This Summer Was The Cat's Whiskers...

...nine cats to be exact, or ELEVEN if you count Thomas and Mavis.

No sooner than we put our sandy bodies in the car leaving Lake Michigan, the backseat driver was asking when we were going to the Humane Society to get our first litter of foster kittens. Ella was ready to take care of babies again. And so it goes that we embarked on Foster Project 2016.

 We set out on a three week adventure with Opal, Storm and Shark. We took a ridiculous amount of photos along the way.

 My girlfriends couldn't even stand it.

These sibling were crazy climbers. Shark was appropriately named.

 Ella took over as lead foster mom and blew us away with her sweet soul.

 What a fantastic threesome they were for us. Saying good-bye never gets easier, no matter how many times we do this.

Saying good-bye is quite a bit easier when your BFF is with you. Roz and Katie both are very supportive each time we foster. (So supportive last year that they ended up with our Miss Hannigan!)

We came home and returned to normal routines. I got the house back to normal. Thomas and Mavis breathed collective sighs of relief.

We did stuff.

And then Ella got the bug again. She was relentless about fostering again. All three of us talked about it. Ella and I made a stop at the Humane Society where we were quickly ushered into the baby/foster room and presented with our biggest challenge: a litter of six. Holy sh*t, people - six babies with no mom. Mom was feral, attacked one of her babies, attacked the staff and had to be separated from this rat pack.

Ella's eyes were as huge as I've ever seen them. She whispered to me, "Please mom, just please." She and I sat down on the gross humane society floor and talked about what a huge challenge this was going to be; how much more help she was going to need to provide me. We left the humane society 20 minutes later with a trunk full of supplies and two carriers full of screaming baby kittens.

 They were tiny. They were dirty. They were hissy and scared. It was like having six newborns with colic all on the same crying schedule.

We fell hard for every last one of them.

Panda

Stitch, attacked by his mama and the runt. He was so ragged.

Aretha.

 A bouquet of kittens.

Every morning.

Keeping kittens out of coffee: difficult.

 The more we held them and let them run under our feet, the easier life got for them. They started trusting. Panda became Ella's shadow. The other five became mine.

 Thomas spent time exerting Alpha Male hissing. Cheetah (below) spent a lot of time hissing back.

 Mavis is such the good big sister to the fosters.

 Toilet paper. I lost SO MUCH toilet paper to these punks.

Helping Larry get ready for a gig.

 Socializing lessons with the Harrison family!

Normal behavior - my legs become fair game at feeding time.

How do I transport 6 kittens to their cage? A bag, of course!

 Last week, we knew that we would be saying good-bye. We knew they weren't all up to the weight to be adopted but we were leaving for a short vacation. It was time to let them go.

Stitch won for Most Improved Player.

Cheetah.

Larry.

Oliver.

Panda.

Stitch.

Aretha.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy letting go. A week later, and we are still missing them terribly. We did big, hard work with this litter. It was the hardest job we've done since fostering. Each of them wiggled his or her way into our hearts. We grew good babies and the pride I feel for my little girl is immeasurable. She is beyond good at this.

Roz fell hard too.

I can't express how happy I am that I listened to Ella's clamoring to foster not once, but twice this summer. I am also very, very happy to not be cleaning out kitty litter boxes a dozen times a day.

Meow.

~H