Last January, my upstairs neighbor’s cat, Babe, experienced snow for the first time and wanted nothing to do with it. Last month, we got some nice snow in Boston, and I introduced Babe’s son Chuck to the white stuff. His reaction was completely different.
I shot a half-hour of Chuck enjoying his time in the snow-covered backyard, and I need to edit it down. I plan to create a comparison video of the two cats’ reactions to the snow and a longer video featuring Snowy Chuck. Until I can get those edited and on YouTube, here’s a short clip of Chuck’s initial reaction when he got into the backyard.
The music is Dave “Baby” Cortez’s cover of Bent Fabric’s song “Alley Cat.”
Please forgive how long it’s taken me to get this group of pictures online. Sometimes life comes at you nonstop. -JMH
The kittens started their third week of life still living in my bedroom closet, but they finally began exploring the world outside the closet on their own. I started taking pictures of the individual kittens, and I used some in the article where I introduced the kittens.
14 Days Old: The kittens are two weeks old!
As the kids get another momma meal, you can see how big they’re getting. Of course, if the kittens aren’t eating, it would be a very safe bet that they’re sleeping. But at two weeks old, we’re finally able to spend more time with the kids, letting them get used to the big creatures and finding out that, as Ford Prefect said about our planet, we’re mostly harmless.
15 Days Old: Hi Grandpa
Bobby, Babe’s primary human/daddy, was sitting in front of the closet with Kathleen (who would later be named Kenny) on his lap. She was so comfortable, that Bobby feigned sleep so I could get a picture of the two of them. Kenny would end up being the first of the kittens to find a new home after slipping outside when either Bobby or I were coming inside without us catching him. It drove us crazy for a few days that we couldn’t find him anywhere, but we’re hoping that someone found him outside and adopted him. The alternative could be so bad that we can’t even consider it very long.
Vera (also called Vito and Vivi once we realized she’s a he) got into the floorboards via a gap under the kitchen cabinet. It took a day or so before we were able to rescue him from under the porch when we heard him meowing for us. I always hated the gap under that cabinet, and we ended up shoving an empty jar into the gap to keep anyone else from getting through the gap.
We tried for days to find Kenny, who could be pretty vocal when he wanted to be, but we never could. One thing’s for certain, whoever has him now has a pretty cool cat. 😿
16 Days Old: Sleep snuggling
The kittens still need a lot of warmth, and it’s so cute when they snuggle together while they sleep. As I write this, the kittens are 11 weeks old and it’s amazing how much bigger they are now. Of course, they still like to sleep together and they still sleep in a mound at times. In some ways, the kitty mound has gotten bigger, yet a little smaller. As much as I wanted to keep Lulubelle, she and I never bonded properly, while Chuck made me his human pretty quickly.
This past week, Lulubelle went to live with a doctor that Bobby knows, making our feline family even smaller. I got to tell Lu goodbye, but the other three kittens stayed away from me for a day or so. We decided that they connected spending time with me like I did with Lu and their leaving, but we’re back to all being buds.
Next weekend, Dave and Vito will go to live with Max, and I’m hoping Chuck won’t hold it against me even for a couple of days. After all, once they go live with Max it will just be the four of us, Bobby and Babe and me and Chuck.
17 Days Old: Let the explorations begin!
Chuck, Kenny, and Dave set out from the closet to see what the rest of their world is like. They’re still pretty wobbly, but it’s good to see them out and about on their own. You can see Vito and Lulbelle hanging back in the closet, wondering just how safe it is out in that big room.
18 Days Old: There’s nothing like Momma’s milk
Sometimes you’ll hear about momma cats that won’t nurse their kittens, but Babe has no problem feeding her babies. Her two humans just had to make sure she got lots of noms and water so she had enough nourishment to pass along to her children.
It’s getting to the point where you can tell she’s getting a little tired of being a milk machine several times a day. Don’t get her wrong though, because she loves her kittens and will fight anyone who tries to keep one from nursing.
