Ready Player One Kittens - a new chapter

The time has finally come to separate Art3mis from her kittens. I wanted this to happen earlier than this as well as much much later. If I can, I like to keep kittens with their mothers because there is a lot they can learn that only a mother can properly teach and the additional nutrients she can provide are overly important. Unfortunately, Art3mis' attitude was rubbing off on the kittens and they not only had little use for me but they were also starting to fear me. While her mental health is very important, there are six kittens who need proper socialization.  I'm also taking some comfort in the fact that each time I challenged her she grew.  While going back to the shelter will be hard on her I am suspecting she will rise up to the challenge and surprise me.

(not that it doesn't freak me right out and I also fear that she will revert and be hard to place)

The kittens just passed the six-week mark and were due for vaccines and a general check in with the shelter.

Each one was weighed, vaccinated, dewormed and given a dose of revolution.

Art3mis was also weighed, vaccinated and dewormed, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it went.  She didn't growl once. She was obviously freaked out but we went slowly and she let us do what we needed to do. She will go up on the adoption floor to help her adjust and hopefully, her milk will dry up nicely and she will charm someone who has the patience to work with her. If they do, they will have a wonderful cat in their life.  I miss her already and lament that there wasn't more I could do for her.

The kittens were glad to be home. I had done a little cleaning and rearranging before letting them out of the carrier, so they were a little confused..

A few weeks ago I shared a cardboard slide on facebook that was made for kittens. My father saw it and thought to himself that he could make something like that, so he set upon a project to make a slide for me.

It seems a little big for kittens, but we will see what they think of it. If it is too much for them I'll see if we can rework it a little to be a little smaller, but kittens sometimes surprise me and maybe they'll love it at this size. I mean currently Evelyn thinks it makes an awesome bed.

As for the kittens missing mom, so far only Samantha and Parzival seemed to wonder where she went. Samantha called for her a few times but then went off to play with her siblings. Generally, cats and kittens expect that they are going to be separated and when the time comes generally seem pretty blasé about the whole thing. I have had kittens in the past that looked for their mom for several days - it was heartbreaking. Sometimes there are mother cats who bond hard with their kittens and do not want to be separated, just as there are siblings who are bonded, but on the whole, they accept separation as a part of life.

Update:

I stopped by the shelter Monday afternoon and dropped off an adoption card for Art3mis providing the information I have on her.  She was still there, sitting in the back of her cage. I reached in and patted her and she allowed it but didn't lean into it. I found some treats and offered them to her and she ate them which made me very happy. I offered her a little bit of food, and she stood up to eat it. I took photos of a couple of cats that were in the same adoption room that she was because they were flirting with me.  It is nice to see she isn't reverting and I am hopeful that she will come out of her shell a bit more and show a little better. A solid black cat who shoves herself in the very back of the cage is just so sad.