Cuddly - Days 61 and 62

All is going well here.  Asher seems to be doing better, though I'm still monitoring his litterbox.  Phoenix's appetite has returned (after reading around online, loss of appetite for 24-48 hours after a vaccination is not unusual).  We've been giving him dry food for overnight, and his poop is doing well (if not even better).

Phoenix runs around pretty independently during the day.  We keep him in his room at night (my office or his room...?), but otherwise he's out and about doing whatever he wants.  The largest challenge to being completely comfortable with him running around is Asher's litter.  Asher has a clumping litter, and kittens like to eat things.  A bad combination.  After looking it up, it seems that we need to wait until around 4 months to switch to a clumping litter.  Overall, Phoenix seems less interested in the litter these days (I think he's explored it sufficiently now with us watching), but we're still cautious.  He was playing around in it today; take a look!

He's also been making a variety of noises.  I'll try to catch some of these to share, but often times it happens when he's off exploring and I'm often not close enough to get audio.  There are meows and "whines" and something that sounds kind of like a "grunt".  All in all, he's been much more vocal.  He meows for food and for attention from time to time.  It's fun to hear his meows becoming more like an "adult" meow.

A while back I had written that he was able to get out of his plastic pen?  Well, it seems that he had gotten out by using one of the stuffed animals as a launch pad.  Since then, I had moved around his things so that he wouldn't have anything he could stand on to get out.  So it was Saturday morning, and I was in my online karate class.  I practice karate in that back room, and we usually leave Phoenix in his pen during that time.  Often times, he sleeps.  But this Saturday, he was wide awake.  While doing one of my leg stretches on the ground, Phoenix climbed up and out of his pen and decide to come and sit on my leg while stretching.  😂  I put him back in the pen, but seems he was quite confident in getting out.

So as of last night, Phoenix gets the whole room to himself.  I'll be taking the pen apart, since I'm not quite sure he can get back in once he gets out.  I've kitten-proofed the room by covering up my books with some cardboard just in case.  We were going to leave him in there while we went and visited some family today as well, but I've seemed to have caught some kind of cold so we stayed home today.

I've also recently gotten a new water "fountain" for Asher and Phoenix to see if that encouraged them to drink more water.  I was more concerned for Asher with the recent UTI, but figured it wouldn't hurt for Phoenix.  Apparently some cats prefer to drink from "running" water, so I figured I'd give this a shot.  Phoenix seemed quite interested in this new "thing" (see him staring intently in the photo?), though I'm not quite sure yet whether or not it's encouraged increased water consumption.

I don't think there's all that much to say.  I'm glad that things are falling into a rhythm.  Asher and Phoenix are getting along, and they are lying on the couch next to me as I write this.  They've been sleeping like this for at least an hour.  Asher woke up for a bit and groomed Phoenix.  And now they are sleeping again.  Here's the photo I just took (Phoenix just woke up, yawned, stretched, and went back to bed).

My leg is along the left side of the photo under the blanket.  The two of them tend to spend a good chunk of the day sleeping on the couch near me like this.  Since I've been sick, I took a nap on the couch earlier today.  Phoenix came by to sleep with me, and Asher eventually came over to join us.

Oh, Phoenix moved again.  Here's the updated photos from his recent move (he moved a couple of times as I was taking pictures).  Oh gosh, they moved again.  Each time I go to put the photos here, they shift.  And it just gets better and better.  Asher is up and licking his head again.  One of them trilled (I think Asher?).  I suppose real-time updates might be more useful on something like twitter (I think?  I don't tweet), but we'll leave this as is.  Ok, going to upload this series of events:

I got the trill!  I'm pretty sure that's Asher.

They're both still sleeping there.  I'd say they both seem pretty happy.  Oh look, Phoenix moved again.

Alright - I should stop here.  Off to Photos and videos!

Photos and Videos

After I got up from my nap, he stayed and slept longer

Phoenix was on the cat tower when Asher decided to join him

"Listen kid, if you want to get the human's attention you have to...."

Playing on the cat tower.  I was worried Phoenix would fall off, so you see my hand make an appearance.  I've seen him fall off couches while playing before, so wanted to avoid anything happening from falling from such a height.

Sleeping in my lap

I was working on a homework assignment.  The wires were intriguing to the little guy.  By the time I finished the assignment, he was sleeping in my lap.

Little monster playing with a toy.  Just look at that dangerous face.

Playing in my lap

Sleeping together, Saturday edition

More sleeping

Look at how long he is.  He's wedged in between my legs.

More sleeping.

And more.

Me being silly 😂

I have no idea why, but he really likes to go sit in the fridge when we open the door.  I've tried closing him in there for all of 1 second... but he ends up just sitting there stubbornly until I move him.

Semi-awake.

You can hear him purring up a storm.  He does this often.  He'll hop onto the couch and start purring like crazy when he's getting ready to fall asleep.

Phoenix playing with a ball.

Phoenix likes to play with things that move.  This includes our feet, but also Asher's tail.  I ended up moving him because Asher was trying to eat and was clearly not happy.  He almost makes a choking/huffing noise, so I moved Phoenix to go play elsewhere.

Turns out, Phoenix's own tail is "something that moves".  So here he is discovering his tail and going after it... fantastic timing, he's woken up now and has decided my typing fingers are worth playing with.

Last photos before Phoenix completely woke up and decided to jump off the couch to go play.  There was at least one hiss somewhere in here.

That's all for today.  My last post will be tomorrow when we celebrate our 9 week mark.