A bit over two weeks ago, a member of the Labrador Retriever Rescue rescued a sick feral kitten. He had a terrible cold that had his eyes swollen shut and his ears and nose covered in the normal joy that comes with a horrendous head cold. She promptly took him to the vet where he was put on antibiotics for his cold as well as other medicines for ear mites and worms in his tummy. He responded within a matter of days to the antibiotics and proved to be quite social. Learning this, she put out notice to the other LRR members looking to see if they knew anyone who was interested in adopting this kitten. Kat sent the mail to me and for some reason, even having never seen the little boy, I said, “YES!” He was taken back to the vet for testing for FIV and feline leukemia and with those tests being negative, a meeting place, date and time was made for the exchange. Kat and I came up with the same name for him on the drive home… “Maestro” as he looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo and we’re a musical family. As she has pointed out to me, it was love at first site and he is NOT going anywhere. MY baby boy… MINE! He snuggled with me all the way home from the exchange and hasn’t stopped snuggling yet! He’s incredibly social and loves people. He is still in isolation in our guest room until his cold and the worms are clear. I dubbed him “Darth Maestro” this past Wednesday as he had been off of antibiotics for several days but his cold had decided to relapse. So, off we went back to Dr. Rice where Maestro refused to allow any writing on his chart until he recieved the attention from the doc he wanted! Now we’re back on antibiotics (which we love the taste of), some really yummy Purina re-Flora’ing powder to help our tummies and yup, still on the deworming meds. I have had cats all of my life but never one with worms. It is disconcertingly gross.  We also had our first ever distemper shot. We’re not going to like our four month visit… that’s when the snips come out. (Uhoh!)

Maestro adores everyone in our family… and everyone in our family adores him. Our daughters read in the evenings with him and he scampers all over them and their books. He loves their long hair and never stops purring. Weighing in at a manly two pounds, he packs a lot of purr for his weight! His favorite toy — FEATHERS! What’s even better than feathers? His people moving the feathers for him. He’s also a rub-my-belly baby. I hope he keeps that as he grows up. Scott wears cargo pants and Maestro loves ‘em! He climbs all over them and uses them as his personal jungle gym. As for me, I’m Mommy. I play, I feed, I clean the litter box, I shove yucky stuff in his face and I’m his favorite place to sleep. When I nap with him or even spend the night, he’s either curled up on my shoulder or stretched out across my neck. At this current weight, he’s not a problem across my neck. However, it may be an issue at ten pounds. But that’s ok. And, like my other baby boy, Ziggy, he likes to lick my face. None of my female cats do it, just my boys.

Maestro also loves any toys my daughters have. He loves all the little fiddly bit parts and things that make up eight year old toys. (Think Barbie shoe sizes and smaller.) His little head and feet fit right in there to “help” and they have quite the time with him. Today I took  him into their bedroom to have him “help” them excavate out the stuff under their beds. I don’t think any kitten could have been happier. He was scampering all over the place diving from under one bedskirt to another discovering all sorts of cool girlie things to play with.

When he’s not doing that, he looooooves his whale. It’s a great place to play chase with his human-driven feathers, too!

I know there’s only one picture… he’s hard to take pictures of! I mean, good pictures of. We have lots of blurry pictures… and pictures of his fuzzy butt… and the back of his head… and of him jumping at the strap on the camera. The picture up there is of Scott holding him above his head so he would hold still! What about while he’s sleeping? Urm, well, he’s a kitten. He wakes up the instant you walk into the room and starts zooming around all over the place!

He is SUCH a sweetie — thanks Alesha and Kat for our new baby boy!