So after months of promising, we have recently adopted two small kittens.
As you’d expect, they are small and fluffy and unspeakably cute.
They are also undeniably EVIL.
Seriously, I thought getting kittens was a low-maintenance, fuss-free pet option. Ha! So naïve. Even Flea has taken to calling Magic and Stripe “the forces of Darkness.”
So here, in case you’re thinking about adopting some fluffy, lovely kittens, are the things you need to know:
- Small kittens eat cat food, and little kitten biscuits. They will also eat chocolate digestives, brown bread, tortilla wraps, pizza crust, paper bags, salad cream, spring onions and – perhaps most impressive of all – toothpaste. Basically, if it’s accessible and fits into a 1.5-inch mouth-span, it’s going to get eaten. Oh – unless it’s a tablet, or medication in a syringe. Then you’re going to have to wrestle with all the kitten’s pointy edges to get them to so much as lick the wretched stuff.
- Small kittens love to exercise by stretching their claws on a specially designed scratching post. If, however, the scratching post is in another room, it’s far more convenient to just use someone’s leg as a claw-sharpening device. Obviously.
- Adopting two kittens means your kitten will never be lonely, as your kitten has a play-mate at all times. Adopting two kittens also means there’s always an accomplice and your kittens can team up to solve challenges, Krypton Factor style, leaving you to wonder every morning how it is they opened the incredibly expensive kitchen bin and spread the contents all over the floor.
- At around 12 weeks, your kittens will be litter trained and will use a litter tray to do their ‘business’. Or, alternatively, they’ll use anything left lying on the floor. They particularly enjoy peeing on clothing. They particularly enjoy peeing on MY clothing.
- Sometimes business phone calls can be a little dull (apologies to any clients reading). But with small kittens, phone calls take on another dimension. Imagine the excitement as a small kitten decides to sleep on your bosom halfway through those negotiations. Laugh with delight as the second kitten becomes jealous and decides to start a fight with the first kitten – who is still on your bosom. Watch your professional reputation SOAR as you punctuate your conversations with pained squeaks and exclamations of, “No, not on my breasts – UNACCEPTABLE!”
Apparently they calm down at about 12 months. So just 9 more months of chaos to go…
I only have one 9 week old kitten at the house and thing have been turned upside down. My condolences and congratulations on the new arrivals.
On what kittens will eat – when my three were kittens we unthinkingly left a tube of super-glue on the dining table. A few hours later this tube was spotted at the bottom of the stairs, and when I picked it up I discovered an approximately kitten tooth-sized hole in it. It was impossible to pick up without getting covered in the stuff. We closely inspected all three kittens, and none of them had any sign that they’d been in contact with super-glue apart from one who had a small lump on one tooth. To this day I have no idea how they did that without getting glue all over their paws!
In the days before cordless phones, when receivers could be stepped on, I did have the joy of having to phone people back to say “I’m sorry, the cat cut us off”. I’m not sure they ever believed me…
They will calm down. It might take a few years though…
On the upside, phone calls with you are NEVER dull, and have taken on a whole new dimension of fun-ness… Listening to you yelping about pierced bosoms never gets old…
On the bad side, never leave your handbag anywhere accessible to kittens. AND never leave tampons in said bag, because said kittens will pick them up, carry them to top of stairs, gnaw off plastic and then proceed to chew said tampon so you find bits everywhere.
On the plus side, you can apparently start a fire with a tampon!
BNM
Kittens, puppies and small children- all things that would on out on their ears for sheer hard work and destruction wreaking were it not for the really very cute faces!!
If I wasn’t about to have a baby, I think I’d need a little kitten in my life right now!
And that’s why I refuse to have any animals. Too lazy to deal with the hard work. They are cute though.
Dogs don’t do this, they merely pant and look useless, I am a dog person.
I remember thinking exactly the same thing when we got our kitten, how hard can they be???? Then he started climbing the christmas tree, eating phone wires, pushing everything off our side tables and shelves as we slept and jumping in a paint tray full of dark red paint (it was the 90’s!!) – resulting in a quick dash to the bathroom to wrestle a kitten in the shower! So so many laughs along the way and even as a little old man cat he still makes us laugh so much but we still can’t leave a glass of water around else he thinks it his!!!!
This is so true!