Kitten adventures

Sonsie’s been with us a month now and she’s a handful, she’s an absolute delight, but she’s handful. So much so that, while I was planning to get a second kitten, I let go of that idea.

The first week Sonsie was with us, she did almost nothing but sleep. She slept so much that I was getting worried, was this normal? Before contacting the vet, I went online and did a bit of research. As it turns out, eight week old kittens sleep on average twenty hours a day. Okay, so Sonsie’s behaviour was normal.

In the second week, she got a little more active. She ventured out of her basket and explored the living room ...The carpet, the paws of the coffee and dining room table, and the paws of the chairs. Exploration done, she went back to sleep.

In the third week, it starte getting interesting. Now Sonsie didn’t limit herself to the living room, she ventured into the kitchen, the bathroom, Dieter’s bedroom, and mine. With it came the problem … where is Sonsie?

Before going out and before going to bed, I’m in the habit of doing a headcount: Holly … sleeping in an armchair, Halley … sleeping on top of the wall unit, Greyson … sleeping underneath the dining room table, Nic … having a bite to eat in the kitchen, Sonsie … where was Sonsie.

“Sonsie … Sonsie, where are you?”

Not only did Sonsie not answer, she didn’t appear when called. So I had to go look for her.

First I searched the living room … nothing, next the kitchen … not there, the bathroom … no kitten there, Dieter’s room … no Sonsie there, my room … nope. Damn, where was she?

I started all over again, living room, kitchen, bathroom, Dieter’s room, my room … where was the little shit?

Just as suddenly she appeared, as if out of thin air. “Where were you?” I asked her. No answer of course, what did I expect?

She pulled this trick numerous times, but in the meantime, I’m on to her. Whenever I can’t find her, all I have to do is look under my bed. My bed holds six drawers, two on either side and two at the foot end. Sonsie slides underneath one of the foot end drawers, clambers over it to the other side, thus hiding/sleeping under the bed.

Yet another hiding place is underneath the armchairs. There’s very limited space between the bottom of the armchair and the floor, but little Sonsie slides under it with very little effort.

Another time we looked ourselves silly for her and where did we eventually find Sonsie … in the basket of the cat tree.

While all this was going on, in the fourth week, Sonsie really came into her own. She was familiar with us now and with Holly, Halley, Greyson, and Nic, and now the fun (read trouble) really started.

While at first, the other cats were weary of the newcomer, slowly but surely they warmed to Sonsie and they made friends. Nic practically immediately made friends, he’s everyone’s friend, a burglar could come in and he would give him the tour. Greyson … well, Greyson is Greyson, as long as he has his food and a soft place to sleep all hell can break loose and he’ll lazily open one eye and think … carry on without me. Halley was a bit of a problem. She gave Sonsie a hard time, chasing her and tapping her on the head, but one day Sonsie turned the tables on her … small as she is she hissed at Halley. Halley must have thought, oh oh, this one is not to be messed with, so she decided to give Sonsie a few licks instead of a few slaps and they made friends.

Now that they were all friends, I could rest easy, except around 10:00 p.m.

Just about every night, Nic and Sonsie are organizing a race. It starts innocently enough, Sonsie will provoke Nic and run away. Moments later she’s back, clearly questioning … and are you coming or not? Nic gets the message and the race starts. Nic runs after Sonsie, around the living room a few times, then expanding the parcour to the kitchen, corridor and my bedroom. And when I say they run, make that they race. Their performance resembles the Daytona 500.

At some point, Nic doesn’t chase Sonsie anymore, now Sonsie chases Nic. As for Dieter and myself, we stay well out of their way because those two would go over corpses. So what do we do … we remain seated and put our feet up, thus limiting the obstacle course.

When bedtime comes around … well, bedtime for Dieter and me, the race ends but now they come up with another game … batting a ball or a stuffed mouse around. Unfortunately, the ball rattles and the mouse squeaks. Do you get the picture? Rattatatata … rattatatata … squeak … squeak … squeak … on and on it goes.

Other than that, Sonsie and Nic get up to quite a bit of mischief. So far, one of them (I don’t know which one) has broken two beautiful swan ornaments. I came into the living room one morning and there they were, in pieces on the floor. Did one of the cats look guilty? Of course not, they looked so innocent butter could have melted in their mouths. When asked who did this … they all pleaded the fifth. Twice I also found a vase of flowers on the floor. Fortunately, they were silk flowers, so no spilled water was involved.

And today, Sonsie performed her piece de resistance … she disabled my laptop. Don’t ask me how she did it, but she did. I switched on the machine, the Lenovo screen came on and then … nothing. I tried again and again, with the same result, nothing but a black screen. I called Dieter, explained the problem, but he didn’t know what to make of it either. He promised to take a look when he got home. Which he did.

He soon had it figured out. On the top row of my keyboard are two buttons that adjust the clarity of the screen, a plus sign for brighter, a minus sign for darker. Somehow, Sonsie had pressed the minus key several times, resulting in the screen to go completely black. So all Dieter had to do was push the plus sign a few times and, voila, problem solved.

So, as I said, I’m sticking to the one kitten. Before we got Sonsie, I wanted a second kitten so the two could play together, but Sonsie has found an excellent playmate in Nic, who is just over a year old, so no second kitten for this household. Quite frankly, I don’t think my nerves could take it.

Then again, when she sleeps, she’s such a sweetheart.

(To be continued)