ASHLEIGH!! HOW DID YOU GET IN THERE?

Last Friday I came home and as I approached my front door I could hear Ashleigh crying. She is usually sitting in the kitchen window so she can watch me get out of my car and then she runs to the front door and sticks her nose in door edge so that she can weasel her way out while I’m trying to get in. Ashleigh didn’t sound like she was behind the door and she sounded distressed as opposed to gleeful that she was about to dart out the front door. I called her name and she started meowing non-stop. I thought that she was on the roof of my house or one of the neighboring houses. She gets up there sometimes and then acts like she is suddenly feeble and needs assistance getting down. But she was not on the roof. I thought that maybe she was on the shed and was really feigning feebleness but she wasn’t up there, either. As I started to walk away from the shed I heard her cry loud and clear. I was looking all over the place and just as I was almost convinced that she was being held captive in one of the neighboring houses I saw her. Look at this picture and see if you can figure out where she was.

Ashleigh was stuck in between the closed living room window and the screen. The screen was not ripped and the window was not opened. I have absolutely no idea how she got in there. I’ve been dwelling on this since it happened and I can’t even think of one possibility as to how that happened.


I ran inside the house and I very carefully opened the window. One of her legs was sliding along with the window and I could see that it was going to get pinched in between the two windows when they intersected so I had to actually take the whole window off.

Ashleigh screamed and hissed at me, like this was all my fault, and then bounded away down the hall. I have no idea how long she was stuck in that window but it didn’t seem to cause her any damage.

Is this the craziest thing ever, or what?

I should have known something was up Part 2

A couple of days after I got the ceiling tile replaced I came home from work and immediately noticed that the new tile was on the floor and Ashleigh was no where to be seen. I thought that she had someone how managed to find her way outside through the gap between the ceiling and the exterior roof. I went outside and called her name and she came running. We played "Chase the monkey" (she sits still until I get with in inches of her and then she bounces off, kicking her hind feet and flicking her tail at me...) for a while. I finally caught her and got in back inside the house much to her hissing chagrin.

I sat down on the couch and I heard something land on the roof of my storage unit. I thought for sure that it was Willow finally coming home so I jumped up and ran across the room and opened the curtain and there I was...face to face with....

Lorenzo.

"Lorenzo? What are you doing outside?", I asked. I ran outside and put a ladder up so I could reach the top of the storage unit and I picked him up and brought him inside. It really scares me when he gets out because of him being deaf. He can't hear dogs or cars and I just know he's going to get injured. As I sat on the couch trying to clean the 2 inches of mud off of his pristine pink toes I heard a scratching at the screen behind my head. I turned around and I was ...face to face with...

Ashleigh.

WTF! "ASHLEIGH! I JUST BROUGHT YOU INSIDE. HOW DID YOU GET OUT ALREADY??"

I went outside and got her off of the 2 inch deep window sill. I told her that if she went outside that I was going to give her a spanking. (HA! I NEVER spank or hit my kitties in any way. The worst that I've ever done is flicked their nose to make them release me when they are biting me.) My threat didn't seem to worry her at all.

I put Ashleigh down, she wasn't muddy, and went back to trying to clean Lorenzo. I heard another thud on the storage shed. At this point I was pretty sure that I was going to become face to face with Ashton Kutcher because it was obvious that I was being Punk'd. However when I got to the window I was ... face to face...with...

Elijah.

Mind you...Elijah and Lorenzo were in the house when I came home initially. As I wondered where the hidden revolving door was located I went outside and collected Elijah off of the roof of the shed and as I approached the front door...there sat Ashleigh on the first step. I swear I could hear her laughing at me as I tried to bend over to pick her up without dropping Elijah. Ashleigh darted away and Elijah hung on for dear life. He dug in with all 20 claws and I don't think a nuclear explosion would have separated the two of us.

As I stood there bleeding I decided that Ashleigh could just stay outside because I was finished chasing her. I went in the house and caught Lorenzo right in the act of getting outside again.

