Thoughts From Jules...: A New Direction For This Blog...and our kitten adventures.

No time like the present to dive back in, right? I am rusty at blogging so hopefully with time I will find my style and develop vision of this blog as I go along.

Oh My! It has been a while since I last blogged. It was fun to look over all the pictures I had featured on this blog and revisit some memories I documented here. I can't believe how much the kids have grown! With that in mind, I want to blog more in the coming year. In a sense it will be a way to create an online keepsake of our family happenings to look back on as well as a platform to share with family and friends.

I figured I could start with the most memorable story from the recent months (ongoing memorable, trust me!). I hope you enjoy this little glimpse of what we've been dealing with for the last few months! Here it goes...

~Kitten Adventures~

We had been wanting to get another kitten pretty badly for over a year. We had been seriously looking for a particular type of kitten starting in about May of this last year. We really love cats with extra toes and we also love calico cats we hoped by some miracle we could find one with both traits. Also we enjoy manx cats with the bobbed tails, they tend to have interesting personalities. We were prepared to have to settle for just one of the 3 traits we wanted either extra toes, calico color or the manx breed. We had been keeping a look out and getting the word out that we were wanting to adopt a kitten with one of these qualities. We didn't go into this lightly and wanted to make sure to get at least one of the qualities we were looking for.

A friend had told us about these kittens she got with the extra toes and gave me the name of the gal who had them. She said she might have another batch by now we could see about. So I called the gal and she had a calico kitten just a couple weeks old and she had extra toes and was a manx! Oh my we felt like we hit the kitten JACKPOT, she had all 3 of the qualities we were looking for! We were so excited. We asked the gal when she would be ready to adopt and she said in another 2 weeks. So I told her we'd call back when it got closer but that we were pretty sure we'd like this kitten.

We called back a couple weeks later asking if the kitten was ready for her new home or if she needed a little more time to be weaned or ready to come home with us that week. She hymned and hawed for a while and asked me if we were used to baby kittens? Well yes, we've raised a lot of kittens so I was really not sure what she meant aside from them whining at night or needing to have their food softened a little or something. I said I was sure we'd be fine caring for it (she said it was 6 weeks old so there should have been no problems in theory). She had asked if I could find a home for another kitten with extra toes as well, because she was getting ready to be on a trip. I agreed we probably could place the other kitten easily since I knew of other people wanting the extra toed kittens. We have two other cats with extra toes and people are always asking where to find a kitten like that.

We arranged to meet at a local McDonalds because she lived a ways out of town and so did we in the opposite direction. She was on her way to work after the drop-off so it worked out well. *Prepare yourself a little before you scroll down and see the picture.

This is what we were greeted with when she took them out of her car....(there just aren't words for the shock we experienced when we saw our little kitty for the first time!)

I wanted to throw up, cry, yell at the lady, and reject them! We shed quite a few tears on the way home that day. We felt so cheated and let down after all the waiting and excitement and fun of anticipating the new arrival it was a sobering experience to say the least! I felt so sorry for these two little kittens I couldn't handle thinking they'd go back home with her and it wasn't even an option because she was headed to work next, she couldn't keep them with her either. We HAD to take these kittens and save their lives, we just had to!

They smelled soooo bad! They had poop-balls hanging from their backsides, canned catfood caked all over their bodies and one had really goopy eyes. I have NEVER seen anything like this. For the life of me I could not figure out why anyone would bring kittens to their new owners looking like this! The kids couldn't even touch them they smelled so bad. I was seriously afraid they'd catch some serious "cooties" by handling them. I cried the whole time we cleaned them up.

While we were getting them cleaned up and noticed some bald spots but we thought maybe the canned catfood being caked on so long had made the hair fall out. We fed them about an hour after we gave them baths with the canned food she had sent home with us. First of all they climbed into the bowl of food and got it all over each other and were frantically eating like they were starving. Poor babies. We realized quickly how they had gotten so dirty the way they ate! We also think the food was too rich for their little systems, as they had constant diarrhea. We switched them to some softened kitten chow and things went much smoother. Here is the calico kitten cleaned up and taking a nice long nap! Can you see her extra toes?

Before long we realized the bald spots were growing, the goopy eyes were worse and the sneezing was a problem. We took the worst one to the vet and figured we could treat the other one too. So the orange one we took in and he was diagnosed with a respitory infection (FURS), worms, ringworm (mange basically), and fleas. Poor kitty. We came home with antibiotics, ringworm meds, and wormer (they weren't old enough for flea treatments yet).

We treated them both, but before long we realized the orange one wasn't going to make it. So we had to have that one put down.:( The kids were so sad! The calico one was stronger and less affected by all the ailments. She responded well to treatment and improved over time.

Here she is a little bigger in a custom hammock the kids made her.

Here she is snuggled up with our dog, Maggie.

Weeks went by, the kitten's ringworm cleared up and we thought things were finally smooth sailing! Only then we realized we all were coming down with ringworm! Uh oh! Weeks after we were first exposed. So we began treating it as directed and just when we thought everyone was cleared up we'd find a new spot! It has been a very long process. You have to treat it for 2-4 weeks CONSITENTLY before it clears up! I should have bought stock in Lotrimin company we used so much.

The worst part is we went on a trip with some friends of ours. We thought before we had it all cleared up and just days before we left it came back on one of the kids! Then their child caught it too! Talk about embarrassing! So this little kitty has quiet the story so far...hence the ongoing memorable part!

Soon after the weather started to turn cold she started getting her "big girl" fur coat in. She turned almost completely grey! She went from completely calico to almost completely mottled grey!