Maternity Ward is Open

It's been a busy evening here. Also, an exciting one for Mandy and me but even more so for Maya.

Our lovely little cat -the supposedly male one named Jorge but who it was discovered about a day or two after it came to live with us that Jorge is not a male but rather a female - had kittens today.

I was out in the kitchen, cooking spaghetti sauce and all of a sudden, Mandy let out a shriek, calling to me, "Oh! MOM! Oh my God!"

She about scared the living daylights out of me and my first thought was that one of the kids had gotten into something, eaten some forbidden substance or well, who knows what.

I turned to look at her and she had hurried across the dining room to where Jorge was trying to kind of stretch out a bit and about that time, Jorge let out a fairly loud cry which then told me what Mandy was so excited about as she cried out to me "It's happening! It's happening!"

She hurried up and found a fairly large box in my room that had a couple of old towels from my Aunt's house that we had used to wrap and cover some of the dishes we got there and she brought it out into the foyer between my room and the dining room. Got Jorge all positioned in there and before we knew it, we had one little black striped kitten. That was about 6 p.m.

Although many autistic children do the hand flapping and it is something Maya did a great deal of back when she was about 2 years old, she rarely does it now unless she is really excited about something. Well tonight was full of hand flapping from her along with lots and lots of squeals from her too as she watched in astonishment as the first kitten showed up and then, for the next three hours or a little better, we all kept watch until now Jorge is apparently through adding to our family as she is all stretched out, reposing nicely with her four little babies.

Two are black with stripes and the other two are grey-striped and all four are nice sized and cute as the dickens. I know, I say that now but in about 6-8 weeks from now, when they are old enough, big enough to go on to other homes, I'll probably be so anxious to move them out that I'll even be considering fixing up a dowerysfor each one of 'em. (What would a dowery for a male kitten be called anyway? And, what would be appropriate gifties to put in a kitten's dowery too for that matter? Just wondering here.)

It was really difficult at first to keep Maya back from the box but finally, she brought out her little green camp chair and set it up beside the box so that way, she could sit and gaze in at these sweet little creatures.

With the first kitten, Maya was full of questions but the main one was why was Jorge licking the kittens? Mandy explained to her that Jorge was cleaning them, making them all soft and clean, cuddly, etc. Maya thought that over for a minute or two and then announced that "Jorge is scrubbing them, isn't she?" Yep, she's scrubbing them really good, kiddo!

After the third kitten arrived and Maya was trying to take a good peek at it, she discovered there was something else in the box with Jorge and her babies -something I really was hoping she wouldn't spy and WOULDN'T ask any questions about it. But, unfortunately, my luck had run out by that time. She kept pointing to this and asking about Jorge's "red poopie." She also noticed very quickly that Jorge was licking away at this too and it really put my mind to the test to figure out what to tell her this stuff was. Finally, I told her it was special vitamins that Mama cats have when each kitten is born and they then have to eat this to make sure the kittens are healthy. Thankfully, she bought that line. Explaining afterbirth to a four-year-old wasn't on my list of things I really wanted to do today.

Oh, and since I'm in such an exposure oriented mood -well, sort of -tonight, I may as well share Maya's other tidbit of the day too.

After a long drawn out process of her "getting her poop out" (as Maya calls her own body function in that realm), and after Mandy had taken her back and got her cleaned up, etc., she proceeded to come out and tell me she'd had a "nice big oval poopie."

Don't we just have some lovely pre-dinner time discussions here though?

Anyway, I think Jorge's family is now complete. I HOPE so anyway. And I will be posting some pictures in the near future of my new "grandkittens." Katie had planned to name them -regardless of the sex - Enrico, Estevan, Jose and now, neither Mandy or I can remember the fourth name Katie had picked out. Why the Spanish names? Kate insists that since she named the mother cat Jorge, these kittens are "legal Spanish immigrants" and therefore, must all have Spanish names. Don't ask me why or what possesses her some days. What causes a lot of the thought processes most 16-year-olds have anyway? Answer that question and I betcha we have the solution to Kate's name choices and ideas about the kittens ethnic status too.

Now, I have to go back and check on our new babies again. Just to make sure they're all ok, ya know. Uh huh. Sure I do.