All was quiet on the home front...

Until bedtime. I had been in bed for about 30 minutes when I heard a lot of commotion going on in Stella's box and what sounded like tiny meows.

I jumped up, turned the flashlight on my phone on and found this:

Hazel had managed to move all five of her babies in with Stella's without me knowing it. I guess she's mastered the art of moving them quietly and without dropping them. Hazel was laying there with them while three of hers and two of Stella's nursed. 

She hadn't moved them since Monday so I thought maybe she was over that. Guess not!

Tomorrow I'll try my best to take updated pictures and post them. These kittens are growing so fast and changing so much.

Good night! 

Monday in Pictures

Instead of editing my post from earlier this morning, I decided to do a new post of today's pictures.

Stella's kittens are 3 weeks old today!

Sophonia giving her cousin a bath.

Sophonia playing with her cousins.

Sharing the nursing duties. Hazel has all but one of hers plus one of Stella's. Stella has four of hers and one of Hazel's.

Bed full of kitties!

Size comparison of a 3 week old and 3 day old kitten.

Sunday's Updates a Day Late

Hazel is still determined to put all the kittens in one box to make it easier on herself. Three times on Sunday and twice already today (before 6 am) I've had to carry the newborns back to their box.

I'm a day behind but on Sunday I woke up with a migraine so I medicated and slept until about 2:30. That sleep was interrupted twice by hearing Hazel moving her kittens. Hazel is a bit clumsy in the process of moving the babies or otherwise I probably would have slept through the relocation. She can't make the trip of about 10 or so feet without dropping the babies at least once on the way.

When I got up to see who and how many had been moved the first time, Stella's baby, Sophonia, was looking at her cousin with the expression of "what the heck is this?" 

We haven't named all of Hazel's babies yet. Only one of hers has a name and it's Gizmo. The calico reminds me of the Gremlin with the same name.

Stella's children are all named so I thought I'd give explanations for each name.

Sophonia: Mark and I love visiting old cemeteries. We've found graves of confederate soldiers, graves of revolutionary war soldiers and graves dating as far back as the mid 1700s. Before the kittens were born, we visited a cemetery at a Presbyterian church in Simpsonville and the name Sophonia was on a tombstone. I had never heard of that name before and decided that my next cat would be named Sophonia.

Tina: I have a beautiful cousin who lives in Florida. One day she commented on a picture of the kittens on Facebook and said that I should name one Tina. So I did.

Stormy: As Stormy was making her way into the world, a storm was brewing outside. When it thundered, it sounded like the thunder was happening on our roof. Her entrance into this world was quite exciting itself (remember, she's the one I helped deliver) so she was named Stormy.

Smokey: because she's grey...duh!

Skunk: another no brainer...she has a white stripe running up or down her nose.

Here are a few pictures I took on Sunday:

They're so tiny!

Auntie Stella laying with Hazel and her babies.

Stella's youngins are 3 weeks old today so I'll edit this later with a new picture of them.

Hazel's Birth Story/ Today's Updates

So on yesterday, April 25, 2014, I woke up to this:

It's not unusual to wake up to Stella laying on me but it is odd to wake up to Hazel laying on me. After the girls jumped off of me, Hazel became a talker. She's usually pretty quiet so I knew something was up! I sent Mark a text telling him that Hazel was acting funny.

I went to the kitchen and sat down with my cup of coffee and started writing down my to do list for the day. As I started my second cup of coffee, I hear a loud teeny tiny meow in the bedroom. Near the bathroom area lay a new baby! Hazel was peeking out from under the bed at it, with a look of half scared and half "what the heck is that". Then an amazing thing happened: Stella starts cleaning her sister's baby and even took care of the sac. I've never witnessed anything like that before.

In the meantime, Hazel scoots back further under the bed (against the wall, of course!) and proceeds to have baby number two while Stella continues to be the nurturing aunt.

I managed to scoot the bed out and find Hazel with two more babies so now we're up to three newborns. The birthing stops so again I thought maybe there's only three. 

I went back to my to do list (which nothing got checked off by the way), surfed Facebook, posted excited status updates about the new kittens and did a few other random things. I decided to go check on mother and babies and there's now a total of five! All are tiny but all seem healthy.

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Today's updates:

Hazel thinks that she's super mom! Several times she's been caught in the box nursing Stella's kittens. Maybe Stella is super mom too though because I've seen her nursing Hazel's babies too.

But Hazel decided twice to try and out do her sister. Hazel thinks it would be easier to have all babies in one location so twice I've caught her moving her kittens to Stella's box. Funny kitties!

Hazel has became very protective of Stella's crew as well. Last night Mark and I had Stella's kittens on the bed with us. At first, Hazel hovered over her nieces like a Nervous Nellie. Then she tried to pick them up and carry them back to their box. I guess that was her way if saying that we didn't need to be getting her nieces dirty lol. She never succeeded in moving them though; I think her nieces are too chubby!

That's all for today but I'll leave ya with some pictures from today. 

The first is Hazel's babies at one day old:

 The next is of the sisters, Hazel and Stella relaxing:

(Notice Stella's leg over Hazel)

And the rest are some random photos of Hazel's babies:

   

😻👣

The Birth Story of Stella's Kittens

First of all, I do want to make it clear that after these two litters of kittens are weaned both mama cats will be spayed.

Now, this blog is here to share the story of two litters of kittens who were born to two mama cats who happen to be sisters. 

Stella's kittens were born April 14, 2014 and are all girls. Their names are Sophonia, Smokey, Stormy (born in the middle of a horrible storm), Tina, andSkunk. This was taken the day they were born:

Here are a few more of them:

And in that last one it should say 15 days old. I goofed! 

The little sweeties have had their eyes open for about a week now and are really developing personalities! They play, wrestle and "talk" to you when you approach their bed.

Tina was the first kitten born. I awoke to the sound of a tiny meow. When I opened my eyes, Tina was headed for the edge of the bed. Talk about starting out in high gear. I reached for that baby like I had Inspector Gadget arms! 

Even though we had a nice box fixed with blankets, Stella decided that our bed was the best place to give birth.

Next up was Stormy. She decided to make her entrance during a really loud thunderstorm. And she decided that she was gonna come out the hard way so I had to lend a hand in her birth. It was a little scary but beautiful at the same time.

Third born was Skunk. And after she was born, I thought Stella was finished because nothing else was happening.

I left the bedroom to make coffee. When I returned to check on the little family a kitten was missing so I went into panic mode! Stella was also absent so I figured she had moved the missing baby. And she had. Onto The bottom of the entertainment center on a pair of Mark's shorts. 

Since she liked the cozy cubby hole, I moved Mark's shorts and put a blanket down for them, moved the other two kittens for her and left them alone to work on some Mary Kay stuff.

A little later I came through the bedroom, to go to the restroom (too much coffee) and decided to check on them. Two hours had passed (and Stella never once showed an signs of distress) so I was surprised to find Smokey! And soon followed Sophonia. 

That's Stella's birth story. The next post will be all about Hazel's birth story and pictures of her babies!