Mom’s BodyBlog

After the positive comments I got from you guys on the punching bag, I have decided I WANT one!!!

:)

After the positive comments I got from you guys on the punching bag, I have decided I WANT one!!!

:)

Does anyone know what can I gain from using a punching bag apart from reducing stress and letting off steam??  I saw one today and thought of getting it to vent my frustrations.

I would really appreciate advice from those of you who are familiar with ‘em punching bags. 

I am getting really confused.  I resorted to refilling a small bottle of shampoo for my girls to avoid them from wasting precious shampoo on making bubbles.  And I hid the remainder of shampoo.  Today I discovered that I hid it so well that I cannot recall where I kept the remaining shampoo for refill. 

Surely this is a bad sign.  I knew the anti depressant as well as depression itself have the tendency of making me forget but I had been doing pretty well the past few weeks.  Now it looks as though it is starting again.  At one point I was even forgot I was crossing a road until I was in the middle of the road.  Worst part about that incident was I stopped in the middle of the road & there was a car heading towards me.  Talk about being a danger to myself!!! 
Last few days I went through my mobile phone log and found out I have been sending messages without realizing plus I had forgotten I had read some messages sent to me.  All these happened when I was asleep or half asleep.  This is getting scary.  I have done this before but that was sometime ago.  Maybe my body is too tired from the medication and the stress of work.  Yeah, I have difficulties fitting in workouts even though I now have a gym at home all because I am too tired and too occupied with work until the wee hours of the morning.  I have hard time getting up in the morning, oversleeping more often than not.  Yeah, I do the usual…switching of my alarm clock half asleep and dozing off again.

I am beginning to see some truth in this, in my about 2 week old baby kittens.  Today they actually interact with me, their "mum" and they play with me. Loves me to tickle their bellies and touch them lovingly.  They recognize my voice and I believe they know my smell.  Loves chewing my fingers and hand.  Can you picture a mum with two clingy toddlers hanging by her skirt, wailing??  Well, substitute the toddlers with kittens…    Or on the other hand can you picture a mother breastfeeding twins, one on each breast?  Only difference is I bottle feed them both at the same time with 2 bottles.  Good thing I had enough sense to go out and get another pet baby feeder bottle.
Although they must have hated me when I stimulated them to pass wastes.  They obviously had problems doing their "business" by themselves still.  And no matter how I stimulate them they refuse to pass motion.  Finally I had to resort to an extreme method.  I gave them a mini enema each.  Just plain warm water in a syringe without a needle.  That did the job.  I don’t know if this is what a vet would do, but common sense tells me it ought to do the job after going through child birth myself.  The cute thing about them is that they are using the real toilet (with mum’s help of course!!).

:)

Exactly that.

I have had enough excuses to keep me away from gym the past couple of months.  Medication, kids, work, chores…you name it…and now baby kittens.  So I have taken the bull by its horns.  Got myself a mini home gym (pic from the online catalog) & it was delivered today.

Now I guess with "everyone" watching, I ought to get off my butt and start working out real hard!!  I know for now I look real "bad" compared to the previous months.  But if there is no black how are we to see the white (or gray for the matter) in comparison??!!

My babies started to play today!!!  Cosy (being a female…a great big tease!!) went all the way out to tease the more defensive "macho" Furry.   I must go out and get them a small little ball if I can’t find any among my little girls’ toys.

Yes, I am talking about my kittens who are now probably 13-14 days old.  I gave them a quick warm bath today followed by a luxurious warm blow dry session.  I still can’t believe it that these kittens are thriving under my care.  And I am so happy about it.  

YES!!  It is a hard job taking care of newborns indeed!!  I’d forgotten what it was like to bottle feed cos the last time I had to bottle feed was when my elder girl was a baby and she is now 9.  My younger girl I fully breast fed cos she was allergic to cow’s milk and still is.  So I understood fully when told kittens cannot take cow’s milk.

