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The kittens get super excited when one of us gets in with them. They go crazy: zooming around, running into each other and wrestling, pouncing on things or nothing at all, and climbing everything in sight. Usually it’s me, but today George climbed in and was swarmed!

They think a warm, friendly jungle gym is the best thing ever. As you step into their area, one (usually Coda) or two of them are already half-way up your leg before you even step your second foot over the gate. As you very carefully sit down, one is already on your shoulder, one in your lap, and two are ducking through the openings and tunnels made by your legs.

It’s kitten crazies! If a sibling zooms by, attack! It’s a melée! Jump in! Run away! Bite someone’s foot! Pounce! They sometimes get so excited that they puff up their tails and arch their backs, as if zombies were after them.

I brought Smoke out into the bigger area to wipe her eyes. Two of the kittens have been fighting an eye infection. It’s getting better, but their eyes get a little goopy and it tends to glue them shut! I wipe them off so they can see. This is something kittens often get, and it’s usually not a big deal – they fight it off and then develop an immunity.

Once Smoke was cleaned up, I set her down to see what she would do. This is Tex’s area, but she wasn’t a bit overwhelmed or afraid of him. He’s rather nervous with the kittens – they’re so clumsy and zoomy and unpredictable (kind of like you, Tex!). But he let Smoke come up to him, and even licked her a bit. When he walked off, she followed right after him.

These kittens really like people, but I’m not sure they realize we’re living creatures. Sometimes I think to them we’re just ambulatory playgrounds.

The kittens are still getting everything they need from their mother’s milk. They’re not interested in canned food yet at all – but they are intrigued by water.

I’ve thought that these kittens are remarkably similar in size, except for Coda, who has seemed bigger and stronger since the day he was born – although born last and a day late!

Today we weighed everyone, and it’s verified. Each of the girls weighs in at almost exactly one pound. Coda weighs 17.5 ounces. Little butterballs, all of them. They’re not, of course, actually fat, just appropriately roly poly for healthy kittens just over four weeks old.

Tex weighs about 9 pounds, although I’m not sure how accurate our read was, since he wasn’t interested in standing still.

Mama Sylvie weighed in at only 6.5 pounds. She’s such a tiny girl! A baby kitty with babies of her own. She had lost some weight from not eating much for a couple of days. When you’re nursing, you can drop weight really fast! The kittens never stopped growing, but Sylvie took a hit. Now she’s packing in the food and putting the lost weight back on, thank goodness. I’m feeding her three times a day and supplementing with goat milk.

All the kittens together weigh 4 1/8 pounds, and Sylvie weighs 6.5. When they’re nursing, they are a huge mass compared to her – 2/3 of her weight!

These healthy kittens are growing entirely on mama’s milk. I have started feeding her in their area, so they can try some solid food, but so far, at 4 and a half weeks, they have no interest.

This weekend was pretty exciting for kitties, because we vacuumed their area for the first time.

I’ve been doing low-key sweeping up and spot cleaning in the cats’ room, because I didn’t know how – coming from a farm – the kitties would react to the vacuum cleaner. All the foster kitties we’ve had have found it quite scary. They need to get used to it, but when you’re working to develop trust it can be a setback. Tex and Sylvie don’t have trust issues at all, but I still didn’t want to freak them out.

I knew the kittens would find the noise frightening – they go into panic mode at loud noised, so we moved them out in a carrier to a different room, where they would be able to hear the vacuum but not be right up close. Sylvie came to make sure they were ok.

Then we brought the big monster into the office. It’s an upright, and for a cat it’s pretty big and loud. Tex and Sylvie were quite curious, and stood their ground to investigate. I took it a little away from them and flicked it on and off. No reaction at all! So I turned it on and started vacuuming. Sylvie went up and lounged on the cat tree having a bath! Nothing seems to faze these guys! Tex was quite excited and ran around, obviously excited at this new entertainment.

The kittens have been so entertaining as they learn to walk, then run, then climb. They’re not good at each thing as they first try it, but they persist, and keep getting better and better.

Yesterday evening we upped the ante, by giving them a small cat tower to climb. They circled around it briefly, and then started to try it out. One climbed right to the top! Well, up is easy. Soon all of them had made the climb – but it’s the down part that is the real challenge!

They peer over the edge, leaning over to see what happens. One decides that head-first might work, so she goes over, clinging to the top edge with her back toes as long as she can before letting go and landing on her head.

By this morning they’ve worked out different descent options. One or two have learned to go down head-first but use the wall and the cupboard to support them, like “chimneying” upside-down. A couple figure out how to go down sideways, controlling the descent quite nicely. I’m sure Mia has figured out a way, but this morning she sits at the top and mews until I lift her down.

Kittens are making progress in all directions – including up! They’ve gotten the idea that humans are exciting and fun to climb. Coda is almost always the first one to rush over when I step into their space, and would climb to my lap as soon as I have sat down. Now they’re not waiting for me to sit down!

The kitties have a big room, with the kittens in the “Jiro Palace” in one corner. But both adults really love being with people. Even though we visit them to play, snuggle, and feed them – at least two or three times a day – they get lonely. Honestly, I’ve seldom known cats that love being with people this much!

They can’t come out into most of the house, because there would be conflict with our cats. But we can let them down the hall as far as George’s study, so they can keep each other company, and they can “help” him work. That’s what we did today.

Tex was beside himself! He was so excited to have a hall to race down, and two new rooms to explore! He ran up and down, talked to the house cats under the door, and helped rearrange some things in George’s study. He was a big help with the typing, or at least deleting. I’m not sure how much work George got done today!

I am so excited that people have found this blog helpful in getting to know these cats and kittens – and several people have applied to adopt kittens when they are old enough! I’m looking forward to working with these adopters to choose their kitties as they grow up.

I was hoping to include the adopters in choosing names for their kittens – but it will be some time before choices are made – and the kittens need names! So I’ve decided to give them my own names. These are “working names” can be kept or changed later.

I’ve written little bios of each kitten, by name, here. This will be updated as they grow, and I’ll be adding photos too. Meet the kittens!