I’ve been so preoccupied with Botchok, her illness and her passing, that I completely overlooked my monthly update on the foundlings! So here it is, three weeks late.

When Botchok was in our bedroom, under close watch, we had to move the Baby Raptors to my office. This made it a challenge to get any work done. I could see them from my desk, and they would sit in or around their box, staring at me. I paused from work frequently just to adore them!

But one benefit of the kittens’ stay in my office was that the big cats could see and smell them from the window. When we let the kittens out of the cage, they would run up the wooden chair and look out the window, and sometimes there would be a big cat on the other side. Sweetheart used to hiss at them, but eventually it seemed like she got used to them. Sometimes she would sit at the window, just watching the kittens in their cage.

Hedwig liked watching them too. When they were still in the bedroom, we brought him in to play with them, and he seemed very curious. When they were in the office, he would sit in the window and watch them, meowing at them. He was very maternal when Sweetheart was smaller. He probably wants to take care of the Baby Raptors too.

The darlings have gotten so big. We had to replace their box because they didn’t all fit anymore, unless they were sitting up. To make things worse, they learned to scratch and bite it, tearing the paper that was glued onto the cardboard, even tearing off bits of the box itself! Because they were chewing on the paper, they had a bit of diarrhea, probably caused by the glue that kept it on the box. Oneal found two stackable plastic boxes lying around the house, and put those in the cage instead.

Two kittens can fit comfortably in one box, but sometimes we find three of them lying together, fast asleep. Usually there’s one kitten in each box, with the third lying in the tub, or on the floor of the cage’s upper level, beside the box. The boxes have little ledges, and sometimes they rest their heads on those ledges, paws in between. It’s so adorable and it makes my heart melt every time.

Because the kittens are so big now, we keep worrying that their rough play will cause their cage to topple over. So now their cage has a new configuration! Sort of.

We still had some of the shelf panels lying around, so Oneal added a new wing to the cage. He made it L-shaped, with the litter box now in the bottom of the L.

Hopefully the new shape adds stability to the cage, so they won’t knock it over anytime soon.

I suppose I’m to blame for their size. Every time I see a skinny cat, I say, “Come with me! I’ll make you fat.” The kittens are so fat! Oneal insists that Furriosa has the biggest belly, and that she’s pear-shaped. When I pick up Blondie, her belly seems so soft and squishy. And Samwise is the biggest of them all! We feed them two to three times a day, and they eat only solid kitten food now. I think they prefer Whiskas kitten food, because it only takes them a week and a half to finish a bag!

Now that Botchok is gone, the kittens are back in the bedroom. I can work peacefully in my office, without distraction, and the empty space beside the bed won’t remind me of Botchok. In a month or so, we think they’ll be big enough to join the grown-up cats in the cattery. To prepare them for the move, we’ll bring Sweetheart and Hedwig into the bedroom more often, to play with them and get used to them.

Till then, we wake up every morning to the sound of Baby Raptors meowing. <3