Looks like my nightmare has just begun although I am very happy to see both my newborns with both their eyes wide open now, mewing loudly to be fed and yeah, they look as though they are thriving.  One of them dutifully passed motion when I stimulated it (as I took instructions from the internet) but the other hasn’t started moving its bowels yet.  Both peed when stimulated.  Here I go into the eeky details of raising babies.  Even though they are not humans.  It is the joy of seeing and feeling living creatures thrive and grow.  They both really take me as their mother now.  How they lower the screeching and mewing when they feel my touch.  It is amazing how rewarding motherhood is.

Back to my nightmare.  I was always allergic to a lot of stuff, cats included being an asthmatic.  I knew I was challenging the situation when I took those kittens home.  I didn’t want to admit it earlier but I think I still am allergic to cats.  My throat went all tight since they came home and I have been in a stupor since then, only getting worse so far.  I wanted to blame it on the stress of having to feed them  almost every hour since they consume so little but …

No, I am not gonna give in to my allergies.  I am going to work around it and see what I can do about it.  As long as I don’t go into an asthma attack, I think I should be able to cope although I really hate feeling this way.  They are going to be raised indoors so it means even more physical contact although we are giving them a room to themselves.

:)

Furry with white face is male, eyes starting to open & Cosy is female, one eye fully opened with the other coming along.  They should be under 10 days old since their eyes aren’t fully opened yet.  I am exhilarated that they both fed vigorously today.    Aren’t they cute & adorable?  Loud chatter from my girls still bother them when they are feeding but when they are with "mom" aka me getting 100% attention…they feed very well although they do not consume very much.  Means, I have to feed them more often.  I wonder if there is such things are kitten diapers??  They make so much fuss each time they wet themselves!!!  Their "grandmother", my mum has been calling up regularly to ask about them. 

We adopted 2 tiny newborn kittens left behind by a stray cat at one of my daughter’s school.  There were 4 of them.  This silly ignorant woman thought it would be an easy job….after having such fantastic experience with my 2 girls.    Turns out that their eyes were hardly opened.  One had one eye opened and the other’s were still closed.  Went straight to the pet shop to get supplies.  Now why didn’t anyone tell me formula for cats cost a great deal more than breast milk!!??  Even the feeder bottles were so expensive.  Nevertheless, I wasn’t deterred.  Took me the whole afternoon and evening to figure out that (after surfing the internet) kittens can’t take cow’s milk (thank goodness for the expensive formula which I bought…   )  and that I had to finally nip off the tip of the nipple of the feeder diagonally to let the formula flow better and yet not drip.  Darling, mewing, stubborn kittens REFUSED to drink.  Then with the help of the online information, I forced fed them.  Nope, they didn’t drink that much.  And the box they were in was dry all night and all morning, too.  Got pretty worried and loaded them into the car and headed for the vet’s.  Looked like I had fed them correctly, only that I needed to be more patient….plus they had to be fed like every hour or so.  Although the vet did warn me the chances of survival without a mother cat is about 70%.  Happily, took them home and fed them.  They weren’t that co-operative.  But by 6 pm I managed to get the one with one eye opened to FINALLY suck & lick ….    and I still had to sort of force feed the other.  Probably it was more defensive cos it couldn’t see at all whereas the other still had an eye to see thru.  When I got home just now I was so relieved.  About what?  That they finally wetted themselves!!!  YEAH!!!    Never knew I would be so happy to find that kittens had urinated…    To me it is a good sign cos it was quite wet , means they are or at least one of them is NOT dehydrated.    And what made me feel even better was the reluctant one finally understood it has to drink.  Now I can go to bed looking forward to being an even better mother, not just to my girls but to the kittens, too.

p.s.  I found out that kittens only open their eyes by day 10.  And the kitten with one eye opened is starting to have the other eye slowly opening and its sibling also starting to open both eyes. Not fully opened but should be getting there in a couple of days.  I took the advice of the columnist who wrote wbout caring for newborn feral babies about simulating mother cat’s licking by using a damp cloth on their eyes.  I noticed they calm down when I do that. 

Oh, I also found great use for old under clothes , like old panties, socks, etc.  They make great blankets for the kittens and yeah…I need lots of ‘em rags to rotate.