Day 19: Wat? Iz comfy like dis.
There’s always one that likes to sleep in an odd position, and today it’s Kathleen’s turn. You can tell it’s Kathleen by the white around her mouth and the line of black on the outside of their right eye. Vito has a black line outside of his left eye, and I called them our New Wave kittens with the “mascara” by their eyes.
Sometimes we’ll see the kittens sleeping either in a pile of fur, one on top of another, or in weird positions. We have to wonder how comfortable they are like that. Other times we get jealous that they can sleep in any position they find themselves in and not get up with a crick in their neck or their backs sore as hell.
Day 20: Hi there, Chuck!
I started trying to get the kittens on my bed one at a time so I could get pictures of each kitten, but Dave wasn’t too keen on getting his picture taken yet. On the other hand, Chuck was willing to let me snap a couple of shots.
He’s so adorable, and now he’s a cuddle monster with a very loud purr when he approaches me. The other day I told Bobby that I need to record his purring and work it into a song now that I finally have my new laptop.
It’s almost hard to believe, but the kittens will be four weeks old with the start of the new week of their lives. My, how time has flown by. I almost wish we could have kept them this size a while longer, but I love how they’ve grown into being their own felines.
This article was written with the assistance of Grammerly’s AI tool. It improved several things, and anything that is hard to read is my fault, not the AI’s. -JMH
Two weeks ago, I was feeling overwhelmed with everything that life was throwing at me. In an effort to simplify my life, I decided not to adopt any of Babe’s babies. Things have cleared up quite a bit, and I’m ready to welcome Lulubelle back into my life as Dave and Vivi get ready to go to live with Max. So the kitten coverage is back on My Two Lives.
I need to write articles for the kittens’ third week of pictures, not to mention their life beyond their third week, and I hope to do that this week. I don’t have many pictures from the past three weeks, so I also need to take pictures of them now.
Gizmo (née Chuck) will be staying with Babe’s primary human, although he seems to be spending more time with me than with Bobby. I don’t mind, except when he wakes me up three hours before I had planned on getting up and head-butts my face in such a way that he blocks off my airflow.
My new laptop arrived a week ago, but there was an issue with the initial power-up. I have a replacement laptop on the way. I will share the whole experience once I receive a properly functioning laptop.
I must say that when I contacted System76, the company making my laptop, about the problem, they didn’t hesitate at all once I showed them the issue. I chose to buy a laptop from them based on the great things I had heard, and so far they are handling the problem beautifully.
Babe’s kittens spent their second week of life living in my closet, and that worked out pretty well. Mom could lie on my bed to watch over them, and I didn’t have to go far to see them myself. I could also turn on the closet light and get better light for pictures. Bobby and I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the closet watching the pets, a routine that would continue until Mom moved them again.
Momma could lay on my bed and watch over them, and I didn’t have to go very far to see them myself.
The kittens closed out the month of May by turning one week old, and they spent most of the day asleep. It’s hard to believe they’re a week old, but time has been flying by for me for a long time. As is the case with most babies, they’re wickyd adorable when they sleep.
8 Days Old: Go ‘way picture lady, it’s time to sleep
I almost forgot to take a picture for 1 June, and by the time I had the camera ready, they were going to sleep (again). I missed several cute shots because I couldn’t get a good angle for a picture. It’s hard to see five kittens in the picture, and the one on the top right just wants to sleep. I believe this is the kitten that would be named Lulubelle, but I can’t be entirely certain from the picture.
9 Days Old: Getting so big!
I usually try to get pictures of the kittens without Babe, but today’s picture of them sleeping on Mom shows how much they’ve grown in just a week. I love how one of them is a pillow for Mom and two others drape themselves across Babe.