When I brought Ashleigh in the house the first time I scanned the bottom of all of my screens for escape routes. Ashleigh's usual M.O. was to sit quietly and nimbly rip a tiny hole in the bottom of the screen and then with little or no effort just slide her head right through it. There were no holes in the bottom of the screens but there was a hole in the top of the screen that lead directly to the roof of the shed. I pulled Lorenzo out of the hole in the screen and I slammed the window shut. I went outside and I caught Ashleigh and I tossed her in side the house. As Ashleigh, Lorenzo and Elijah sat there looking and acting completely unaffected I made a big noisy point to shake my finger in their faces and slamming all of the windows shut. So what if it was 95 degrees in my house. I was going to teach them a lesson.

It didn't take them 5 minutes to find cool places for them to hide. Elijah splayed out on the kitchen floor. Lorenzo went under the bed and Ashleigh went under the couch. I, however, sat on the couch, in the blazing heat and tried to convince myself that I was vindicated. As I write this little excerpt of life....I'm beginning to think...not so much with the vindication.

If you're wondering why you didn't get a Christmas card from me

Last year Lorenzo and Ashleigh were 6 months old when Christmas rolled around. I took an adorable picture of them both laying in their little kitty bed. Lorenzo had his arm over Ashleigh and they couldn't have looked any cuter. I took the picture to Albertsons, (What? You don't get your pictures printed at the grocery store?), and I added the verbiage, "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse", and it was the best Christmas card ever. I was very inspired to try my hand at kitty cat Christmas card making again this year and here are the results:

Elijah is usually very cooperative, but apparently it wasn't in his plans to be the Christmas card kitty.


Can't you just see the fury in his eyes? And speaking of his eyes, he looks very patriotic don't you think? Did you notice he's sticking his tongue out at me? I didn't tie the bow around his neck, I tied it around a collar. Here Elijah tries to get the bow off by getting his lower jaw caught under the collar. This is when I called it quits and tried to decorate the other cats and let them be the star of the Christmas card.

Here are Ashleigh and Lorenzo in their festive Christmas collars. I had a nice place all set up for them to sit or lay so that there would be a nice solid back ground for the picture. Did they want to sit on the special spot? No. Not even for 2 seconds. So I let them do whatever they wanted and figured that they would eventually land on the blanket I set up for them. HA! Apparently putting festive collars on cats causes them to roam aimlessly because this is the closest they came to sitting still. I think the stack of computer crap in the back ground adds volumes to the Christmas feel, don't you? I also like the fact that you can see the label on Ashleigh's collar and the plastic hangy uppy thingy is still on Lorenzo's collar. Lorenzo is sticking his tongue out at Ashleigh and thus immediately after this picture was taken Ashleigh gave Lorenzo the smack down. THWAP! Right on his head. A great chase ensued and thus ended any hope of getting those two on the Christmas card.

As luck would have it I had 3 more models that I thought would be very happy to appear on the Christmas card so I set up a special place for the 3 babies to sit. All they had to do was sit still on the blanket and look cute.
This kitty stayed on the blanket but apparently his mission was to complete the destruction of the Christmas bow that his big brother had started. Since he seemed too curious to just sit with the bow in front of him I thought that I could tie the bow loosely around his neck and take a quick picture and be done with it.
Obviously this wasn't a good plan, either. He fussed and bit and clawed at the bow until he was doing somersaults and flung himself off of the couch.

I was just about at the end of my rope. My final thought was to lay a kitty blanket on the floor and put the babies on it, get them to all look at me and snap a picture. No bow, no special collars. You can see how well this idea turned out:
Notice the only thing on the special kitty blanket is Elijah's tail.
Look! It's a Christmas brawl~

At least they are on the special kitty blanket!

11 days old

Elijorenzo



We just opened our eyes and we do not like the brightness!



I have orange stripes on my head just like my mommy did when she was an infant.



Our "Brady Bunch" pose...


Ashleigh watches very closely as Andrew plays tickle belly with the grey and orange baby....


Tickle belly...tickle belly....but you know what happens when a baby gets too excited playing tickle belly.....

Andrew got wee'd on.


Well, duh, what did he expect?

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?

