Growing Up - Day 17

17 days, 7.65oz, 6 feedings, 2 butt baths, 1 dose Ponazuril, 0 vet visits. A nice count down to summarize my day. Phoenix has been doing well. He continues to have blood come out after going to the bathroom, poor guy. You can tell he's in pain when it's happening. Let's hope that some more time with the medication will help improve this. His poop today already seemed better than before (less accidents), so that's hopefully a good sign.

Approaching a Milestone

I'm always excited when Phoenix hits some kind of milestone. It's a way to make me feel more comfortable about his state. I always worry that maybe something is wrong (especially internally), so seeing this normal progress really helps.

I've referenced the kitten lady before - here's a nice page from her site about determining age (but also kind of demonstrates some milestones). Check it out; http://www.kittenlady.org/age, but I've also included a picture from her site below.

So, as you can see, Phoenix should have had his eyes opened quite some days ago. His eyes are only just starting to open now! It seems like Phoenix may be about a week behind in his development. But before I worry about that too much, let's make sure these eyes open up first.

So I tried to snap a photo of it. I tried yesterday, too, and failed miserably. We were able to get a "better" picture today. I'm sure you can see why I call it "better". It's not the most flattering picture of Phoenix. When we feed Phoenix, I sometimes pull back a bit on his face to help him latch a bit better when he's eating. This kind of stretches his face, but really helped emphasize the eyes. Take a look at the eye on the right of the picture (his left eye). If you look closely, you can see the tiny opening! Remember, kittens open their eyes from the inner corner to the outer one. I'm looking forward to watching these eyes continue to open their way up.

Once Phoenix finally opens his eyes (and ears!), then the next thing to look out for will be him walking. While he moves around pretty well, he largely uses his front legs to get him by. The back legs don't have all that much to them, and he's not using them to walk around. So for the most part, he kind of slides and drags himself all over the place. Today we had a pen arrive for the little guy. We won't transfer him into it quite yet. Since a kitten is expected to become more mobile around 3 weeks, I wanted to be ready. I think the reality is that we'll need one week on top of that before I move him in to a bigger area that will allow him to play around.

Another thing that I can't wait to see is what color he will be. While it is possible he'll keep his all white fur, there's also a chance he's Siamese or part Siamese. This means that as his body temperature drops, his fur will be able to develop some pigment! That's why Siamese cats have colored fur around their face, ears, tails, and paws. I've mentioned before that it's possible the little guy might end up with orange. I've been trying to snap a picture of one of the neighborhood cats since then. I ended up seeing one recently; the quality of the photo isn't great since I took the picture with the window screen in the way. But maybe this gives an idea of what I think at least half our kitten is! But honestly, I know very little about kitten breeds, so I don't know much of what to expect here.

We also had 2 butt baths today. I'm definitely appreciating using the sync much more than the old tupperware we were using for this purpose. It's been much faster, and then the rinse is a lot easier. He's also been getting shampooed each time, which I think helps a lot with making him cleaner. Not going to lie, he still ends up tinged a bit yellow even after a quick bath. But hopefully the upcoming few days will improve this. I did get Nguyen to help me get a photo of him after he's been rinsed off. It's hard to realize just how fluffy this guy has gotten until you see this photo. Don't worry, he still has hair, it's just really hard to see when he's soaked like that!

I happen to have the day off tomorrow. I'm excited for the break. It's not so much just the sleep but the juggling of two schedules that could care less about one another. Having tomorrow off will also let me prep for Saturday. We'll be driving an hour to visit my mother and sister. We'll need to prep another heating pad... but since I'm not working tomorrow, maybe I'll try boiling it myself this time. Let's hope I don't start another smoke disaster at home.