10 Days Old: Did I interrupt someone’s nap?
I forgot to post a picture to Flickr on 3 June, and the kitten that would be called Dave looks like they’re upset with me. I took it a little after 22:00 (10 PM), and I can’t tell if they’re complaining about my taking so many pictures or if I’m interrupting their sleep.
11 Days Old: The kittens are getting vocal
Today’s picture is a screenshot from a video I shot of the kittens. They were moving around so much that I knew a still picture wouldn’t capture their cuteness. As I reached my hand in to pet them the kittens started mewing up a storm. Their cute little mews are so adorable! It was hard to keep from laughing at them, as you can hear in the video.
12 Days Old: They’re so cute when they’re sleeping
I had to run some errands and didn’t get much time with the kittens, but when Bobby came down to say hi, several kittens came out to see him. Unfortunately, Mom returned from whatever she was doing, gave the kids a good licking, and moved them back into the closet.
13 Days Old: Sisters make great pillows
The kittens will be two weeks old tomorrow, and it’s adorable how they snuggle up together for naps. I hoped to spend more time with them but they’re asleep most of the day and I hate waking them up. Sometimes I’ll just lay out on the floor and watch them sleep, and mom’s been known to climb up on my back, put her paw on my shoulder, and make sure I’m not waking them up.
Coming up in the next week
The kittens finally start exploring outside the closet, plus more cute sleepers and the first individual pictures of the kittens.
Babe’s babies are five weeks old and they’re big and playful. They still sleep a lot of the day, but they’re a lot more energetic. Let’s start the collection of their pictures on this site with photos from their first month in the world.
The Kittens’ First Day
As I’ve said before, Babe decided to have her babies in a DIY cat bed I had made for her last August. I used this video as a tutorial, and Babe used the bed several times over the fall and winter until it got a little too snug for her liking. The photo shows Babe in it from September 2023, and I figured it was too small for her and her babies, but she proved me wrong.
Babe started giving birth before 7 am on Friday, 24 May, and by 9 am she had given birth to three kittens and was pretty knackered. She’d have two more kittens, and it got hard to see the kittens in the box. I cut the neckline of the tee to fold it back at the top, but she wasn’t happy with me taking so many pictures of her newborn babies. Unfortunately, I had several people asking to see pictures of the babies. As you can see, she didn’t have a problem telling the paparazzi to bugger off.
A few minutes later she either decided to let me get more pictures or was so knackered she didn’t feel like fighting me anymore.
1 Day Old
Mom went up to see her human Dad for a few minutes, and I took advantage of the opportunity to get a picture of the day-old fur babies. They’ve gotten a little bigger since they were born, but they’re still so small that they don’t cover from my wrist to the base of my fingers. You can clearly see Vito with his white body and a white gap between the strips on his head and down his back. Kenny’s directly to his right, with his white belly and stripes down his back.
The others have their daddy’s stripes, each having their variation on the tiger theme. Daddy is a neighborhood cat, and he tends to get lost when Bobby (Babe’s primary human) or I show up, but Bobby was able to take this picture in mid-March, not long after Tiger (as we’ve taken to calling him) took advantage of Babe being in heat.
2 Days Old
Momma let me take her picture as she stretched out for a break on my bed. My bedroom was the main living area for me, Babe, and her kittens for the first month of the kittens’ lives. I didn’t want to do things in the living room and miss being needed in the bedroom, so I made sure I stayed close as they grew big enough to get around on their own. It worked out well for everyone, and I liked being able to look in on the kids pretty often. I was already taking time to just watch the kittens without necessarily taking a picture of them.
I posted my first image of all the kittens today, and I also posted my first kitten video to YouTube. The video named itself because it is an adorable kitten pile.
3 Days Old
At three days old, it’s amazing how much the kittens are filling out. Mom’s eating as often as she can just so she can have milk for her kids to eat.
The kittens still aren’t very active, but I’ll bet that at three days old, I wasn’t doing much besides sleeping, eating, and pooping. One thing for sure is that I was spending more time putting down my laptop and phone, going over to the kittens, and watching them. I couldn’t wait to reach out and pet them, but I knew it was still too soon.