A quick note from Ashleigh

I'm sorry that I haven't contributed to the blog in such a long time but I've been very busy. I don't know if you heard or not but I just had a gala opening at a local art house. Please follow the links below to see some of my most recent pieces:

(There were links here that lead to a photo gallery of pictures of the screens that Ashleigh has shredded and escaped through. Unfortuately the photo gallery only saves pictures for a few weeks and then discards them. Sorry.)

I have a few works that didn't make it in to the gallery...there were 7 in all. I have managed to get through each and every one of those holes and have been able to spend many nights on the town. Due to those nights of fun and frolic I was forced to settle down and revealed my latest effort:



There was 4 of them but one of them didn't make it through the first night sadly enough. Of the 3 left, one looks just like his uncle daddy, Lorenzo and the other two look just like me.

Here are a couple of close up shots:



My eldest son, Elijah, who hasn't really been introduced to all of you out there in blogdom, hasn't really paid any attention to his new siblings however Uncle Daddy was with me through out my delivery just like he was last time. He's such a peach.

Now that I'm not around to fight with apparently the boys are really bonding more than ever. Here is a picture of the two of them:

In case you can't figure it out...Elijah is sound asleep with his head between Lorenzo's hind legs. They slept like that for some time so I guess they were comfortable.

I have to go...a mother's work is NEVER done.

Love,
Ashleigh


HEY, WAIT A MINUTE...I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING...
THIS UNCLE DADDY BUSINESS IS EXHAUSTING!!!

The Ashleigh Olympics

They need to learn how to relax

Bath Time part deux

The day after I wrote the previous post the 2nd grey kitten crossed the rainbow bridge. At this point I closed and locked the gate that lead to the bridge. I had to take drastic measures to get on top of the flea problem that was plaguing my house and my fur children. I somehow convinced my sister to come all the way out from Riverside to take Ashleigh, Uncle Daddy and the 3 remaining kittens to a groomer. This story is actually very long and eventful but I will shorten it as much as I can. My sister and her kids put the kittens in the stroller and figured that Ashleigh would gladly go where ever her babies went. Not so. Apparently Ashleigh scratched my niece to smithereens and little did we know that she was just getting started. It took a while but they managed to get her and Lorenzo in to the stroller. Then they loaded the stroller in to the back of the truck and were on the road like a herd of turtles. I was at work in a seminar while this was going on. I had sent Tori the address of the groomer and she got a Mapquest map with driving directions. So, as I sit in the very quiet seminar room...my cell phone starts to buzz. I answered it as quietly as I could. It was my niece. She needed my address and drivers license number because she was filling out forms at the vet. The vet? I figured that maybe the groomer shared space with a vet. I whispered the requested info and went back to my seminar. The cell phone buzzed again the instant I put it in my purse. This time it was the groomer. "Hi, This is Noah's Ark Grooming. Aren't you going to bring your kitties in this morning?" I paused for a second and whispered..."My sister is bringing them in...and she just called and said that they were there and they were filling out paper work." The groomer told me that they had two locations and maybe they had gone to the other location by mistake. I told her that I'd call my sister and try to find out exactly where she was. I dialed my sister's number and, of course, no one answered. As soon as I put my phone back in my purse...it was buzzing again. "You're in the wrong place", I whispered in the form of a greeting. "We're in the wrong place", my niece said not hearing what I had said. "Where are you?", I asked. "We're at the vet but we're right around the corner from the groomer." Annnnndddd...we'regood! Right? I put the phone back in to my purse...1 second. 2 second...BBBBUUUZZZZZ. "Hello? This is Noah's Ark Grooming. You re kitties are here, they were at the vet's office down the street. I just didn't want you to worry." Ok, now that everyone was where they belonged the mystery was solved and I could get back to my seminar. BBBBBUUUUUZZZZZZZ. Me,(still whispering)..."hello?" "AUNTIE, HAVE ASHLEIGH OR LORENZO HAD ANY OF THEIR SHOTS?" "no, bek, they've never been to a vet or a groomer. ok?" "OK, AUNTIE. MAN,I HATE ASHLEIGH. SHE HAS SCRATCHED ME SO MUCH..MY ARMS.." I attempted to whisper but I had to raise my voice which caused me to have to get up and walk out of the seminar.."I'm so sorry Ashleigh scratched you. But now that you guys are in the right place I need to let you go so I can pay attention to the seminar." click.

