My crisis of confidence appears to have ended. I'm not gonna lie, when the shelter called me on Wednesday to see whether I would be willing to try again with a foster kitten, my stomach clenched in fear and I thought I was going to throw up. But I said yes. I was shaking as I wrapped up the things I was working on, and I talked to myself in the car, in the manner of Maria soon-to-be Von Trapp, as she broke out in song with "I Have Confidence." I insisted on taking only one, and I declined the bottle-fed babies this time. I brought home a 3-4 week old who can do just about everything for herself, except prepare the food every eleven minutes (or maybe it just seems that frequent.) This has been nothing like the first experience. While somewhat physically taxing, it is fun. It is night and day different from watching the other kittens fail to thrive. Now the hard part will be giving her back in a month when my job is done.
My time has very little structure these days. I am up late at night, taking care of the kitten and messaging the man on another continent, and I'm up early in the morning to take care of me. This morning was water aerobics with an instructor who is at least 15 years older than I am, and who has absolutely no sympathy. I heard her say something today about being ex-military. Her class is as tough as boot camp to most of us soft-in-the-middle-aged women. But I think I will see results with a hard-liner like her. I followed up her class with about a half hour of weight machines, and by the time I made it home, it was all I could do to lift a half-pound kitten and drift in and out of sleep on the couch. I'm lucky that my well-adjusted pride is accepting our visitor with only nominal hissing. And I managed to capture the look on the professional eater dog's face when she looks at the baby. I sure hope I'm reading her right, that she wants more than anything to play nanny.
Napping today was crucial. Tonight is a birthday party with the Bonfire crew. I am contemplating choosing coffee as my beverage of choice for the event, so I can give another hour or so of play time to the little one when I return. But if I am to catch the "super moon" coming up over the woods behind the house, I need to get over there right now. So I will dash.
Not course she wants to be the nanny. Doesn't everyone? Prize winning kitten pic.
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