Simply Art-Rageous!

“Hellooooo! Anybody home?”

“Oh, hi! Are you pretendin’ to be the troll under the bridge?”


“I shall vanquish you, nasty troll, with my mighty ninja moves!”


“What makes you think Niko’s gettin’ mad? We’s just playin’!”

“In yer basket! Two points for the little cat!”
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Simon continues to grow and change. He’s now 12 weeks old — the age that most reputable breeders recommend for separating moms & kittens…. Poor Simon never had the advantage of growing up with a mom cat and siblings; my son found him when he was just 3 weeks old.

Most of the time he’s still playing too rough and aggressively with my other cats, but I managed to take a quick picture while he was catching his breath on my bed after random terrorizing. You can see from Riley’s expression that he wasn’t but so thrilled to have Simon that close to him….

Most of the time that Simon is out and about, the other furkids try to avoid him.

Honey-dawg and Cirrus “hide” under my computer desk:
Kian opts to watch from on top of my computer monitor:

Awww….but what’s not to love about a little orange kitten? ????

Simon spent the day with his GrandMeowm & GrandPaw. I went over for a quick visit this evening and to take them another can of kitten food. Of course I had to take my camera along.

Simon was having a blast on their open, hardwood floors — running and playing with toys, sliding into things and never slowing down. According to his GrandMeowm, he’d been going strong for nearly four hours, but shortly after I got there he started winding down. It’s rare to see him still these days, so I took advantage of the situation and snapped a few pictures.

At 9-weeks old, he seems to be getting away from the long, deep sleep of baby kittenhood. Just minutes after I took the last picture, he was up and playing again!

Simon, Niko and Kian spent a long time on the porch on the evening of July 4th. While Niko and Kian are satisfied to just sit and watch Simon’s antics, I’m starting to wonder when this little kitten will be able to attain warp speed — he’s moving faster and faster every day!

One of his favorite toys is a crumpled up piece of paper, but he also enjoys playing with a fuzzy “ferret”:

Each time I’ve had him out on the porch, he’s tried to jump into one of the chairs. Showing incredible determination and concentration, he finally made it and was quite proud of himself!

He jumped into the chair and out several times, perfecting this new skill. And then, in what surely must have been an epiphany in a young kitten’s mind, he seemed to realize that he was suddenly “bigger” than the other cats.

With his new “top cat” status, the “submissive” behavior I’d seen a couple of nights ago flew out the window.

And that led to this:

Which, inevitably, led to this:

I never really saw Simon give in that much, but he finally ran out of steam. When he jumped into the chair again and started dozing off, I realized that it was time for “How to be a Proper Cat” school to be over for the evening. ????

I’m delighted to report that Simon received a clean bill of health from the vet this morning! His combo test (for FeLV and FIV) was negative (whew!), he weighs 2 pounds, 1 ounce, and the vet estimates his age at 8 weeks, confirming the first vet’s estimate of 3 weeks of age when my son found him.

It’s getting hard to remember just how small he was. Thank goodness we took lots of pictures!

May 25, 2007
May 26, 2007

Edited to add that my son said that the (female) vet and two (young female) vet techs were all in the room during Simon’s exam. Yep, I’m sure that these three women were all simply “smitten with kitten” and that my son’s presence had absolutely nothing to do with it! 😉

(Pictures taken June 2)