How It All Began - part two

Frederika and Olive had to be introduced to our home very slowly...not for their sake, but for the sake of Daphne, who was getting used to being the only pet in the home after the original Fred passed away earlier in the year.

We read about how you're supposed to keep new cats separate from existing cats in the house, so we kept them in what was then our studio/office/storage/junk room and soon-to-become-nursery. Daphne was not pleased. To this day, she hates the "new" kittens with a passion.

The new kittens wanted to explore beyond the room almost immediately, and we felt bad about keeping them in a room all day. But we followed the advice and tried to introduce them to Daphne and the rest of the apartment slowly. Their little claws reaching through the crack in the door became habitual and after a few weeks we finally decided to let them free. Daphne would go into hiding and emerge only when the kitties were not around. If she encountered them, she'd cough, choke and hiss from stress. It went on like this for months.

Olive and Frederika were small. tiny. I mean, they each fit in your hand. Then Olive ballooned. I am not sure how or why, because all 3 cats seemed to eat the same amount as always...except for Daphne, who was fasting in protest. Frederika remained thin and small...for a while. She eventually blew up like she swallowed one of the other cats. We still don't really know how it happened. Maybe there is some sort of eating disorder that runs in the family...

Once they were released into the apartment, that's when the battles began. I remember having cats as a child, but I couldn't remember having WILD cats. Or at least, not as wild as these. Frederika was worse, but they were both like little tornadoes. And maybe the fact that I was getting closer and closer to being a father intensified the effect of their scurrying, scrambling, jumping, crashing, attacking, scratching and biting.

But they were wild. And while Olive has since calmed a lot, over time, Frederika has become less wild and more focused in her attempts to drive me insane...

Frederika would probably be delicious...