2 minutes later; BBBUUUZZZZZ. "hello?" "AUNTIE, HOW DO YOU SPELL HUNTINGTON?" "ohmygodrebekah...you spell it with an H. just ask your mom.. ok?" "OK, SORRY AUNTIE."

5 minutes later...BBBBUUUZZZZZ. "hello?" "THIS IS NOAH'S ARK PET GROOMING. THE BABIES ARE ALL WASHED AND THEY ARE DOING JUST FINE." "ok. thank you."

5 minutes later...BBBUUUUZZZZ. "hello?" It was my sister. If she asks me how to spell 'Huntington' I'm going to hang up on her.. "Ashleigh won't let the groomer get her wet so we walked her down to the vets office. The vet was examining her and Ashleigh scratched the vet so deep that he's bleeding purple arterial blood. Anyway he said that he can either sedate Ashleigh and then give her a flea dip and you will have to separate her from the babies for the next 24 hours and it will cost you about $125.00, or he can give her an Advantix treatment and you will have to separate her from the babies for the next 24 hours but this will only cost you about $50.00. I think it would be best to give her the Advantix and plus it's cheaper that way, but I wanted to know what you wanted to do..."

They wanted to separate her from her 3 week old babies? She was still furiously and mournfully trying to locate the two babies that died and now someone wanted me to purposely separate her from her remaining 3 babies? URGH! By now I felt so bad for everyone involved that I just wanted to say 'forget it!', however if I had said that then everything they had all gone through so far would be for naught. So I agreed on the Advantix treatment, although now in hindsight I see where it might have been easier on everyone if Ashleigh had been sedated and wasn't able to cry and call out to her babies once they all got home.

When I got home from work that night I was greeting by 3 fluff balls and a gloriously clean and bright white Uncle Daddy.
They were all exhausted from their big day at the beauty parlor.

Then I saw Ashleigh.

It was pretty obvious that she hated me and the horse I rode in on.


She was incarcerated in the big dog kennel and she was not one bit happy. Everyone else was sleeping like kings on the couch and she was stuck in a cage. A dog cage.

I did my best to spend time with her but she was far too busy plotting my death to entertain the likes of me. When ever I would relent and leave her alone she would start crying this deep guttural cry. How sad do you think it was when her babies didn't react because they couldn't hear her? I don't think she knows they have a hearing deficit. Once they all woke up and mom wasn't there they set out to find her. They were able to find her with no trouble but for some reason they didn't even try to get in to the kennel even though they could have easily fit between the bars. They chose to sit on the outside of the cage wailing while Ashleigh sat on the inside of the cage wailing.

My sister had bought powdered kitten milk so I mixed up a batch and tried to feed it to the babies. They made it perfectly clear that that stuff didn't smell or taste anything like their mama and they'd rather starve that let even a drop of it dribble down their tiny little gullets. Lorenzo on the other hand was acting as though I had liquid gold in the dropper and he was doing everything in his power to get near it. He was knocking babies over and pretty much flinging them out of the way. He was possessed! After failing at even getting the babies to lick a little bit of it off of their noses I relented and just let Lorenzo and Ashleigh drink it. Uncle Daddy Pig Dog actually burped when he was finished devouring his share.

By about 10:00 that night the kittens had decided that there were actually hungry enough to eat what was being served. It is amazing how quickly those tiny bellies fill up. Andrew gets the blue ribbon for being the best kitten wrangler in the house. He figured out how to pick them up so they wouldn't wiggle and then make them drink without letting the kitten milk run down their chin. While I was doing my best to do what he was doing Andrew put his kitten down and went running in to the kitchen. He came back with a soaking wet kitten who had apparently decided to take a swim in the water bowl. I am very happy to announce that our very own "Thorpedo" didn't inhale any water and was just fine after it was dried off. (apparently he told his siblings of his adventures at the water park because by the next day all 3 of them were trying their hand at drinking water out of the bowl. Here it is 4 days later and they still have a bit of a problem with knowing just how far stick their head in the bowl.)

