plonq | (no subject)

So tired. Imagine that said with the words drawn out into a long, whiny inflection. That's how I feel this morning. I think I managed to squeeze in about 30 minutes of sleep last night between regular insomnia, and "noisy kitten syndrome".

Yes, we have added a kitten to our brood. Not a foster - a former foster, actually.

Here's a familiar face.

We watched her sit in her cage at the shelter for two weeks without a sniff at adoption. We've both been feeling protective about her since we had her in our care, and after some discussion about it on Friday, we decided that we could make room for one more cat. We discovered after we got her home that, as with every cat I've ever had, she's not normal. I don't think that any cat could ever be called "normal", but it's sometimes a crap shoot over what form your cat's insanity will take.

I can understand the root of her habit; she's just been separated from her mother, and she's found herself in a house with two hostile cats, so she takes comfort in nursing. The problem is, she's got it into her tiny head that my earlobes are a potential source of yummy milk. This is not a good thing for your new kitten to discover at 2:30 in the morning. It is hard to sleep with a kitten sucking noisily on your earlobe. She has since discovered that she has tiny nipples, and that she is flexible enough to reach them. That's just wrong. I know she'll grow out of this phase, but in the short term it's hard to sleep with a kitten on your bed, purring loudly and sucking noisily on her own teats.

As tempting as it was to do so, neither of us tossed her off the bed. We don't want her to associate the bed with a place that she's not allowed to be. It's nice having cats curl up on the bed with you at night - especially in the winter, when they are like little furry hot-water bottles. We'll just tough it out (and use earplugs if necessary) until she feels confident enough to stop dry-nursing in the night.