4 Days Old
I found myself taking a lot of pictures of the kids being fed, and I wanted to try and get photos of the kids apart from their mom. But I saw this scene of the kittens having dinner and I had to get a picture. I also managed to get a little video that went up on YouTube.
5 Days Old
After taking last night’s picture, Babe moved her litter into a larger box. I knew they wouldn’t fit in the original box much longer. This is one of the possible birthing boxes I made for Babe, and it has an opening in the front that Babe can walk through but is still too high for the kittens to cross. The best part is that the new box has a removable lid that makes it easier to take pictures. It’s also easier to watch them, and I love how some of them use their siblings for pillows.
6 Days Old
Before calling it a night, I knew there would be thunderstorms overnight, so I tried moving the box across the room. Babe wasn’t having any of that, though, so I moved them back. When I woke up, I went to check on the kittens but the box was empty. What the hell??? I called up to Bobby to see if they were upstairs with him, but they weren’t. As I went back into my bedroom I noticed something changed.
Babe had considered having her kittens in my closet, but there was no way there was room to set up a birthing area in it. Babe had tried moving the kittens into the closet, but I wasn’t sure about that. Bobby asked me to block off the closet, so I laid my mirror over to block her access under the door. I also put my personal shopping cart in front of the mirror to keep it from falling over.
Momma cat probably saw her kids were frightened by the thunder and lightning and moved the mirror away from the closet door, and when I walked back into the bedroom I saw the mirror had been moved enough to let Babe get her kittens into the closet. Sure enough, when I opened the closet door, I saw the kids nestled snugly in the closet. This is where momma must have brought them during the storm.
I don’t think I have a better picture of the furry family to close out their first week with.
Last week I said I was moving my kitten pictures here from Flickr. It’s taken me longer than expected to decide how to present the pictures here. I’m also resizing the images to load better on this site, and I’m re-processing the pictures so they look the best they can here.
The kitten pictures are coming, and I hope to have the first week’s pictures up before the Dodgers take on the D-backs at 22:20 (10:10 PM ET). Please forgive my delay. I hope they are worth the wait. Now that I’ve settled on how they’re presented the process should go faster. I’ll post the photos in one-week groups for the kittens’ first five weeks. That will bring me up to last Thursday’s pictures, I’ll switch to doing one post per day beginning with the pictures from Friday 28 June.
I have some new pictures to share, including some video of the adorable kittens playing in yesterday’s late afternoon sun. I haven’t transferred them from my phone to my computer yet, but I’m looking forward to letting you see the playful kittens.
My kitten pictures are moving. I’ve had issues with where I was posting them, and I decided to move them to my website. Here I can post not only the photos, but I can also embed videos without the site I use complaining about links or external content.
Babe, my upstairs neighbor Bobby’s cat, went into heat in the Spring. A neighborhood cat was more than happy to make some babies with her. Babe’s had the run of the house since autumn, and I was hoping Babe would have her kittens upstairs. Babe had other plans, and on 24 May, I woke to the news that Babe’s water had broken and she wanted to have her kids in my bedroom.
Late last August, I made a DIY cat bed for her in the living room, and after she got pregnant, I moved it into my bedroom beside my bed. When Babe was looking for a place to have her kittens, I turned it to the wall to try to dissuade her from having them in the box, but that’s where she wanted to have them.
I think Babe wanted to have her kids down by me because Bobby was often out much of the day, while I’m always at home unless I have to run an errand. Babe’s made great use of the fact that I’m always home, and knows that if anything happens she’ll either hear her babies cry or I’ll call for her.
