Kittens! [Updated with pics]

[ETA: I added the pics, below ;-) ]

So the sweet little black and white cat that I feed outside, who I call “Little Mama,” had her kittens! She’s been very preggers for the past few weeks, and then about a week ago showed up sans belly. Well, my roommate and I said, so much for taming these babies (her previous litter was born and raised elsewhere in the neighborhood, and while they come around for food they are terrified of people, which frustrates me because I really, really want to get them all fixed).

Then last evening the neighbors called to say Little Mama had brought two kittens to their porch, and once they noticed that, they heard mewing from inside their garage. They opened the garage door, and Little Mama went right in and promptly moved the other two kittens inside. They called my roommate to ask if we’d help get the babies out and find another place for them. After moving some things around, we found Mama with four teeny, tiny, barely-have-their-eyes-open babies, all black and white like mom, and all so damn adorable that I want to adopt them all.

We put them in a large box with towels and “hid” the box under a bench on the front porch, where we already had a little “nest” fashioned out of mounds of blankets for Little Mama’s other youngsters (we’ve had some real cold snaps, and the kitties loved curling up in the corner among the blankets). The bench is in a corner, and I covered the bench and draped the box with blankets, sheets, and towels, trying to cozy it up as much as possible. I then made a little hidden entrance for Mama. The babies, who’d been doing that adorably clumsy baby-cat-tottering, eye-blinking, “what’s this big whole world thing?” maneuvers in the box, seemed to like the less-noisy, darkened corner. They quickly became a pile of fur and went to sleep. Mama didn’t seem to care overmuch, not even that we were petting and oohing and aaahhing over the babies; she trusts us and thinks of this house as at least one of her homes. ;-)

I was half afraid that Little Mama would move the babies to a more hidden place (neighborhood tomcats do prowl onto the porch and nab food), but I just checked and she’s in the box, all curled up and nursing the sweet little darlings. So far she seems ok with the arrangement.

I’ll post pictures later on; I’d go take some now, but I feel like I’ve disturbed her enough for this morning, lol. (Pics are up, below!) I’m so glad that these babies have a chance to grow up with people, so getting them fixed and adopted will be much easier. :-)

(Especially since I’ll adopt them all…wait, no I won’t because I don’t have room for five cats. Yes, I must keep them all! No, no I can’t…) <— the internal dialogue/war is going to be epic!

Here is the little nest/hideaway we made for them—a bench covered in lots of blankets and sheets:

Mama was dozing when I took the first pic…

Then she woke up and stretched…

Awwwww! Bebbehs!

Look at the wittle head of the poor guy on the bottom of the pile, lol!: