More kitten developmental milestones: Two of the kittens have their eyes sorta open. The gray kitten is furthest along in that regard, and seems to be the best walker of the group so far. But these skills come at a terrible price: he's really annoying.
He whines more often and louder than any of the others. He doesn't seem to be in distress, he just seems impatient with this phase of kittenhood. He cries when he's hungry and can't immediately start nursing, he cries when the other kittens step on his head (but not when he steps on them!), he cries when he crawls away from Lucy, he cries when he's nursing, which is quite a feat. The other kittens are pretty quiet, although this morning they were literally swarming all over Lucy, squealing the whole time. Here's some video of Lucy's daily routine, feeding the kittens and try to groom them while they run roughshod all over her. UPDATE: I have uploaded a lighter version to better reveal the antics of the black kitten.
The calico cat also has her eyes open, but she's relatively silent. She's really cute but all the photos I've taken of her come out looking like the crate monster from Creepshow. Perhaps she's photograph better in another week or so.
The ginger cats haven't opened their eyes yet, but it looks like the corners are giving way, so they should be open soon. They're significantly larger than the non-ginger kittens, I'm not sure why that is. They're all getting enough to eat, although they still haven't learned how to share nipples yet. Luckily, the first-served will drift off to sleep after a while, allowing the next team to move in.
Here's another video in which one of the ginger cats leaves the safety of the box to seek his fortune on the outside. I kept waiting for him to turn around and go back in the box, but instead he chose to just to spin in circles ad nauseum. Meanwhile, Lucy, who normally would come out and pick him up, was dealing with all the other kittens, so I had to put him back in, where he promptly burrowed under his mom.
hi! hi, Chris! hey, I know why the orange kitties might be bigger (maybe) - they could be from a different dad, and they could maybe have been conceived earlier? Also, hi! I am now fostering five kittens (as of yesterday) from the ACC - they are being bottle fed. One is sort of weak, bu the others seem to be doing okay, considering they have no mom...
I love that top photo. Those videos are awesome, too.