The trauma of the baths and the Advantix seperation is behind us. Lorenzo is feisty as ever. Ashleigh has been down right pleasant and the babies have learned how to chase and play and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. They like to pummel and tumble and swat at each other then in the middle of all the fun they just doze off.

PS I didn't mention that when the fur children were out at the groomers/vet...Andrew stayed home and set off a flea bomb in the house. So we should be flea free for at least a couple of weeks. Then Ashleigh and Lorenzo will be getting an Advantix treatment.

You're not the boss of me....

After reading my previous post you will know that I attempted to bathe my kitties last weekend then I abandoned them and left the house for the rest of the day.

When I came home later that night I very quietly went in to my bedroom to check and make sure no one had died from bath trauma. Imagine my dismay when I discovered this:

I went to the living room and looked in the closet. Empty. I looked in the kitchen cupboard where they were born. Empty. I looked in the bathroom cabinet. Empty. There was only one place left and voila. There they were. Under my bed. In the most precarious position possible. Just like the terrorist that she is, Ashleigh put the babies right around one of the wheels of the bed frame so that there was no way I could roll the bed away from the wall.
"Try to bathe me and my children will you? One of these days you are going to figure out who the boss is around here and boy won't you be shocked to discover it isn't YOU!"

It's the last time for bath time & our day trip to San Jacinto

On Friday a co-worker told me about an amazing product that would get rid of the fleas on my grown up cats as well as my infant kitties. While I was hesitant to use anything, even water on those little juniors I knew I had to do something before the fleas tied them up and carried them off to parts unknown. So I went to Costa Mesa and bought the recommended product. I went home, read the directions and the ingredients then decided that I would use it on Ashleigh and Uncle Daddy first and then I would tackle the kittens. (How cute I was...look at me thinking I was going to wash kittenS. Plural. Many. All. HA!)

I put warm water in the kitchen sink about 2 inches deep. I have a little tiny mobile home sink so this didn't amount to a whole lot of water. According to the directions on the bottle I was supposed to douse the kitty with the shampoo before getting him wet. And I was supposed to make sure that I got it under his belly, in his arm pits and between his ears because that is where fleas like to hide. At first Lorenzo thought that I was simply rubbing his back and belly and then he felt the moisture of the shampoo hit his skin. MAY DAY! MAY DAY! He was off like a shot but I caught him by the tail. (killing two birds with one stone...I got shampoo on his tail while stopping him from running and jumping on my couch.) I attempted to disperse the shampoo that was already on him but he was acting like the shampoo was burning his skin off. I picked him up and carried him to the sink. His little heart was beating a mile a minute and I knew that he thought that I had picked him up to protect him from any further harm. I felt like a total heel when I lowered him in to the sink. The instant his little pink toe hit the water he was scrambling in mid air. He was screaming and flailing and it is very hard to hold on to a soapy cat who is screaming and flailing. He managed to connect with the screen on the kitchen window and he was not going to let go. In fact, he had planned on climbing UP the screen to safety but since I wouldn't let go of his hind end he changed paths and decided that he'd sit on my head. It only took 2 second and I was covered in flea soap. His tail had hit the water in the sink and that was all over me, too. He had one foot firmly encased in my skull and the other in my back. He had a hind foot STUCK IN MY EAR and the other one was kind of swinging across my face. I let him go so I could assess my wounds. Of course he went straight for the couch so I had to grab him before he got there. I knew that I couldn't just let him go all full of soap so I picked him up and tried to put him back in or even near the sink. The same exact scene replayed it self the following 3 attempts at getting the soap off of him. I have long acrylic finger nails and I didn't want to hurt him so I was trying to hang on to him with the front pads of my fingers. Not an easy task regardless of the wet and soapy factor. I saw a couple of dead fleas in the water so at least I knew that the shampoo was working. No matter how I tried to discuss this with him, Lorenzo just did not want to complete this bathing ritual. He did everything short of writing a letter to his congressman in order to get me to stop putting water on him. When he started to cry in a pitiful, mournful wail I had had enough. I couldn't listen to him cry. I took him out of the sink and tried to wrap him in a towel. Apparently the towel was teeming with invisible flames because he acted, once again, as though I was trying to murder him. He was completely dripping wet so there was no way I could just let him go. I chased him around the house and got as much water off of him as I could.



