Welcome To The Family! + General Life Update

First of all, I want to apologize for being such a bad blogger and commenter. Getting back to the swing of things after being unplugged for 9+ days has been more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm slowly getting back into the habit of reading and commenting every day, so stay with me. I'm also working on watermarking the pictures from our vacation, so hopefully those posts will be up this week as well.

In baby making news, it's CD 8 with AF out the door, but no ovulation in site. Fertility Friend has me ovulating anytime from this Saturday to Saturday the 24, so I'll probably start taking OPKs over the weekend to catch the right days.

In general life news, we got a new addition to the family this weekend!

While she's not of the human variety, she's pretty darn cute. She's a 12 week (ish) all black cat who's seems to be getting some silver in her coat. Mama cat decided to have her litter in an attic of a house, and when animal control came to take away the rest of the kittens, momma couldn't get back in, so she was left alone. She was caught by the vet that we adopted Mika from (our orange and white cat who I've written about before,) who then emailed me right before we left for vacation, asking if we had room for another kitten. I let her know that we were about to leave and didn't feel comfortable leaving the two cats together without our supervision, but if she was still available when we got back, we'd love to see how she got along with Mika. 

Come last Monday, we were told that Black Kitty (we still haven't come up with a name for her yet,) was still available. I asked the vet if we could pick her up on Friday and see how she got along with Mika over the weekend. I didn't want to promise to adopt her and then learn that Mika, being the priss she is, wouldn't tolerate another cat. 

Friday came, and Keegan and I picked her up together. She was so timid that the vet tech let us take the green cat climber that she had claimed as hers home with us so that she'd have something familiar to stay in. We put her, the climber, a litter box, and food and water in one of our spare bedrooms and closed the door to let her get used to her new surroundings. Friday night through Sunday, we'd go into the bedroom a few times each day to talk and play with her so that she could get comfortable with us. She's still quite skittish, and jumps when there's an unexpected noise or when Keegan laughs, but she's so much more relaxed around us than she was on Friday. 

We left the bedroom door open a crack so that Mika and Black Kitty could see and sniff each other. There was some hissing from Mika, which we expected, but Black Kitty just seemed to want to be friends. One time, when I was holding her, she jumped out of my arms and ran right up to Mika which took Mika by surprise. She really seems to come out of her shell when she's around another cat. 

Last night, while Keegan and I were watching a movie, we took Black Kitty out of her room and let her roam around the couch with us. Mika hopped up a few times to sniff her out, but seemed generally uninterested. Near the end of the night, Black Kitty jumped down from the couch to explore our living room. There was some stalking form Mika, but thankfully, no more hissing. I think that we're going to try a few more nights of supervised interaction and then let Black Kitty out of her room permanently over the weekend.  

She's only 12 weeks, but already about the size of Mika, so we expect her to grow up to be the size of a normal cat. Her eyes are constantly round and huge, and I'm not sure if that's because she's still not 100% comfortable around us, or if that's just who she is. It's a huge contrast to Mika's eyes which are normally slits that looks like she's constantly judging you. I think that with time and some more loving from us, she'll grow to be a well adjusted member of our family. 

Anyone have a good name for a black cat? We're considering calling her Tufts because she has these strange tufts of fur coming out of her ears, but we're not sure if those are going to be permanent.