewormer (just a precaution) and a manicure. The shelter staff thought we looked great and we all received “2 thumbs up”.    Hooray!

We Have Plaster... (Kitchen Renovation Part 4)

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2003)  

 My grandmother recently asked Gabe if the kitchen would be done by Christmas!! He was highly insulted. Things are rolling along now and I finally got to do something besides clean up after everyone else! Gabe got all the electrical roughed in so it was my job to hang insulation. You should have seen me with my tape measure, exacto knife and staple gun. I looked like a construction chick on one of those home improvement shows! How do you get one of those jobs anyway? Not that they would hire me. Even though I look great in the gear I am like a Lucille Ball comedy routine when I actually try to do the work. First of all I was hanging insulation during the hottest days of June. And you have to wear long sleeves and long pants because, baby, that insulation gets itchy! So here I am measuring the wall, rolling out insulation, cutting it with the knife… Ooops! The knife blade is dull and rips the insulation to shreds. I take the knife apart, replace the blade and cannot get the knife back together. What an idiot! It’s not like it’s hard. It only has 4 pieces and I just took it apart so I should know how to reassemble it. After sitting on the floor and muttering to myself for a few minutes. Gabe comes over to rescue me (as he always does). He puts the knife back together in 5 seconds (somehow this does not make me feel any better). Ok, back to the insulation. Cut the butchered piece of insulation a little straighter and smoother now. Drag the ladder over to where I want to hang the insulation. Climb up the ladder and realize I forgot the staple gun on the floor. Climb down the ladder, get the staple gun and go back up the ladder. Now I realize that the ladder is not positioned properly so I try to lean over to the wall. As I teeter on the ladder I realize this is a bad decision so down I go again to move the ladder. Back up the ladder. Where is the staple gun? Back on the floor where I put it when I moved the ladder. Back down the ladder, get the staple gun, back up the ladder. It has taken me about 1/2 hour but I have hung my first piece of insulation! The work progresses on like this with small improvements in efficiency as I get the hang of things. I fight the urge to hang the insulation with all the lettering going in the same direction (that’s my anal retentive side) so I can get the project done this century.

 

Once the insulation was finished Gabe and a friend hung all the blue board on a single Saturday. I spent that Sunday cutting up all the leftover sheets of blue board into small pieces so the trash men would not hate us more than they already do. Yep, more cleaning. We also got all the spare wood cut up and moved to the wood pile. No, I did not do any of that cutting. It involves sharp blades moving at a high rate of speed so I am not allowed anywhere near. Gabe cut, I stacked. The weekend after the blue board was hung our friends Billy and Bruce came to plaster. It took them about 12 hours but they finished the whole room and it looks beautiful! It looks like a real room now! Gabe primed the whole room the weekend I did the cancer walk. I felt guilty about not being around to paint but I was walking for a good cause.The cabinets have arrived and are in the garage at the moment. We did carry a few base units into the kitchen so Gabe could start thinking about how to install them.

The walls are straight but the floor…that’s another story. The floor has a 1 1/2 inch difference from one end to the other. It has such a bow in the middle that we are thinking of leaving it the way it is and installing a Koi pond! I guess that won’t work. The kitties would try to catch the fish and I would end up with dead Koi all over the place, which means…more cleaning!! There are some products on the market that you can put down to level the floor but we have to make sure it does not raise the height too much or we will end up with a 2” step up into the kitchen. That’s not going to work with me stumbling around. I’ll trip on it every day. Since I am a black belt I should be able to roll across the floor and recover my footing like a ninja but that will be hard on the floor and hard on my body.

So, where are we? The ceiling and walls are done. The ceiling fan and all the lights are working. Electrical work is just about finished and cabinets are ready to be installed. Plumbing and gas lines still need to be done. Then it’s counters, appliances, and floors. We’re almost done, right???

And yes, we are still eating takeout.

Three Weeks Old

The babies are growing so quickly! They are three weeks old already. They are much more alert and active. Their beautiful blueberry eyes are open. They may not see very well yet but their hearing has improved. They all get very excited and wobble out of the bed whenever they hear Foster Mom or Dad’s voice.

 Actually, they have started walking more and wobbling less. Sometimes the weight of their fat little bellies shifts and they topple over; Or one bumps into another and sets off a chain reaction, kinda like dominos. Mom says it reminds her of her cousin Paul when he started playing Pee Wee hockey. If one kid fell they all fell! In addition to practicing forward motion the babies are also working on reverse. Not so easy when you are still trying to gain control of your gross motor skills! Occasionally one of them will get so excited they will sprint across the towel. They only make it about 6 inches before coordination fails. They come to a dead stop with a slightly surprised look on their faces, wondering what just happened!

I am a little nervous about the children leaving the nest. I don’t often leave the room and if I do I don’t stay away for long. I tried to move the children into the sweatshirt drawer a few more times (Peaches opens it for me) but my foster parents kept moving them back. The last time I got caught it was midnight. Everyone was fast asleep. I thought for sure the dog would give me away but Uma was snoring too. The traitor turned out to be one of my own kids! I don’t know which one it was and they’re not talking. Dad woke up and that was the end of that. Everyone got hauled back to the kitten room and closed in for the night. Now I’m not allowed out without supervision. Another week or so and the babies will be very mobile and very curious. Me hiding them is going to be the least of everyone’s worries!

 

Two Weeks Old…

 

It’s been 2 weeks since I gave birth and everyone is doing quite well, including me. The children are growing fast and changing every day. At lest it seems that way! They have all gain about 4 oz. and now each weighs almost a pound. Their eyes are open and their ears have unfolded. They still nurse and sleep quite a bit but they are awake for longer periods of time now. They can roll over, although with their big heads and big bellies it takes a little rocking action before they gain enough momentum to flip!

 

They have also started to crawl. A few have actually crawled out of bed! The calico somehow ended up over the side and couldn’t get back in. The black one has gotten out twice. I think he’s going to be a handful. In a week or two they will be “toddlers” and things should get really interesting! Once that happens my foster mom will have to keep the door to our room closed so no one gets lost.

 

My foster parents have been leaving the door propped open so I can come and go but I almost lost that privilege too. One day Peaches showed me this great set of drawers under Mom and Dad’s bed. The drawers are filled with comfy, soft clothing and Peaches knows how to open and close them. I liked the sweatshirt drawer so much I decided to move the babies into it. Unfortunately I did this when Mom took Uma for a walk. Mom was quite surprised when she returned and found the babies bed empty! She quickly found the four of them snuggled  comfortably in the sweatshirts. Needless to say, now both Mom and Dad do frequent headcounts and keep a close eye on me!