Now that Ken-dad has let down the gate to our room (he did it while lisa-mom was away for the weekend so she couldn’t say we were too little to explore the house) we thought it was time to find the computer and introduce ourselves to you. It is, after all, a LostWoods kitten tradition. We know this because Lira and Brasen are around to tell us all about it. They are good for teaching us other things, too, but we do wish they’d be more considerate when they play with us. Lira is HUGE and she could smoosh us if she’s not careful! Brasen likes to wrestle with us and gets a little rough now and then. They are a lot of fun most of the time, though. Oh, we’d also like it if Brasen would quit nursing on Talia-mom – he’s stealing our milk!  

My name is Rusalka, but my lisa-mom calls me Sprite. That’s because my name means “wood sprite” and she says I look and act like a sprite. I’m not quite sure what a sprite should act like, but I like to run and play. I attack my brothers and sisters. I chase after toys. I bat at lisa-mom’s legs. And I love to play with Talia-mom’s tail. It is so fluffy – it’s the best teaser around! If there is something going on, I want to be there. There is just so much to do and discover in our house!  

My brother Vasek is nearly as wild as me. Well, we’re not really wild, just playful and adventurous. Silly lisa-mom is the one who calls us the wild kids. Vasek is the best climber in the family. He could get over the gate all by himself for ages before Ken-dad took the gate down, so he was always escaping and going to see lisa-mom and Ken-dad in the morning. And last night, he climbed all the way up lisa-mom’s leg while she was trying cook soup. He said the soup smelled good and he wanted some. Lisa-mom told him that cheese isn’t very good for kittens and he couldn’t have any. Mean lisa-mom!  

Kalina is just the opposite of me. She’d rather watch quietly, then play like a lady when she joins in. Well, except at bedtime. Then she fights going to sleep as much as any of us. More than once she’s attacked Mirek just as he was settling down for the night. They get to wrestling and then Mirek decides maybe he won’t sleep with the rest of us on the bed after all. But Kalina does have an occasional adventurous streak and it led her and Fiala back behind the loud machine lisa-mom puts clothes and our blankets in sometimes. Then when lisa-mom started it up, it scared them half to death! They came running out from behind there and surprised lisa-mom. They didn’t even want to come downstairs for two days after that.  

Fiala is a little bit quiet, too. She’s the littlest in our family and she looks really pretty. She likes to sit on top things and supervise. But sometimes when she’s sitting on top the couch back, she falls asleep because it’s a cuddly spot. Bria sleeps there all the time and she has it smashed down just perfectly for a kitty nap. Sometimes she and Fiala sleep together there. The other place Fiala likes to sleep is behind the pillows on the couch. There’s a wonderful little spot in the corner that is just our size. But at night she loves cuddling up to Ken-dad on the big bed and going to sleep. Hmmm… it sounds like all Fiala does is sleep! That’s not true – she likes to play just like all of us – but she is in charge of finding the best sleeping spots. She also found a great play spot on the towel cart. We love to climb on each shelf and attack each other. The towels end up all over the floor and lisa-mom is always wondering how they got there when they were piled so neatly when she left in the morning.  

Last is my brother Mirek. Mirek can be very cuddly and sweet – he purrs really loud. But he’s kinda mad at lisa-mom and sometimes hides from her. See, he has a sore eye like our big sister Lira and lisa-mom is forever washing his face and putting drops in his eye. Lira says he should get used to it because lisa-mom won’t quit ‘til his eye is all better and that lisa-mom does it because she loves him. Lisa-mom has been giving him dried shrimp treats every time she gets done with the drops so he ought to be nicer to her. The shrimp treats are yummy and he gets more than the rest of us. Mirek is going to stay here when he’s all grown up because he’s our two-legged brother Jeremy’s kitten. Jeremy’s picked out Mirek as his special kitten when we were just little tiny babies.  

All this talking about us, I almost forgot to tell you about our big adventure. You see, Ken-dad and lisa-mom have this thing about going to Montana. And Ken-dad knew lisa-mom would be really unhappy if she had to leave us home when they went ‘cause we were still really little. (Not to mention that we heard Aunt Sondra say she wasn’t ever going to watch little tiny kittens for lisa-mom again after how scary it was last year when Talia-mom and Lira got sick when lisa-mom was on vacation!) So Ken-dad said, “why don’t we take them with us?” (Yes, for everyone who’s heard lisa-mom call Ken-dad a cat hater, it was HIS idea that we go along!)  

So lisa-mom packed up all our food, toys, blankets, and beds and put us in a big cage in the car. Off we went. We rode in the car forever and then finally we got to Montana. Oh, I forgot. Regalo went with us, too. He and Talia-mom got to get out of the big cage sometimes in the car, but lisa-mom wouldn’t let us. Mirek and I really wanted to be out and every time she opened the door, we’d try to escape, for all the good it did us. We did get a lot of practice climbing though ‘cause the big cage’s sides are great for climbing. We’d see Talia-mom sitting on top, so we’d climb up the sides to get to her. ‘Course we’d just get to the top and hit our heads and we still couldn’t get to Talia-mom! 

So when we go to this room in Montana, Galo and Talia-mom got to run all over the room. But we still had to stay in our cage most of the time. Lisa-mom said she thought we’d hide under the bed and never come out. Like we’d do that! We’d have to come up for playing and cuddles eventually. She was also a little worried we’d potty places we weren’t supposed to. I guess that might have happened, ‘cause some of my brothers and sisters weren’t very good about using our box then.  

Then Galo’s new mom came to get him and we all loaded back up in the car for more riding. Finally we got to another place in Montana with another little room. At least here lisa-mom would let us out some. The next day lisa-mom and Ken-dad went away all day and left us in the room. We played in our cage and took naps, but it was sure nice when they came back and played with us. Then lisa-mom looked at Mirek’s eye and said, “uh-oh. You need to go to the vet.”  

First thing the next morning, lisa-mom carried Mirek to the vet. It was lucky that we were so close – it was right next door. A lady looked at Mirek’s eye and listened to what lisa-mom had to say, and then she gave lisa-mom some medicine for his eye. And all because of that, the next two days we had to go in the car with them while they drove all over the place. They were talking about places to live, but as near as we could tell, they must want to live in trees because we never saw a house where they were looking. It would be cool to live in a tree part of the time, but I think I’d miss my cuddly blankets.  

After two days of that, we loaded everything up in the car again and headed off to another place in Montana. We got to meet Ken-dad’s mom and dad there. And the best part was we didn’t have just a little room, we had a whole house! Lisa-mom let us explore a little, but she kept putting us back in that darn cage just when we’d find a new part of the house. If we never see that cage again we’ll be really happy.  

The next day we loaded up the car again (!) and headed home. It was a very long day and even Talia-mom was getting grumpy about all the time in the car. And she likes riding in the car! We were so glad when we got to our house and lisa-mom took us up to our room. We climbed in our bed. We climbed out of our bed. We checked out our food dish and our fountain. We ran over to the cat tree. We attacked our toys. It was good to be home.  

Lisa-mom says we all should be good travelers now and that is good because most of us are going to be show kitties. Talia-mom says being a show kitty isn’t so bad – people are always telling you how beautiful you are. But she also says you have to be in a cage when you’re a show kitty. That doesn’t sound like much fun to me. I’ve had enough of cages to last me a long time. I’ll have to think about this.  

But while I’m thinking, I think I’ll go find a scrunchy ball and play. Or maybe Mirek will have found another bottle cap and we can bat it around in the kitchen. Or maybe Fiala will have found another good spot for nap. Decisions, decisions…