The Kitten Relocation Program Resumes

Tuesday night when I went to bed Lorenzo, Elijah and Ashleigh all accompanied me. Ashleigh loves to look out of my bedroom windows and since my door had been closed all day and all evening I figured I'd let her take a look around and then I'd get up and make her get out so I could close the bedroom door. I don't usually sleep with the door closed but Ashleigh seems to think that my bedroom is the perfect nursery for her children so I have to keep the door closed in order to keep all of them out.

I was in bed sleeping up a storm when I was awaken by the sounds of tiny little mews coming from a tiny little kitten. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 3:00 AM. I got out of bed and saw Ashleigh sitting on the bedroom floor like she was just hanging out. She was all but saying, "Nothing to see here...move along...I'm not doing anything but sitting here , innocently...". She purposefully looked in another direction and wouldn't look at me even when I spoke to her.

As much as I didn't want to ...I turned on the bedroom light and got down on the floor and attempted to look for the kitten who was sure to be under my bed. I pulled out my few Christmas decorations that I keep under there and yet I still couldn't see any kitten(s). My eye sight is not stellar in the first place and I had just woken up mere moments before so I just blamed the lack of kittens on that idea that I simply couldn't see them. I went in to the living room and turned on another light so that I could see if any kittens were left in the box in the closet where they were supposed to be.

There was only 1 kitten remaining in the box so I picked it up and brought it in to the bedroom with me and gave it to Ashleigh. I figured that she would put it under the bed with the others and then Andrew and I could fish them out in the morning. I just didn't want the one remaining kitten to sit there in the box, all alone, and freeze.

When my alarm went off at 5:30 I hit the snooze alarm a few times so that when I finally got up it was light outside. I turned all of the bedroom lights on and got down on the floor and looked under my bed and I still didn't see any kittens or Ashleigh. I called for Ashleigh and instead of Ashleigh showing up all of a sudden Elijah and Lorenzo had jumped on to my back. Elijah made himself cozy while Lorenzo proceeded to lick and chew on my hair. Apparently I was not holding my head still enough for this early morning cat shampoo because he felt the need to steady my head with his claws. As I fussed with these two knuckle heads all of a sudden I was face to face with Ashleigh. But...oddly enough ALL I could see of Ashleigh was her face. It took me a second to realize that she wasn't actually under the bed....she was peering at me from up inside of my box springs.

I swear that cat is a regular Harriet Tubman, (a guide and founder of the Underground Railroad that helped slaves escape from their captors.) There was a hole in the netting on the underside of the box springs that the previous litter of kittens had ripped open. They were old enough to jump and play when I caught them in there and I was able to pull them out by their tails. Ashleigh had managed to make the hole bigger and climb in to it and ferret the babies in to the furthest corner of the bed.

I managed to get Lorenzo and Elijah off of me and I went and woke up Andrew and told him about the kitty dilemma. He uttered a string of nasty names at Ashleigh and I told him that I'd help him get them out when I got home from work.

Andrew was able to take care of the situation all by himself but he had to cut a hole in to the top of the box springs. There was no way he could fit under the bed and he was afraid that if he tipped the box springs up in order to get under it the babies would tumble and who knows what they would hit or where they would land.

So all's well that ends well......NOT.

This morning when I woke up I could once again hear the tiny cries of an infant kitten. I was perplexed because I personally picked Ashleigh up and escorted her out of my room and shut the door before I went to bed last night. (Mere moments after closing her out of the bedroom last night she managed to sneak a kitten right past Andrew and bring it down the hall and deposit it in front of my door. I hollered for Andrew and he came and got both of them and put them back in to the living room closet.) So when I woke up to the sounds of crying kittens I figured that Ashleigh had brought the whole gang to my door and was waiting for me to open the door so she could swoop in there and deposit them back under the box springs. I opened my bedroom door very carefully and there sat Ashleigh, Lorenzo and Elijah....and one kitten was peeking out from underneath the hall closet door. The hall closet door that was closed. I couldn't help but imagine Lorenzo and Elijah were sitting there in awe, applauding Ashleigh for being able to somehow get that kitten under the door. The clearing between the bottom of the door and the carpet is less than 1/2 of an inch.

On my way home tonight I will stop by Albertsons and see if I can find a bigger box that will fit over the box she's in now. Apparently she doesn't have enough privacy and darkness to make her happy. Short of building her her own bedroom...I don't know what else I can do. Suggestions?