Kitten Update

Here are the kittens at eight days - they have fat bellies and don't eat as often. Their eyes are still closed. Our Tigger cat has injured one of her front paws and can't walk on it. Poor kitty! Our other female cat, Sugar, will probably have kittens in eight weeks. There were at least three different Tom cats prowling around our backyard today. Grrrrr.

Our other kiddies are doing well too.

Davey likes the Kittens and exclaims "Di-dee" whenever he sees them He tries to pet them too. He is saying a few other things, like blanket ("de-dat"), more, get down, and he signs "all done". He loves his turquoise fuzzy blanket and has a hard time sleeping without it. He is walking constantly now and looks especially adorable when he's wearing real shoes. (sorry, no shoes in this picture).

Kathryn is doing really well with potty training, even at night! We just having to take her once before we go to bed...speaking of which...better go check on her. She has overcome her fear of having her hair washed, so she smells much better these days. =)

Joseph has enjoyed having his daddy around more often since classes at the college ended. David has been picking up the kids from school in the afternoon and doing some fun things with them. Here they are jamming out together.

These are the flags of all the countries in Europe. Joseph colored each one, cut it out, and taped it to a skewer. There 40 flags and he worked on this project for a long time. He was so proud and happy to finally finish it and bring it home for us to see.

Last week I bought him new thrift store shoes that had laces - he's always had velcro before- and he learned how to tie them in a day. He is getting pretty fast at tying his shoes, but has a little trouble with the double knot still. This is the first time he tied both shoes all on his own:

Sarah has an amazing memory. In the past few weeks she has said some things just casually talking about something that happened in the past - up to 2 years ago (when she was barely 3 years old) - and her detailed memory of an event or circumstance or words that were said is astonishing. She is a remarkably intelligent girl who likes to pretend that she doesn't know what's going on sometimes. Her reading ability is improving too. She surprises me. She's also great at math, she can add and subtract single digits in her head fairly accurately.

Tonight I took her out to get new Sunday shoes. It was just me and her and we had a very pleasant evening together. 

Sarah is a social butterfly. She loves having lots of friends around and she's always ready to make new friends. Today, at the church, she introduced herself to a friendly looking lady by saying "Hi, I'm Sarah Wiseman! This is my dad. He's 30, but he's going to have a birthday in June."

Kittens

On Saturday our cat Tigger gave birth to 4 kittens. Two of them were still born (or died shortly after birth, we're not sure). The kids were sad about the 2 kittens who died, but excited to watch the other 2 grow.

We were gone all day Saturday up in Spokane. In the evening, we noticed that the surviving 2 kitties were a little chilled and not moving much. We also noticed that Tigger wasn't exactly an attentive mama. She didn't stay with them and I never saw her letting them nurse. At 11pm when I was locking up for the night, I noticed that one of the kittens was missing! We started searching for it and found the poor thing out in the front yard, nearly frozen to death. That's when we declared Tigger an unfit mother and brought and the kittens inside. For a while we tried to keep her inside (in our half bathroom) with them, but she still wouldn't feed them. She only wanted to carry them away and kept trying to shove them under the bathroom door.

David went to Wally World at midnight to buy kitten milk. We banished the Tigger to the outdoors and thus began our kitten rearing career. We've been feeding them every 2-4 hours since then.

Here they are at 3 days old. At first they were too small to drink out of the tiny kitten bottle, so we used the dropper. The orange kitten is the one who was left outside. It took him a day to fully recover, but he (I think it's a 'he') seems to be doing okay now. 

They are getting more active and have filled out quite a bit since this picture. They haven't opened their eyes yet, but it should happen within a few days. They still live in our half bath with the door locked to keep the kids out. One night I caught Sarah at 3am taking them outside because "They wanted to see Tigger". Probably so, Sarah, but Tigger won't keep them warm and they'll quickly develop hypothermia out in the garage. Without a mama sitting with them, they need a room that is 85-90 degrees at all times because they can't regulate their body temperature yet.

Now that we've spent a week bottle feeding them, I'm not sure that I want to just give them away. The kids sure are attached to them too. As they get larger and more active, and better able to regulate their body temps (and if the weather would ever warm up!) then I'll let them have supervised visits with Tigger outside so that we can gradually transition them back outside on wean them onto solid foods outside.

We haven't settled on names yet because we're not certain about their genders. But, we might call the orange one "Sunny" or "Sunshine".

What would you do with these kittens? Remember, it's our kids' first time around tiny kittens.

Who's the Messiest Kid?

Kathryn has done this a few times - colored herself with washable markers or watercolor paint.

It comes off fairly easily though.

This little bug likes to roll around, eat, dig, and crawl through dirt and grass clippings.

Here are his feet after playing outside for an hour.

Sarah likes to get into the permanent stuff like the Sharpies, the scissors, and now - the primer.

She led the charge on this lovely sidewalk art tonight. The cuteness of the hand prints helped me to not scream when I saw all the kids - yes, even the baby - covered from head to foot in paint primer, which is practically impossible to wash off. Their clothes are ruined and I'm certain we'll enjoy this artwork for years to come.

Everyone gets one of these almost every night lately. Since we've been working on the garden, 

they get truly dirty everyday.

 So, the winner of the messiest kid award -- it's Sarah. She's a real pro when it comes to making messes, especially the non-reparable kind. But that's what makes life so interesting and unpredictable, right? =)

2nd place goes to baby David, he's in that "I want to feed myself but I'm not coordinated enough to use a spoon yet" phase.

3rd place is Kathryn

And Joseph - he gets a cleanliness award. He can eat spaghetti and hardly have a spec of food on his hands or face. He's seriously better at it than I am. =)

FHE Activities

David has been in charge of the "lesson" recently. This lesson was on "Hold to the Rod...

 ...Iron Rod, 'tis strong, and bright, and true.

The Iron Rod is the Word of God, Twill Safely Guide You Through.

This week we learned about hitting: it's not okay to hit your sister, brother, mom, dad, friends, or the cat.

But...it IS okay to hit a piñata!

(Yes, it's hanging from our broomstick and that building in the background is our shop - not the house, in case you were wondering).

Collecting the spoils

The kids get to eat one piece of candy after dinner on the days that they don't hit anyone this week. We're hoping it will be a good motivation for them, but old habits die hard. Tonight Joseph was the only one to get a candy. (Baby David would have earned one too, but he doesn't know that and I'm not giving him candy).