Thursday, October 18, 2007

Escape and Entrapment

I can't keep them in the nursery any more... and by "nursery" I mean kitchen. That's where they spent the first few weeks of their stay, and that's where I left them when I left for my brother's wedding on Friday. However, when I opened my front door onto my living room on Sunday I found five kittens waiting anxiously for me on the wrong side of the baby gate. Baby's yes. Kitten's no.

I didn't start out with a baby gate. I tried various improvised gates, cardboard boxes and the like, but nothing withstood the Will of the Kitties. I broke down and bought a baby gate - just to find out that they could climb right up the holes. I stood the gate box up in front of the gate and secured it there with a trash can and an unopened bottle of juice. They couldn't climb up the smooth cardboard. That lasted a few days. Then, Grey Mae managed to launch herself onto the cardboard box and pull it crashing down. Fine. I flattened the box and tied it to the front of the baby gate. Take that, Mae! You already know how it turned out. When I got back from the wedding, the baby gate was still standing, but the box had been pulled out of the ropes. I made one last attempt at containing the furry flood. I re-secured the box so that it couldn't slide downwards out of the ropes. But the kittens, in a great show of strength and determination, forced the box away from the gate on one side and climbed up the holes. Kittens: 1, Jackie: 0.

Fortunately, the kittens are done with their digestive problems, (they just finished their second de-worming medication,) and they're pretty much over their colds, so I don't have to worry about them getting poo or snot all over my living room. However, every time I sit down, it's like someone yells, "Kitty pile on Jackie!" It's kind of hard to do anything when you have two to five kittens on your lap purring, squirming, licking, biting, and crawling up your chest to suck on your face, or whatever it is they're trying to do. And don't even think of trying to get up while they're sleeping on you... but that's why I started this blog. I couldn't keep the kitty piles all to myself. Now Fabio is dozing off next to Mae and Bengal is licking my arm. Kitty luvin' is where it's at.

3 comments:

phil said...

Kittens are awesome. Maybe some duct tape to hold the cardboard on that baby gate? Though it sounds like you're pretty much done with it.

John said...

where are the pictures?!

Jac said...

Phil, I tightened the ropes on the gate and it held long enough for me to clean two floors and take a shower, maybe that's all I had to do.

John, there's one up now, more to follow.