She ended up bringing five adorable fur babies into the world, and I’ve often wished I could spend hours watching and playing with them, but real life has demands on my time of its own. I started a Flickr account to post daily photos of the babies, and I also posted some videos of the kittens to my YouTube channel when I could get one. Last week my Flickr account was killed because I posted links to the videos on the picture page, something that is verboten. The photostream was unblocked, but I haven’t been able to log in to remove the links or post new pictures, so I’m moving the kitten pictures here.
I’m still working on the best way to post the pictures, but they’ll be here under the category Babe’s Babies. I may not be able to get a new picture to post every day, but you’ll be able to see the kittens get ready to go to their new fur-ever homes. I know Megan, a friend of Bobby’s, wants two kittens for her son, and I’m keeping a kitten myself. Bobby may want to keep one or two, but he’s not sure yet. He’s trying hard not to get too attached to the little darlings, but every time he spends time with them I know it’s going to be harder for him not to keep at least one of the little loves.
The Kittens
I’ve finally gotten pictures of each kitten by themselves so I can introduce them to the world individually. I’ve given them temporary names to refer to them other than Kitten 1, Kitten 2, etc. Of course, they may get new names when they go to their fur-ever homes.
Vera/Vito
Vera’s one of the shyest of the litter. Like her siblings, once she gets used to you she can be a cuddle bug. When I was first greeting the kittens after they moved into the closet, Vera would hiss at me, although their “Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!” came out more like a heavy breather making an obscene phone call. It was kind of cute, but I backed off until she was ready to get to know me.
Over the last weekend, we discovered Vera’s actually a boy, and Bobby has named him Vito.
Charlotte/Chuck
Chuck, who I originally called Charlotte when I mistakenly thought he was a girl, is one of the most outgoing of the bunch. (He may be a she after all. We’ll confirm their gender when they get their new kitten checkup.) He’s among the most outgoing, and I don’t see him having any problems joining a new family. He’s a very friendly little guy, and more often than not, when the kittens come up onto the sofa with me, Chuck’s right there with his brothers and sister. Surprisingly enough, it’s Dave that I usually have to look for when I’m missing a kitten on the sofa.
You can’t see it in this photo, but Chuck has a light brown diamond shape on his back just below his neck. It became my way of telling him apart from Dave and Lulubelle when I see them from above. If I see his face, Chuck has a white patch above his mouth, Dave has some tiger-like stripes, and Lulubelle has some light brown markings similar to her mom’s.
Dave
Dave (née Davina when I originally misgendered him) is the smallest kitten, but he’s the first to run out and greet me when I get up in the morning. The friendliest of the bunch, he’s been known to snooze against my neck and even lick my neck. Chuck and Dave are partners in crime, and I’m sorry to see they’re probably getting split up.
Why those three names? I recently turned 64, and a certain Beatles song was in heavy rotation in my head for over a month leading up to my birthday. I joked with my neighbor that it would be funny if the kittens were born on my birthday and had a girl and two boys that could be, as the song puts it, “[Grandkittens] on your knee, Vera, Chick, and Dave.”
Lulubelle
Lulubele is the kitten that will stay with me when her brothers and sisters go to their fur-ever homes. She got that name because on Catmas 2023, a very smart young woman sang, “But goblins, you can go to hell, cos you’re not eating Lulubelle.”
There are conflicting reactions to Lulubelle’s name in “The Church on Ruby Road.”
RUTH: She’s called Lulubelle. RUBY: Oh… CARLA: What a terrible name. RUBY: Oh, an absolutely terrible name. RUTH: Isn’t it awful?
DOCTOR: That is such a brilliant name. I wish I was called Lulubelle. [chuckles]
You can hear the entire “The Goblin Song” on YouTube. In the UK, get the comments about the name Lulubelle in context on the BBC iPlayer. Outside of the UK, you can find it on Disney+ where available.
Lulubelle’s the other shy kitteh, but she was the first to greet me many mornings before Dave decided he wanted to be the first to say “good morning” most days.
