Introducing... Donut the Kitty Cat!

On Tuesday we finally brought home our new kitty from the lady who's been fostering him. Yes, I'm allergic to cats, but I'm more or less permanently on allergy medication because a) I'm allergic to a bunch of other things I can't avoid and b) most people I know have a cat or some kind of pet that would bother me if I wasn't on meds. I've always had a cat, or had room mates that have cats, and I just enjoy having one so much.

I've never owned a kitten before. Donut is about 7 months old and despite starting to get big, he's still very much a baby. You can tell he still had a lot of growing to do, his paws seem big and his tail is super long, about the length of his body. His behavior is also still very kitten like; his eyes have been dilated ever since we brought him home, and he is almost constantly in play mode (I've missed most of his cuddly moments because they seem to always happen when I'm at school). I will say, though, that he sat in my lap first. He adjusted remarkably quick, and seemed comfortable after only a few hours. He hasn't tried hiding from us or anything.

This is Donut back in December when we first saw him at PetCo, and before we decided we were definitely going to adopt him. He was already pretty big then, but I swear he seems smaller now.

Taken with the web cam on my new computer. Bad quality, but I'll try to get additional pictures of us together.

Matt took this one while I was at school. That's one content looking cat!

Like most cats, Donut has been waking us up at 5am. Between wanting to suck on my fingers, kneading, purring loudly, and climbing around he is both adorable and frustrating. I know he'll probably grow out  of the cuddlier behavior, and I'll miss it. I also realize this is just part of having a kitten and teaching it to behave in a certain way. Matt has been looking up ways to try and get him to not play bite or attack our feet while we're trying to sleep. As fun as I find under the blanket chase games, I prefer sleeping. He also seems to prefer sucking (nursing?) my hand, and hasn't really done that to Matt since we got him home.

Over all he's a sweet little boy, and I'm already pretty attached. He's absolutely adorable and a ton of fun. I'd say he's good about 90% of the time, and hasn't been destructive really. We're still trying to gauge how he's going to be with Allen the guinea pig, and we don't trust him yet. I think he was used to playing rough with other cats, and that would just be too much. I'm afraid he'd hurt Allen unintentionally, I don't necessarily think he would try and eat him. He does seem very curious about the guinea pig, and is a little freaked out by him too. That's pretty much to same reaction that my room mates' cats had in the past.

I'll try to keep my blog posts more PhD oriented, but my personal life I a huge part of my time here in NM. We'll see how having a new furry room mate will affect it.