Day 6: Kitten Ambush

Day 6. I like routines, even just a micro-routine. I’m starting to want a little bit of one so I can manage our seven animals and all their food, toys, cages, kennels, litter accumulating in my tiny house. So I cleaned out one of my old clothes wardrobes and turned it into a cat closet.

Routines are laughable with kittens, but at least when they were in my office I could contain the madness. They had a semi-routine, napping long into the afternoon on my office chair, playing in the evening, then going back into their cage. We moved their cage out into the living room when Jude moved in. They spend most of their freedom running like banshees all over the house. This morning they woke up with a serious case of the “crazies” and immediately upon getting out of the cage launched into the notorious kitten game of ambush–one hides or gets in what seems to be the “castle” of the moment–a box, a drawer, under the couch, on top of the bookshelf, the others vigorously go after him. Kittens are hysterical–they enact mock battles with defender and attacker.

Meanwhile, in my office, Jude was sleeping up in his hidden corner of the cage. He’d been crying half of the night again. I really needed him to finish his food so he could take the worming medicine I put in it. He was looking like it might take him hours to move so I let the crazies in the room to at least stir his attention. Before I knew it, Leo was on the top of the cage, trying to bat playfully at Jude and Sasha was circling around the cage. Kitten ambush. I’m not sure if he liked this or not but he made a bunch of chirruping sounds and came down to eat!