Just Like GE

Saturday morning -looks like the weather isn't going to be quite like predicted here. It was supposed to be sunny, with temps as high as 85 today. Earlier, the sun was out, nice, bright -really a pretty day appeared to be on the horizon. Now, maybe for the past hour or so, the sun seems to have disappeared. Although you can't tell by the inside of this old house, it is kind of warm outside now -not hot -but just a nice warm with a mellow breeze. (This house tends to stay cool inside until the really, really hot and very humid heat of summer hits and then, it stays warm with no respite coming forth -or so it seems. Wish it could hold that heat over to the dead of winter so our fuel bills wouldn't be so high!)

Mandy just left to run to the laundromat to wash up some of the comforters from the double beds. They won't fit into the our washer here so she'll get them washed there, then bring 'em home and hang 'em on the line to dry -get that nice "fresh air" smell to them then that way.

We have a new addition here to our family. They arrived Thursday afternoon and into the early evening hours as Nina -my son's cat -had her litter of kittens! We had him bring Nina here two weeks ago because it was quite obvious she was due to deliver any time and with my son being on the road for 5-6 days at a clip sometimes, just thought it would be better for Nina to be here with people to look after her a tad -and look after her new babies a bit too.

Nina is the orange cat we had for about a year -until Bill found Jorge, the stray that was hanging around the garage where he used to work part-time last winter and he brought her home. At that time, we also still had Gracie -our beloved old (16 years) and Nina so really didn't need a third cat to tend to and my son, lover of cats that he is, said he would take Nina up to his house to live. Thankfully, cats can survive on their own, so to speak, fairly decently and we would stop up at his house frequently to make sure her food and water dishes were cared for along with an occasional cleaning out of the litter box too.

So anyway, this past Thursday afternoon, Nina quietly gave birth to four little kittens -one is a tan-orange shade, another is orange like Nina and then the other two are buff color. All are really cute as newborn kittens go though. Coming from me, that's quite a complement as I've not been known to be a big fan of orange cats -mainly because two different Tomcats we've had here over the years -both orange -were the meanest, most contrary cats I've ever seen! I know, shouldn't judge 'em all by the actions of a handful applies to cats as well as people, doesn't it?

One thing rather odd though that Mandy noticed last night is that two of the kittens have the "normal" long, pointy kind of tails but two of them have short tails, almost stubs, really as tails go. I've never noticed any little kittens with tails like that before. Anyone know if that means anything or what?

Now, joy-joy, you know -in probably another month or so, no doubt we'll have yet another litter of kittens arriving here once more as we're fairly certain that little Chino -one of the kits from the litter Jorge had last May that we kep -will probably be having her babies then. I think she's pregnant anyway. She was making some of those lovely noises that cats in heat make about 5-6 weeks ago and we were trying to make sure she didn't get out of the house but one night, she did manage to scoot out the front door and didn't return (disappeared into the dark of night, she did) for several hours but since then, she's been back to being her regular very quiet self -rarely meows at all! So I'd say she managed to "cure" her ailments when she escaped that night, wouldn't you?

Now, on to other things, non-cat related.

Kurtis is picking up more and more words almost daily it seems. This morning, Mandy was down in the basement and the phone rang. I answered it and as it was for her, I called out her name only to hear an echo by my side. There was Kurtis, looking towards the cellar door and saying quite loudly too, "Mandy!" I told him to go call for Mandy again and he repeated it! Yes, indeed he did! It was a good friend of Mandy's on the line and I heard her asking me if that was Kurtis talking in the background, calling Mandy's name. Yes, it was I'd told her and then asked -rather reduntantly really -if she'd heard him over the phone then and she said she'd heard him, loud and clear!

The vocabulary and comprehension thing is something to behold at times. Most kids by the age of three know the names -or have some derivative of the names of people closest to them, in their own household by that time. Kurtis knows all the significant people in his life -parents, siblings, aunts/un cles, cousins, grandparents -to see them. (Well all but his maternal grandfather who he hasn't seen since he was about 5-6 weeks old cause that grandpa lives in Nevada and doesn't get back east to visit all that often, ya know.) But even though we know he knows each of us, he doesn't generally use any "names" for people here -except to say "Daddy" and that he calls Mandy, "Unny" (his version of saying "Honey.)" Rarely does he say anything sort of resembling Grammie except once in a blue moon, if asked, he might say "AA-Nie" which we gather must be his pronunciation of Grammie, since he looks directly at me when he says that. Maya, he will now and then call her "Nia" which is funny because when she first started to talk and if asked what her name was, she would say it was "Nia." It's all pretty much a big go-figure at this point in time though.

But, this morning, in addidtion to Kurtis saying "Mandy" and very clearly too, when Mandy left to run to the laundromat, I was braced for an onslaught of lots of crying and screaming, wailing and gnashing of the teeth kind of behavior which is the norm for him when she leaves the house but surprisingly enough, neither he -nor Maya -even so much as blinked an eye over Mandy's departure today!

Yeah, I know -this may be a one-time shot in the dark kind deal and the next time Mandy even so much as heads to the basement he might break out into a major hissy fit but dang, it was exciting as all get out today to see him react in such a positive way. Hope -just around the corner every day ya know.

Or -to cite the old advertising slogan of General Electric's from many years ago -"GE -Progress is our most important product." and even if it is only a one-time happening for now, it's still counted as progress in my book!

Peace -and have a great weekend wherever you may be!

April is Autism Awareness Month.