I figured that if I didn't at least try to bathe Ashleigh then what I had just gone through with Lorenzo would all be for naught. So I emptied the sink and started all over. The debacle with Lorenzo was mere child's play compared to the 4 alarm fire created when I tried to put Ashleigh in the water. She didn't like having shampoo rubbed on her either but she just tried to saunter away. When I tried to put her in the water she pretty much ripped me to pieces. Ashleigh hasn't had her nails clipped in months because she will not let me cut them. I cut Lorenzo's when he's sleeping, just like a human baby, but I can't even get near Ashleigh's toes whether she's asleep or not. I tried everything except throwing water at her from across the room and she tried everything except whipping out a gun and shooting me to get me to stop getting her wet. I got as much of the soap off as possible and then prayed that any residual soap wouldn't harm the babies. I didn't get to dry Ashleigh off at all. She ran and hid under the couch. It was a very hot day so I wasn't worried about her being wet as long as she stayed away from the babies and off of the top of the couch.


I was glad that Ashleigh was hiding because I thought that would give me some freedom to wash the babies. I started with new water in the sink that I actually tested with my elbow. I was so afraid of startling or burning or freezing the babies that I took major extra care to make it just perfect. I got one of the white babies and I put the tiniest bit of shampoo on it and it wasn't 1 second later that the baby was meowing it's tiny little head off. I didn't even have the time to get this baby 25% soaped up before Ashleigh came flying out from under the couch and climbed up my back and started her rescue effort. She kept grabbing the baby by it's entire head and tried to pull it out of my hand. Had I let go of the baby I'm sure it would have fallen in to the water so I had no choice but to try to hold on to this soapy kitten and try to unpry Ashleigh's mouth from it before she pulled it's head off. I had to use all of the strength I had in my fingers to pry her mouth off of the kitten. We went through this in rapid succession approximately 10 times. Ashleigh is nothing if not tenacious. I got Ashleigh off of my back long enough to dip the baby's hind quarters in the water. Then BOOM! Ashleigh is right back up on the sink, scratching my arm trying to move my arm closer to her so she can grab the baby. I rinsed the baby as well as I could with an angry mama cat attached to my arm and then I put the baby in a towel and I dried it and rubbed it as well as I could so that it wouldn't catch a chill. I let Ashleigh see that the baby was still all in one piece and she licked it and cuddled with it and purred to it. This brought Lorenzo out of hiding and he, too, had to console the traumatize baby. While this trauma bonding was taking place I decided to take my wet clothes off. That's when I discovered that one of them had cut me so deep that the wound had bled enough to cause my shirt to stick to my back. Good times. 3 semi bathed cats out of 7. A very poor outcome indeed.




I decided to reward Ashleigh and her babies for their valor by cleaning out my closet and putting her baby box in there just like she wanted. She was very, very happy, yet I'm certain I could still hear her cussing at me under her breath.

