Pooped - Day 11

Pooped.  I don't think there's any more appropriate word here.  I'm pooped.  I see a lot of poop.  I've gotten poop on me.  I've cleaned up poop from Phoenix, the towels, and his stuffed cuddle buddies.  So pooped it is.

Another Night and a Funny (?) Story

Another night went by.  The poop is still a disaster, and that has been the trend all day.  I'm tired of poop and am hoping for an improvement soon.  Let's hope the pumpkin and probiotics kick in.  At the very least, his poop is become a bit more orange (we were warned this would happen), so there's definitely some pumpkin in him!

I realized I forgot to tell a story from the previous night.  I call it a "funny" story, but it was hardly funny at the time.  Nguyen was taking care of one of the first feeding of the night around one in the morning.  He had propped the cow up on the side of the container.  Phoenix was crying (as he does).  I was awake and watching since Phoenix was having a hard time falling asleep.  Next thing you know, our stuffed cow slides off the side of the container and lands inside.  Now, you can't tell from the picture, but that cow has beads in its feet, so it wasn't the lightest of stuffed animals.

So after the fall of the cow, Phoenix goes quiet.  He was moving around, but he wasn't making noise anymore.  Silence.  Was a stuffed cow really going to be what led to the end?  I was out of bed now, and both Nguyen and I were fussing over our now silent kitten.  Thoughts of "how could Nguyen let that happen?" to "it could have happened to me" to "how will I ever be able to look at my stuffed cows again" flew through my head.

It was probably a minute or so later that Phoenix went back to his chipper, fussy self.  Seems like the cow may have shocked him into silence?  Had the cow played the role of mother and unknowingly disciplined little Phoenix into being more polite when asking for food?  I suppose we'll never know.  But I will say - I'll take our loud little kitten over that deafening silence any day.  It also makes for a funny "oops" parenting moment; now that it's after the fact, it's something that makes me chuckle a bit.

Moments of Fame

My boss had suggested putting out a zoom meeting for people at work to see a kitten feeding.  My team members have had a chance to see them because our morning meetings often fell around feeding time.  So I sent out a message and had a few people pop into a Zoom meeting to watch a live feeding session.

And so at 10am today, Phoenix had his 7 minutes of fame in front of 5 other people who stopped by to say hi!  Undoubtedly, this little guy has the ability to put a smile on a person's face, so I'm glad he was able to do that for at least a handful of people today!

Pooped

I'm definitely exhausted, and it's catching up to me.  I'm forgetting things more easily these days, so I've had to up my post-it note usage the last couple of days to stop forgetting things at work.  Of course, that only works when you remember to actually write the post-it note.

My meetings ended by 3pm today.  Shortly after, Phoenix woke up earlier than expected, so he got another meal at 3:15pm.  Some time after, I was hit with a need to sleep.  I took a wonderful nap on the couch that must have lasted for at least an hour, if not an hour and a half!

From there, it was time to prep for dinner.  Nguyen has primarily been taking care of our meals (though we have recently ordered out again as well).  He had some things for work that came up, so I was on meal prep for the night.  It was as I was finishing up making dinner that Phoenix had woken up again and was asking for food.  I realized I need to make another fresh batch of his formula (powder, pedialyte, pumpkin, and probiotics).  So with dinner done, I set out to make dinner for Phoenix (technically also his breakfast and lunch).

It was as I was finalizing Phoenix's food that I looked at my uneaten bowl of dinner.  And I just remember thinking, "I don't have time to eat this right now, I can ask Nguyen to help me and he can eat it."  And then the absurdity of that comment hit me.  While it would be wonderful if I could get my own meals by proxy of my husband, I'm well aware that becoming a kitten mom doesn't suddenly give us this super power.  It was just another funny reminder of how tired I was and how welcome the upcoming weekend would be!

Photos and Videos

I've been struggling to get good pictures recently.  He has been super active (yay!) which makes it hard to get nice photos while he's awake.  But here's a couple of highlights!

Another short video of Phoenix waking up.  He's definitely showing off his lungs here 😀

I've been trying to get a good photo of his milk mustache!  This is not a good photo, but if you look closely, you can see he has one!  Also - I promise you, that's not a death grip on the kitten.

Listen closely to this one.  He's purring.  It's a small background noise, but it's there, but you might need your volume up.  Just a head's up, he does meow once in there, so if your volume is way up, just be prepared.