We temporarily added a kitten to our family, 280 grams of purring fur. We didn’t keep him, but I spent five wonderful sleepless nights, and days, being a Kitty Mommy and feeding the monster every two hours.

It all started with my twice-daily trip to visit the puppies next door. I was talking with Radha when I heard a blood curdling noise. I thought one of the black crows that roam around had gotten trapped in the barn. I don’t like crows, not since one viciously killed the baby bunnies we had in our backyard in Texas. But I was still curious and walked towards the noise. It wasn’t a crow but a ridiculously small cat, all covered in mud and screaming pathetically.  They had put in a metal saucer about 2 feet in diameter up on a table. I know it sounds mean but it was a good spot to protect it. Earlier that day, Radha had found three kittens probably waiting for the mother to come back, and unfortunately she had moved them away. She doesn’t know where the other two had gone.

I didn’t even ask. I grabbed The Thing and told Radha it was going home with me. I have two female cats at home and I knew they would take care of it for a few days, putting to work their unused motherly instincts. We found a small plastic bag and shoved The Beast in there.  I walked back home with a kitten in a bag!

Please note that I didn’t even ask my husband, nor really had a plan as to what to do it the furball. I knew we couldn’t keep it. Worst case scenario I thought, it would live with the puppies, which isn’t a bad life, trust me!

I bathed it, and looked for a sign of a gender. Nothing apparent! I know tiny kittens cannot always be identified, so it switched from being a “it” to being a “he”, simply because in French, the default gender for cat is masculine.  

Day one, after a bath.

What do you feed such a small kitten? I went online and read that cow milk isn’t ideal. Fine, however I don’t have a goat in the backyard, nor a car to get kitty formula at the vet’s office. I still had some of Puppy Girl’s vitamins. It was probably 2 weeks old. I tried to make him drink milk out of saucer but he didn’t know how to lick yet. I found an eye-dropper and used it as a tiny baby bottle. It was so cute to see him use his little paws push on my fingers as to get the milk out.

The first night, I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. He kept sneezing and I know that’s a bad sign. He started breathing with its mouth open. I readied myself for the worse and made sure that he would feel loved no matter what happened, and he pulled through!

I spent five nights feeding The Thing a few drops of milk every 2 to 3 hours. I played with him during the day, took naps with him on my shoulder, slept with him snuggled under the blankets next to me at night. I admit putting him in the bathroom for a few hours so I could sleep without fear of crushing him.  In five days, he put on about 30 grams (one ounce), became a very inquisitive kitty, and his eyes started changing from black to blue.

My girls, the two kittens we have moved to India? Nothing. Not an ounce of interest. You know all those cute videos of momma cats adopting kittens, or the momma tiger adopting piglets? That is false advertising. My girls wanted nothing to do with “it”. Our big one came to sniff its butt a couple of time, but then disappeared. I had to be the momma.

There is no way we could keep him, that’s why we didn’t name him. Luckily I quickly found a cat rescue that would take him in until they could find a forever family. However, when I sent the lady the picture, she decided the next day that he was so cute she would keep it. On a Saturday afternoon, we took the trip to an area of Bangalore we had never seen, and handed the kitten in towards the next chapter of his life.

His new family said it was a girl, and they called her NK, for Noisy Kitty. It is true The Thing could vocalize at high decibels! She’s now about a month and a half, and still quite loud.  We miss that furball but we cannot rescue everyone and everything in town. We did the best we could and have wonderful memories.

My husband, and Sathya, no longer allow me to approach puppies or kittens, in fear that we will transform into Noah’s Ark, which, to me, would not be a bad thing!

Have a good life little kitty.