Saturday morning I left my semi clean kitty family and went to my moms and met up with Tori and the kids. I had a play date scheduled with cousin Billie and her niece Trinity. It took me a couple of hours to get Tori's kids dressed and wrangled in to the car but we made it and we were off like a herd of turtles. The kids were starving so I stopped at Taco Bell and we had lunch on the hoof. Jake even got his very own soda and he was thrilled to death. Then we made a quick stop at Walmart so Rebek could get an outfit that actually covered her up and helped to make her look like the 15 year old school girl she is instead of the 40 year old hooker she was impersonating. What I thought should have been a pop in/pop out stop at the store turned in to an hour long whine fest. "I'm not wearing THAT!". "Everything in this store is so ugly." "That's not EVEN cute." I finally left Rebekah on her own to find something that suited her fancy. Had I stayed with her she would have wound up wrapped up mummy style in a "Transformers" beach towel. I told Hannah that she could pick out an outfit, too, and it really wasn't any easier to find something that passed muster with her either. Everything she put on she had to pull down to her hip bones or it would "choke" her. That being done, everything she put on made her look like Dick Van Dyke in the dancing penguin scene from "Mary Poppins". After she tried on 5 things that she didn't like I was ready to give up on her, too. During this whole time Paul, who had Jake in a shopping cart, was no where to be found. Usually all I have to do is call his name and he shows up but that was not working today. Every time I realized he wasn't near me I had to go off and find him. When I found him I would remind him that he needed to stay where I could see him or at least where he could hear me if I called for him. This couldn't have concerned him any less. I was thisclose to telling both of the girls that they would not be getting new outfits because we were going to get back in the car and go home. Then suddenly they both found clothes that we could all agree on, and Paul managed to stay close enough to me that I didn't have to go spelunking to the depths of Walmart in order to find him. Jake and Paul found a mini Etch-A-Sketch and they swore they would share it while on our trip to the desert.

The entire way to Billie's house I had Paul holding the Etch-A-Sketch directly in front of my face so he could show me his works of art. How many times could I show enthusiasm for his show case of criss crosses or stairs? I did my best but then I had to tell him that I could no longer be the judge in his art fair while I was trying to drive a car. He was not amused.

When we got to Billie's house Trinity was taking a nap. I asked the kids to play quietly so they wouldn't wake her up but apparently I forgot that I had Foghorn Leghorn with me. It wasn't 5 minutes later that Trinity had woken up and she was not a happy camper. We had an early dinner and she didn't want anything to eat. We had bought her an outfit to match the one that Hannah got at Walmart and she wasn't impressed. When we finally told the kids to find their shoes so we could go to see "Ratatouille" that's when she perked up. We all filed in to the Billie's car and the two little ones were very happy to discover that their car seats wouldn't fit in the car if we all wanted to ride together. I told Jake that we'd have to take our own car and he was crest fallen. The theater was less than 1 mile down the street so I relented and let him ride without the car seat. Jake and Trinity thought they were all that and a bag of chips! Trinity taught Jake to play "I pye". You know the game where one person finds something that they can see and says "I pye something....(fill in the descriptive word)". It was very cute and I didn't want to tell either of them that the word was "spy" not "pye", however I needn't have worried because Hannah, who is not one for Tom Foolery of any sorts, told them repeatedly, but it was made apparent that that was a whole other game.

Once we got the kids in to the theater we divided up the popcorn and soda and explained one last time that they had to remain in their seats through out the entire movie and that they were not supposed to talk.

The movie was very entertaining and the kids did pretty well, however our very own junior Siskel and Ebert discussed the movie with reckless abandon. Fortunately the theater was filled with mostly children so no one complained. They wound up sitting through 95% of the movie and I think that is excellent for a 3 and a 4 year old.

On the short ride home we discussed the perils and the adventures of "Ratatootie" and I'm happy to say that the little ones had a very good interpretation of what they had just seen.

Odd & Ends

Midwife Lorenzo, medicine man, has always loved having a club house. Here he is as a toddler hanging out in an office trash can.

(Lorenzo has that same look on his face in this picture as he does in the last one. I guess I'm going to have to learn how to take pictures without a flash unless I want him to have that very same look in every shot.)
A couple of weeks ago I brought home a new wicker table. When I brought it home I put it on the floor upside down. Here, Ashleigh and Lorenzo share the club house. Ashleigh only stayed in there for less than a minute. I thought I was going to have to serve Renzo his dinner in there. He only got out because I wanted to put the table in the living room and not directly in the path of the front door. After looking at these totally cute pictures you are going to wonder how I can possibly accuse either one of these precious darlings of doing this:

One of them customized my brand new, yet apparently boring, black sandal. I hadn't even taken the tags off of these shoes yet and now they are full of bite marks. You can also clearly see white fur on the strap. Coincidence? I doubt it. Do you think I could take them back to Kohls and swear to them that they were like this when I bought them? Maybe Kohls has a rat problem like that KFC in New York. It could happen.

