how did I aquire my kitten?

My family has a history of taking in kittens or pregnant mama cats from a local recue in the twin cities area. It had been a few years since we had a foster and specifically a pregnant foster cat. I let the rescue know that I was interested in fostering a pregnant mama cat since I love kittens and loved having the newborn kittens the last time we had fostered years ago. I got a call from the rescue soon after saying they had two pregnant mamas that were both about to pop and needed placement. I chose the calico mama since I have a soft spot for calicos.

My husband and I went to pick her up about 3 days later. This would be my husbands first experience with very young kittens and first time integrating a female cat into a home with other cats. I gave him the rundown on what areas she was going to have access to and made sure she had plenty of places she could hide if she was scared and so she wouldn’t get overwhelmed. She would have a kennel all to herself with a birthing box, litter box, food, and water, with some toys she may enjoy. She would have access to our bedroom and walk in closet until further notice. when we picked her up an hour away we instantly fell in love. We brought her home and opened her carrier so she could explore her surroundings. We thought she would be pretty scared and probably hide under the bed for awhile, boy were we wrong. She instantly came out of her carrier and jumped right onto our bed and laid down and started making biscuits.

We immediately sat down with her completely stunned. She was the most affectionate cat I had ever met. She came into our house like she owned the place, which was ok with us. We became all but her humble servants. We spent the next 2 hours talking to her, snuggling, giving her massages, and watching TV all while she made biscuits and purred. We crated her overnight just so she learned where the litterbox was and again didn’t get overwhelmed.

Three days after she arrived at our house in the very early morning she tried waking me up by sitting on my face. At this point this was a very weird behavior for her. She would come over, bite my nose, lick my face, and sit on my face and meow very loud. I thought she wanted food but I knew my husband had fed her not that long ago so that couldn’t be the cause. She did this three times before I was awake. I laid there with my eyes open and just heard a little peeping sound. I immediately got up and went into my closet and found she had given birth to two beautiful kittens and was in the process of starting to push out a third. I sat down next to her and apologized. She had been trying to wake me up to see her babies. She looked at me with the proudest of eyes, and after pushing out the third baby and cleaning him she came and stood in my lap and purred. She let me pick up her kittens and say hello to them. She was the most trusting mama ever. I picked up the third kitten who was very wet still. He was a little brown tabby. He was so small(they all were). Little did I know this little boy would make it very clear in the days to come that he was never going to leave my side.

By the time I had to leave for work 5 kittens were born and it seemed like she was done giving birth. I set her up in her kennel and put a security camera above it so I could monitor her while I was at work. I went to work and checked on her about an hour into being there and she had had a sixth kitten! People at my work loved checking in on her with me anbd thought it so amazing how trusting of my husband I she was.

When I got home from work I opened her kennel and watched as she moved every kitten in the kennel into a box in my closet. She very much did not like them in the kennel so I gave in and let her keep them into the closet for the next few weeks. At this point the kittens are able to waddle very slowly and are coming out of the box she put them in and are exploring the world around them.

For those that do not know when kittens are born their ears and eyes are closed.

I sat on the floor of my closet with them for the next hour watching them navigate their surroundings. One of the kittens, the third born, a brown tabby waddled over to me and crawled into my lap which was so impressive.

For the next many months every time I went into the close the kittens would scream and start to crawl towards me, that same little tabby always being the first to my feet and always the one asking to be picked up and wouldn’t stop screaming until I picked him up. This became such a problem, specifically in the morning when I was getting ready. I work at a veterinary clinic and have to wear scrubs, I had to start with getting dressed first so that I could pick him up and put him in my pocket so he would stop screaming which would wake up the other kittens and my husband. This became our routine. And every evening when I came home he would scream till I picked him up and I would proceed to hold him for most of the evening.

Now you must know I’m not a tabby person. I like unique looking cats like Sphynx, Lykoi, Persian, and Bermese cats. I typically find tabbies and tuxedo cats to be boring. That being said there was no denying this was my soul cat. So after many weeks of denying our bond I let the rescue know I would be keeping this kitten and naming him Beetlejuice. I am now a tabby mom.

Training begins.

At 8 weeks old I bought kitten harnesses to start putting on the babies so they would become discretized to it. Beetlejuice did the best with it. I would put it on him most afternoons for at least 10 minutes at a time while he played. He was completely unbothered and soon learned to hold still while I put it on him.

At about 11 weeks old wee took him outside for the first time. It was just in our front yard and he was held the entire time. We were out there for about 10 minutes justy to see how he reacted to it. He did amazing! He loved watching the bugs on the plants.

Soon after his quick front yard outing my mom and I took him to the creek walk in out backyard. We kept him in his cat backpack the whole time. He spent trhe first 20 minutes of the walk quietly looing out at the nature and meowing on occasion. after that he spent the rest of the walk sleeping like a rock in his backpack. Now that we know he does well outside and isn’t scared it was time for a bigger adventure.

Just before he turned 14 weeks we took him on his first full outing. We drove about 90 minutes away to Taylors Fall in MN. We parked and walked into the woods till we found a little clearing and decided to take him out of his backpack and let him touch the grass and leaves for the first time with his harness on. He was so excited! he walked around and screamed at us as he romped around the woods. He did this for about 15 minutes. My husband and I took some really sweet pictures of him and us together. He saw his first dog while on his walk and he did not love that and still does not like dogs to this day(that is ok, we are cat people anyway). He got to meet some very curious strangers that thought it was the coolest(and probably weirdest)thing that he tolerated being outside.

We put him back in his backpack so we could finish our walk which he did not like and screamed and screamed to come out of his backpack. My husband had to walk behind us and talk to him in his backpack for him to finally calm down and fall asleep for the rest of the hike.

Now we know he loves to be outside and he has come on every major we have taken since.