We’ve had cats and kittens for years. We’ve raised them from kittenhood, seen them to adulthood, brought them to the vet, nursed them back to health, buried a few. Whenever we had kittens in years past, we always had Botchok or the birth mother to take care of the little ones.

This time that’s not the case. This is the first time we’re raising kittens from infancy.

Nearly three weeks ago, on a gloomy Saturday, while Oneal and I were preparing for a trooping event, Dad asked if we’d seen the kittens.

Kittens?

Apparently, the day before, he was tending to his plants on our balcony, and he heard the mewling of little felines. He found them, three fat noisy ones, behind some storage boxes.

Off we went to the balcony, and there we found them, just like Dad said. Two tricolors, and one orange and white. As soon as they heard us, they started meowing noisily. It had been raining in the past few days, so we got a tub and a dry towel, and transfered them so they wouldn’t get sick. “Stay there until your mommy comes back, okay?” I said. We left a bowl of food for their mommy, in case she was hungry.

Off we went to our trooping, and then to some social engagements. When we got back home early in the morning, the kittens were still there and the food was untouched but damp. The balcony was wet, and we were worried that they would get cold and get sick, so we moved them closer to the wall. “Okay, stay there until your mommy comes back,” I told them.

The next day, they were still there, and so was the food. We were getting a little worried. We picked them up to check if they were okay, and one of the tricolors was so loud and feisty that I started calling her Furriosa. The other one had a big fat head, and was rounder than the other two, and I kept referring to her as the Fat One. The orange one seemed to be the biggest and least wobbly of them all.

We put a new towel in and turned the tub upright. It looked like the kittens were getting curious and ready to explore, so we feared they would crawl out of the tub and off the balcony. That would not be cool.

Come Monday, Oneal went to work and I settled into my home office. “Are the kittens still there?” he asked.

They were still there. It was the third day since we’d been alerted to their presence. If their mommy cat hadn’t come back for them yet, they might be starving.

We decided that we couldn’t leave them out there, unfed, cold and wet. I dusted off a small, unused wire cage, put a clean, dry towel in it, and brought the kittens in. Oneal bought lactose-free formula and feeding bottles.

So yeah, we took them in. Sigh. New kittens!