The pre-days

Well, kitty's home in a week. I am 90% sure I am receiving a boy, but that's an unimportant matter at this given point in time.

Right now, I have to get ready.

I live at home with my parents, still, and my much, MUCH younger brother who is eight and a half. Now, he is hardly ever at home but you know small children and young animals don't often get along well, so I had a talk with the boy today about some things I expect of him when he is around the new baby.

The first was the obvious: no pulling his tail or ears, no pushing your fingers in his mouth, don't throw things at him, he is not a plaything, and don't let him on the kitchen table or counters. I then had to explain some other things since he was just young when Scruff came to the family. I had to explain that the kitten WILL chew on everything and attack his toys and play with the small things. If they move, he's going to chase it. If they're fun, he will play with it. Our idea of fun and his idea of fun are COMPLETELY different. I also asked him to pick up the tiny pieces of his Lego toys that he is so obsessed with.

I am a neat freak. In fact, I'm a little OCD about the space I'm in being clean and orderly, so I've been waiting for an excuse to get after my brother to clean up the living room.

This is a clear example of what you DON'T want a baby cat getting into:




Our house has had a couple of cats in the time we've lived in it, so the house itself is pretty cat-friendly. There's access to the room with the boiler and furnace where we kept the cat litter via cat doors both into the bathroom and then from there into the room and nothing else is really dangerous (except, of course, all the electrical cables. But there's little you can do about that).



The only problem we have is our cupboards in the kitchen near the floor. The doors tend to pop open (I swear, the ghosts do it...) and of course cats are cats so they like to crawl in there. But there's hardly anything dangerous about a couple frying pans and some plastic bowls...

There's also a vent under the cupboards that I am a little worried about. It should be fine since it's summer, but in the winter it blows warm air and Scruff used to pop the vent out to gain more heat. A kitten can fit IN it, but as I said it only blows warm air in the summer. So it shouldn't be an issue.




The kitten will live in my room for the first few days as he is coming to a new home and I want him to get used to me and my family before he's off to wander during the day. Even after a few days he won't spend much time outside the room until he's comfortable with everything and I'm sure he's not going to murder himself.

My room is almost completely kitten safe.




I may be OCD about things being neat, but I am CRAZY about it inside my room. It's clean and nothing sits on the ground. I spent so much time in a messy room when I was younger and it drove me NUTS.

The only thing I am worried about in my room is electrical cables.



Besides that, there is nothing in my room that a kitten can reach that I care to worry about. The only other thing that hangs down that the kitten would play with are the saddle strings on my old barrel saddle.





I am also a little worried about my guitar and computer cables. The cable problem is easily fixed by cardboard making a temporary barrier until the kitten gets out of the "eat everything in sight" phase.







And so, with everything addressed and considered I must start looking at the problems and making sure everything is going to be fine.

Of course the safety craziness ends after the chewy phase ends, so it's just going to be a little while of keeping a close eye on the baby. But I am very excited!