Thanks, Everyone

I nearly fell asleep at dinner tonight. Russ sent me off to bed for a couple hours rest... and I slept through an entire feeding. The little guys don't seem to have suffered too much from it, although I didn't know anything that small could sound so annoyed....

The three are still doing pretty well. I'm worried about at least one of them in particular who seems to have an awfully bloated stomach. Nothing I've tried so far has helped.

After we fed them I remembered that I hadn't put any food out for the poor guys outside. There were still a couple around, like Pretty. So I went and got the food and reached to open the window -- and up jumped Whisper, the one we assumed was their mother.

Tomorrow we're going to try and lure her in with them. It might be that she was gone for a few days because she has kittens of her own somewhere, though, and we were mistaken about her being the mother. It would be very helpful if we could get the real mom cat in, though, to help the poor little guys out.

Did I mention that one of them climbed half out of the box tonight? He was hanging over the side of the box when I finally noticed. Doesn't even have his eyes open, and he was going for the big break. This really worries me. Right now we keep a towel over the top to help keep them warm, but I get the feeling that won't help for much longer.

I would like to think that they'll do all right. I'm worried, though, partly because Russ is going to be gone from Friday through Sunday, and that sounds like an invitation to disaster for me. He's really helped out, and worrying that the guys aren't even going to survive is making me half ill. The idea of being here alone with them dying... well, I just won't do well.

I have not done any pictures. This probably sounds odd, but if they don't survive, I don't want the reminders. I might do some tomorrow, though. I can delete them, after all. And if they do survive, it will be good to remember what tiny little things they were. Russ thinks they've grown quite a bit already. They should start opening their eyes by this weekend, no matter what. They were not newborns when I found them -- two or three days old, at least. I'm betting they were born on the 14th, so they should have their eyes open somewhere between the 21st and 24th.

I think this will be a good thing. They should be easier to handle if they can start recognizing things like the feeding bottle and not try to go rushing off over my lap, looking for it. On the other hand, they're going to want to explore, and without a mom cat to keep them in line, there is no telling what trouble they could get into. I think they'll be bathtub kittens, with blankets and stuff to keep them warm. If the temperature ever evens out around here, it will help. It's 44f out right now, and might get a bit colder tonight. It's only suppose to get up to 55f (with rain) tomorrow. So the heat stays on for a day or two more.

And I'm tired still. I have to stay up about three more hours and do another feeding before I go to bed. I need to get contracts done, anyway. I had at least gotten some of the articles set up for the copyeditor and into the Excel sheet so I have a clue. I can do the last few, I think, and then maybe get the contracts out.

Got a story rejection today, but that's pretty much par for this month, I think. Need to get one more thing into the mail/email before the month is out.

Really don't think I'll be going to ConQuesT this year, unfortunately. Finances just are not getting any better. Russ has only one teaching job this week He shouldn't have taken me off to De Soto last Monday. We really don't have the money... but it was a wonderful little trip.

Okay, go do work....