And in closing I would like to share with you two new pictures in my ongoing "Free Paint" expose'...

I have to point out that there is a Mercedes and a BMW at this house. Apparently the home owners spent all of their money on luxury cars and didn't have any money left over for paint.


And these pictures weren't even taken in La Puente! These lovely shots were taken in Monrovia.

Calling Dr. Lorenzo, OB/Midwife, to the kitchen cupboard STAT!

Last night after dinner when I settled in for the night Ashleigh came and layed down on my chest. This is very unusual. Ashleigh is the lone wolf. She never wants to sit on me or with me. She doesn't even really like to be petted and here she was laying, splayed out across my chest. I rubbed her pregnant belly and was taken aback by how hard it felt. Ashleigh rolled on to her back and let her head fall, encouraging me to rub some more. I watched as the kittens tumbled around inside her crowded womb and then they stopped moving. Then Ashleigh's belly tightened and her hind legs kicked. She was having a contraction. Wow. Was she going to attempt to give birth to her babies whilst laying across my chest? Not my idea of the perfect delivery location...but I didn't want to move this poor creature at such a tenuous time. The contraction only lasted for a second and Ashleigh got up, walked around in a circle and put her self right back down on my chest. About 15 minutes later she had another contraction. She let out a tiny little "mew" and then she dozed off. After her snooze she got up and wandered around. I had opened the living room closet door thinking that that would lend her some privacy if that's what she wanted. It took her a while but she did go in there and Lorenzo was right behind her. I decided to just let them hang out in the closet. If Ashleigh didn't want Lorenzo in there I'm sure she'd have no problem letting him know to get the heck out. After a few minutes of quiet I heard some rumblings in the closet. I figured they were probably fighting and I was going to have to physically take Lorenzo away from the fascinating goings on. When I opened the closet door I saw Ashleigh hunkered down in the corner and Lorenzo right next to her. They were both playing with the cord to a space heater that was on a shelf above them. I rolled up the cord so that they wouldn't pull the heater down on their heads and then I figured that Ashleigh's contractions must have just been braxton hicks and that she was feeling much better now. Most women in the throes of labor don't take time out to play with dangling toys.

Ashleigh came out of the closet and just wandered around. She stopped to let Andrew pet her and that is when I knew for certain that something was up. Ashleigh hates Andrew with a raging passion. All he has to do is look at her and she hisses at him, and tried to claw his eyes out, so for her to actually allow him to touch her really let me know that something was up. For the next couple of hours Ashleigh walked around, ran around, layed around....so I figured that it was all a false alarm and allowed myself to doze off on the couch.

I woke up because I heard Andrew talking. He was down on the floor in the kitchen trying to get Lorenzo out of the cupboard underneath the sink. I asked him what was going on and he told me that Ashleigh had had 1 kitten and Lorenzo wouldn't leave it alone. I've heard too many horror stories about male cats and kittens so I had Andrew wrastle with Lorenzo and get him out of the delivery room. We layed some towels down for Ashleigh and took all of the toxic items out of the cupboard then let her continue the birthing of her babies.

We could not keep Lorenzo out of the delivery room so I decided to let him in and just stay right there with them so I could make sure he wasn't being a nuisance or attempting to harm the babies. The minute I let him back in there he went right over and started to lick Ashleigh's head. She licked him back and then they both licked the brand new baby. Lorenzo got a little more voracious and I thought he was losing his mind but on closer inspection I discovered that he was biting on the umbilical cord. Lorenzo was being the midwife! As each kitten was being born, Lorenzo would continue to lick Ashleigh's head then help stimulate the kitten and get them out of their birthing sac.

I didn't want to intrude on them during such a difficult time but you know me...I had to document this with my camera so here we go:




Yes, Lorenzo is tangled up in the garbage disposal cord. After I took the pictures I unplugged it and wrapped it around a pipe so there is no chance of anyone getting choked.


In the end there were 5 babies. We will now refer to Lorenzo as "Uncle Daddy".