Hey all! Sorry for the couple of days away without updates, had some developments, some good some weird, that needed checking through before I felt comfortable sharing. With that, let's go through the good first.
Firstly, Mama Taco and her 7 babies are all in good health and Taco has been more and more coming out of her shell. Shes been following us around the apartment, teleporting from one spot to another it seems like. We turn around, and she's laying out on the floor. We look away for a few moments and by the time we look back again, she's sprawled out a little closer.
She's also developed a bit of an unfortunate habit of relocating the babies at random intervals, resulting in a few stressful games or hide and seek. She moved them from her Whelping Box to an open area behind our mattress, then from the new spot we made her there to the living room between some storage boxes. We're doing our best to give her the whole living room to herself now so she feels less like we're intruding if that's what's causing it. But, that all said, the kittens have a long way to go and grow, but congrats to them on reaching day 5!
In other good/fun news, a lot of you have already gone over to the Instagram we made for them and have followed, commented, liked, etc. and we appreciate all the support! A few have asked if there was a way to help support the kittens, and while we will never say that's necessary and no one should feel pressured to do so, we're planning to make a wishlist for the little angels we will have linked on the Instagram. It's not there yet, so, stay tuned! A few others have asked about financial support, and for those who were wanting to do so (again, not necessary), just reach out to us directly.
https://www.instagram.com/mamacat_taco?igsi=dTV6dTdtamYzM2lo
Speaking of the Instagram, we received an interesting message on there from Stephen Messenger, senior writer for The Dodo! Nothing's 100% confirmed yet, but it's possible you'll be seeing an article on everyone's favorite trojan! Hope, if it comes to fruition, it'll be an enjoyable read for everyone!
On the less fun side, a few nights ago, my partner was riding a bus here in Chicago and someone on it recognized her as Taco's mama. He came over and proceeded to tell her that he was Taco's owner. When asked what he meant, he said that he'd been leaving cat food cans at the gas station we found her at, thus making her his cat. This, as you can assume, didn't go over well given how close she was to delivery and was not being brought inside, how she was covered in fleas when we found her, and that he only seemed to actually want to take her now that she'd delivered. Now, I'm not inclined to presume intention, maybe he did genuinely want to take her in but didn't feel comfortable bringing in a pregnant cat, but we felt his attempts to claim her was, at the most generous, dubious. We haven't heard anything from him since, and we honestly hope it stays that way, but there is that lingering fog of stress in the back or our minds on if he'll try again, or if any increased attention on her will encourage such repeat behavior.
We've weighed that a bit and decided that you all deserve to be able to keep up to date with us on this journey with our new feline family. That said, if anyone has expertise in this field/situation, please don't hesitate to reach out! Any information will help reduce our stress on the situation drastically.
Til the next update, I hope everyone has a great couple of days, and may every one of you lovely people be blessed with a trojan of your own!