Don't Mess With Mama

Violet has been our sweet, little kitty for over a year now. She’s a small cat. Very affectionate—almost annoyingly so.

She is so friendly that she got knocked up a while before Christmas. Colin is the one who found out…by saying her nipples felt bigger. Whatever.

So out pop the kitties. In the second picture they are pretty fresh. The first one is more recent. They are 3 and a half weeks now. One boy (the black) and two girls. Or so I think. I have looked at more pictures of kitten genitalia on the internet than I am willing to admit.

For those who I haven’t told about the birth, I found her holed up in Tassy’s bathroom, under the sink, in the cabinet. “What you doing in there, Sweetie?” I pulled her out, her claws scratching against the sides of the cupboard. And then a splat. A little squirmy thing the color of a grocery bag with a sack of blood attached fell on the linoleum floor. I panicked, ran and got on my gloves, as I had read all about helping in the delivery. Over the next three hours she squeaked out two more—all sans my help. Then she stood up and went to the back door and scratched frantically as if she wanted to find the guy who impregnated her and scratch the shit out of him.

She has been a good mama, feeding and taking care of them. But when too many little kids come petting the kitties she starts to freak out and hides them. This AM, Tassy’s friend, AnnaLevi was here and “Joke-alina” was missing. This is what the girls named the grey one since they think she is funny. So I go hunting and find her in a closet. Violet was trying to hide them but I caught her—yet again. I put her back in her comfy basket lined with towels that I lovingly put together weeks prior to the delivery.

Yesterday was the shocker though. She has wanted to get outside badly since the birthing. Of course she isn’t fixed yet, so we don’t want her to get out. She slips by our feet and lunges into the yard and the girls go shrieking and lecturing her, picking her up and hauling her back each time. Yesterday she got out and the three girls were in the back playing when I heard louder-than-usual girl shrieks. Violet had caught a bird and dragged it under the deck. I guess birthing her little ones had brought out some animalistic, hunt and gather-gene in her. The girls were screaming and the neighbor boy rushed over. Death, death, glorious death.

She then dragged the bird out, sat down beside it all proud and puffed up. AnnaLevi squirted Violet with the hose and we tried to get her away from her prey, which was still moving around, it’s beak open and ready to snip, but woefully unable to fly. Once again, I went into rescue mode, but this time I knew that euthanasia was necessary. But I just couldn’t do it. I still have flashbacks of my mother and I trying to kill a rat with a tennis racket.

I went next door to Jim’s house. He does something in the forest for his day job and his work truck says “Wildlife Resources” on the side. Perfect, I thought. Alas, no. Not at home. So I call John—he’s in insurance—but he’d have to do. He didn’t sound enthusiastic, nor experienced in what I thought most southern men were—twisting chicken heads off and such. He came over—supplying his own shovel, though I had a shovel, a saw and a leaf blower handy. The bird was scuttling across the yard at this point, not flying, but sort of twisting itself around and running in a zig zag. I corralled the girls into the front yard while John communed with the bird in the back. AnnaLevi’s dad happened to drive by just then and I called in his support, but John had done the deed and scooped the bird up and put it in our trash can.

I went to the front yard to see how the girls were handling all the blood and gore and found them happy as can be, spotting and picking four leaf clovers. They never mentioned it again. In the meantime my hands were shaking and I sprouted four new grey hairs.