Kittens for my Birthday

As noted in my last post, we have aquired a pair of kittens. Their names are Celesto and Liz. They are calicos, and Celesto's coloring is grey/white/tan, while Liz is black/white/tan. Celesto is named after the elder lioness at the Houston Zoo, who turned 22 this past summer. Her name is pronouned KUH-LEASE-TOE and means "heavenly." We had picked out the name Leo, but when we chose a girl kitten, we decided to name her after a real lion at the zoo. Liz is short for "Lizard" which is pronounced in the traditional manner and means exactly what you think it means. Her full name is actually "PJ's Lizard," since we promised PJ that we would get him a lizard to play with...a cat-shaped lizard.

The kittens offically became ours this weekend, my birthday weekend. Due to shelter laws, we couldn't adopt them until after they were spayed, so we have been fostering them for the last few weeks. We have to take them back to the shelter one more time for their last round of shots. At that time, we will get their rabies certificates and their licenses and then we can just take them to our regular vet from here on out. Yay!

It is a lot of fun watching them run around the living room and see their personalities develop. They spend most of their time playing, eating, sleeping, and pooping, but not necessarily in that order. They've gained almost a pound in three weeks, so they definitely have a healthy appetite. Celesto is the more cautious of the two, and probably the more clever. Liz runs into situations fearlessly, and when Celesto sees that Liz didn't get killed or maimed, she will join her sister. Liz will eat just about anything, and regularly helps Max finish his food (she's channeling Scout). Celesto loves to play with feathers and pounce out from a hiding place. They both love to climb up our legs. Celesto also enjoys chewing on shoelaces (another Scout fave). At first, both kittens were pretty interested in PJ, but mostly afraid of Max. That has since flip-flopped, since they have realized that Max is a big softie and PJ is a big meanie. In the past week or so, PJ has softened up a bit and has played with them for short amounts of time, but he soon tires of their energy and ends up growling and sulking off.

Here's some pics of the kittens.