Kenny
As I said above, Vera greeted me one day by hissing at me. They reminded me of my ex-wife, but I mistakenly called the wrong white kitten Kathleen after my ex-wife. Of course, Kathleen turned out to be a boy kitten, and I first called him Kelly, but a day later I went with a South Park reference and said no bastards better try to hurt him.
He’s also the chattiest of the five kittens. His early meows used a voice that sounded like it was seasoned with a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey. Those scratchy meows come back from time to time, but now he sounds more like the great of his family. He loves to wrestle, and I’ve had to scold him for being too aggressive with his sisters, and if I end up having to keep the spray bottle close by it will be for Kenny. But when he wants a nap, he has no trouble coming up and snugging against me. He’s just especially vocal when he’s tired and can’t get the human to figure out what he’s asking for.
Eventually, the band will break up
We always knew we wouldn’t be keeping all of Babe’s kittens. Even before she got pregnant, my neighbor said he wanted her to have one litter, and I’d get my pick of the litter. While Dave and Kenny enjoy spending time with me, little Lulubelle won my heart pretty quickly.
When Bobby’s friend Megan heard Babe was pregnant, she quickly said she wanted to get two kittens for her son, Max. Last weekend Megan and Max came over to visit the kittens, and Dave went right over to Max. Later this summer, Dave will be moving south to live with him. He wants a boy and a girl, and Vera/Veto is so comfortable with him that it looks like she will be joining Dave on the drive south. Of course, there’s only one girl in the litter, Lulbelle, so when Megan and Max come back later this week to see the kittens once more before his move, so we’ll see how he feels about there only being one girl. I think the three of them make a nice looking family.
I’m almost back to daily pictures
I stopped trying to get daily pictures of the kittens when I got locked out of my Flickr account. I’ve gotten back to trying to take daily kitten pictures, and I should be posting pictures almost daily here on My Two Lives. Videos will go to YouTube when I get them, and often the only thing stopping me from getting video more often is that by the time I can get my phone to get video the scene has changed too much to be worth capturing.
I have a few days of photos to add, and I’m still trying to decide on the best way to post each day’s photos. There may not be a new picture posted every day, so the best way to make sure you don’t miss out on a new cat picture is to visit the site daily. I’ll also be posting here about my music, and I’m getting close to finally being able to get back to work on the demo I posted about in February. I’ll also be posting about my virtual life in Second Life, so I’m trying to find a way for my readers to get notifications only when new kitten photos get posted. In the meantime, you can visit the site daily to see if there’s new content. If you have a WordPress account, you can also follow me in their reader apps.
I’ve been posting a new kitten picture every day since the kittens were born. When I tried to post a new picture today I got an error as if my account was non-existent. I’ve reached out to Flickr to see what’s going on, but since I can’t post today’s picture to Flickr, I’ll post it here.
Some friends from Dodgers Twitter bought Babe a cat bed as a Catmas gift but it was a little small for her. I set it up last night to see if the kittens might like it. These three seem to think it’s pretty comfy. The kitten on the right went in it today and was happy to chill out in the bed by herself.
Babe’s babies are three days old today, and they’re so sweet to look at, I’m glad I don’t check my blood sugar more often than I do.
I try to get at least one picture a day, and I’ve created Babe’s new babies, a Flickr album with the best pictures I get of Babe and her babies from every day. I’ve also created Babe’s Babies, a playlist of the videos I get of the furry family. There’s only one video right now, but I’ll be adding at least one or two videos every week.
You’ll want to check those two links often to see the latest photos. There will be a lot of furry content coming over the next 6-8 weeks as the kitties get ready to go on to their new homes.
Today, the combined family in my building got a bit bigger. Babe, my neighbor’s cat, had kittens. Mom and babies are doing fine, and I was able to grab a picture of the new family.
Some of the kitties already have new homes waiting for them, and I know the others will go to homes where they will be welcomed and loved.
Vera/Vito
Charlotte/Chuck
Dave
Lulubelle
Kenny
