Kittens, Anyone?

I was sure yesterday morning that we would have kittens appearing before the end of the day. The three kittens that I acquired last fall were all female, as we discovered when a roaming tomcat appeared back in April. He was quite busy for a one-day visitor! And it's been pretty obvious for the last couple of weeks that at least two of the three "kittens" were pregnant.

These three "kittens" who are no longer kittens became part of our household last fall. We had lost two of our older cats over the summer and it seemed like the time for a new little one. I knew my dad had some kittens at his place, so I went over there thinking I would bring home one of them. When I got there, though, I discovered that the mama cat had died and her three little ones were following the dog around. Since I didn’t' think the dog was going to do a very good job of feeding them, I brought all three home. At first, they were all identical in appearance, three longhaired gray balls of fluff! Eventually, as they grew older, one of them developed darker fur on its back than the other two, so that one I named Silkie or Selkie. She was very silky and as I was ready the Outlander series at the time, I had Scottish names and vernacular floating around in my head. So I thought of selkie, which is a seal. The other two we still can't tell apart, so they go by several names, including Fluffy, Fuzzy, Furrball and Lizzie.

Yesterday morning one of the Fluffys insisted on being inside and followed me everywhere I went. If I sat, she was on my lap insisting upon attention. If I moved to another room, she followed me, rubbing against my leg and generally tripping me up every step of the way. So I figured something was up. And sure enough, by evening she had found a spot in a dark corner of my bedroom (even though I had prepared two boxes for her in other parts of the house) and proceeded to have one kitten. She then came back out to the kitchen, making all sorts of noises, and then went back to the bedroom. That's when I discovered where she was and that she had already had one kitten. Later, we discovered that she was in the living room, giving birth to another kitten while curled up next to the dog. We took her and her kitten back into the bedroom, where she had earlier had another kitten. Eventually she had four in all.

Since I really didn't want them in my bedroom, I rearranged some furniture in my office and they are now situated in a protected corner there. Some time during the night one of the kittens died. So now we have three kittens from one Fluffy. And more on the way! Anyone need a kitten in about eight weeks? Or two? Or three?