For your reading enjoyment, here is a little story I wrote a few years ago about a wonderful experience I had as a child. 🙂
“Nita, wake up! It’s time!”
“What?” I said sleepily, struggling to get my eyes open. “Time for what?”
“Spice is having her kittens,” my mom replied. “Do you want to come and watch?”
Kittens! Oh, my, yes! Of course, I wanted to watch! As I scrambled out of the tangle of my covers, I realized it was still the middle of the night. Wow, I’d never been up at this time before! And just think…our very own kittens! I eagerly grabbed my pink bathrobe and matching slippers to ward off the October chill. I pushed my long brown hair back as I followed my mom down the darkened hallway to our dimly lighted kitchen. She cautioned me to move slowly and quietly so I wouldn’t startle Spice. Underneath our wooden kitchen table in a brown cardboard box was our beautiful calico cat. My two older sisters were already sitting on the linoleum floor when I knelt quietly down beside them. Dad appeared with my three brothers and soon all six of us kids were jostling for position around the box to take in this amazing sight.
“What’s that little thing Spice is licking?”, asked my younger brother, Mark, as we all peered into the box at a little egg-shaped blob lying beside our pet.
“It’s a kitten”, said Sherry, laughing. I guess since she was the oldest of us kids, she knew more about these things.
“It doesn’t look like a kitten”, said Mark doubtfully. I wanted to agree with him but with four older siblings sitting right there beside me, I decided to keep my thoughts to myself. How could that slimy looking thing be a kitten?
We watched in fascination as Spice licked and licked. Sure enough, as the slimy stuff was cleaned away, we began to see orange and white fur emerge. It WAS a kitten!
“Listen!”, said my sister, Susie. “Hear that? Spice has got her motor running!” We sat in total silence and listened to our new mama purr her happiness. When the tiny kitten let out a loud “Mew!”, we laughed softly at such a big sound coming from such a tiny baby.
We spent the next couple hours huddled drowsily together on the kitchen floor as Spice delivered five wiggly little bundles of fur. Our fingers itched to hold their silky softness, but Mom said we had to wait to hold them until they were a little older.
“We have a problem”, said my brother, Roger. “There are six of us and only five kittens. When we play with them, one of us won’t get to hold a kitten.”
My brother, Keith, the problem solver of the family, calmly remarked, “It works out just fine. This way, one of us will get to hold Spice.”
With that problem solved, Mom and Dad chased us off to bed again. As I snuggled under my warm covers, I smiled as I thought of how much fun we would have with our new little family.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little story about a new litter of kittens. The pictures are not of Spice and her babies, but they are pictures of another new batch of kittens that were born about a week ago. Our grandchildren stayed up very late to watch them come into the world and it reminded me of my own experience with new kittens. 🙂
The Kids Niche 