13 weeks:

Martina has suddenly gone into heat. Did not pass Go, did not collect $200, just put the kids on notice that the bar was closed and went into heat. She seems to have forgotten that this is how she got into this mess in the first place.

Then she bolted out the front door between the legs of a delivery man and wouldn’t come back. I looked for her for two days and finally found her passed out on my neighbour’s front door mat, with a big orange tom sitting beside her. She was exhausted.

Her suitor is currently sitting out on the sidewalk in front of the house with a corsage and a hopeful expression on his face. She's started yowling again. Now when the kittens try to nurse she growls at them, which definitely wasn't the case before she snuck out. Slow learner, I guess. Definitely time to call the vet.

8 - 12 week

The little brats and their brothers have formed S.O.F.T., or the Society Of Furry Terrorists. They have pulled down the living room curtains and are working on the window screens. They scoop all the water out of the water bowls and spill it on the floor, and then get into the bowls and groom themselves. Then they complain because they have to drink out of the toilet. They eat the wet food right out of the dogs' mouths because they know the dogs aren't allowed to fight back. They pull the toilet paper off the roll all the way down the stairs, and then shred it into tiny little bits and work it into the carpet. They eat like horses. They gallop all over the house and up and down the furniture all night. 

Apparently cat food tastes much better if you knock the bag onto the floor, rip it open, spread the contents all over the kitchen floor and eat only the bits you really want, than if you go to your dish and eat the same food from there. Besides, then you can play hockey with the bits you don't eat, and knock them under the furniture. The ants really appreciate this extra effort. 

Tampons make even better hockey pucks. They slide beautifully and create entertaining moments when visitors come in the front door. Even better are the pleased cries of surprise of the female humans when they discover that the entire box is missing from the bathroom. 

They can climb shelves like a ladder; there is no place high enough to keep things away from them. Every night they pull all the baskets out of the shelves in the front entryway, knock the contents on the floor and play with them. Every morning I pick them up, and every night they do it again. I had to put rubber bands over the door knobs of the cabinets with the liver treats in them. Now they can’t open the doors anymore, but they can pull them out just a little bit and let them go. Over and over again. All night. 

I don't remember ever fostering a more mischievous litter of kittens. I had to replace the screen on the second floor deck door because they shredded it and were going out there anytime they wanted to and climbing onto the neighbours' decks. Yuri actually fell off and was wandering around crying until I found out he was missing and went looking for him. He's fine, although he's stopped trying to get out onto the deck. I have to close my bedroom door at night because they climb onto my bed and Snowflake's and wrestle while we're trying to sleep. Then they climb into the dresser drawers and fight in there. They sound like an entire herd of hippopotami. 

5 - 6 weeks:

Martina's kittens have learned the fine art of blackmail. Snowflake, our golden/border collie cross, knows she isn't allowed to growl or bark at kittens, no matter how annoying they might become. She grumbles a bit and mutters under her breath, but she's really pretty tolerant of them.

Martina's crew have figured this out; they wait until her food gets put down and then swarm the dish. They all try to finish the wet dollops before she can get any of it. If she whimpers or tries to push her nose in between them, they hiss at her, and Martina comes running from wherever she is in the house and beats Snowflake up for them. They finish up the food while she's doing it.

Now I have to guard poor Snowflake while she eats. They used to keep away when I started, but now they try to sneak past me to grab some food before I can stop them. I have to swat them away with the broom. It's not as if they don't have their own wet food to eat.

Elena and Anna have started the same routine with Snowflake's bed. If they want it and she won't move, they cry piteously as if they've been stabbed in the heart. Martina comes running and Snowflake gets up and gives them the bed before she can get there. I swear Elena looked at her the other day and said, "Don't make me call my mom...."

The boys are perfectly willing to share the bed with Snowflake, but the girls want it all to themselves. Little brats.

First 4 weeks:

As with most litters, each kitten has showed signs of a distinct personality from the beginning. Anna was the first to open her eyes and her mouth. Any time any human or animal entered the room, she had something to say about it. Elena was shy and timid, as was Igor. Yuri was brash and confident, and Andrei was sweet and compliant. Being picked up and passed around didn’t bother him, and neither did being left alone. Anna, Yuri and Andrei were the first to climb out of the nest and explore the environment.

Pre-natal:

Martina was obviously very young and hugely pregnant when she arrived. She was sweet and cuddly, and properly respectful of the dogs and other cats in the house. I made her a nice nest in our usual nursery, the closet of the spare bedroom, and waited for nature to take its course.

A couple of weeks later I woke up one Sunday morning to what sounded like an entire flock of seagulls circling over the house, skreeing angrily. I jumped out of bed and ran to the spare room. There were two cold, wet and hungry kittens, each alone in its own corner of the nest and squalling its displeasure at the top of its lungs. Apparently they had been told there was going to be milk out here, and they weren’t getting any. Martina was in a third corner struggling to squeeze out a third kitten. She had obviously dropped each one and then moved as far away as she could get. She looked bewildered and desperate. “Make them stop!” she begged with her eyes.

I got her lying down and moved the kittens so they could nurse. The noise stopped instantly and Martina looked grateful. “Ohhh... so that’s what you’re supposed to do with them!” She let them nurse and started cleaning them and the third kitten slid out easily. By the time the last two had been born and she had them tucked in against her belly, warm and quiet, she was looking downright smug.

I run a foster home for unwed cats on behalf of AbbeyCats Adoptions.

I run a foster home for unwed cats on behalf of AbbeyCats Adoptions. Toronto Ontario Canada. Inevitably, this results in hoards of kittens up for adoption. The latest lot is a batch of five born to Martina. Since AbbeyCats has a policy of giving theme names to mothers and their kittens, each of the kittens is named after a Russian tennis player. They are Yuri, Andrei, Igor, Anna and Elena.