I’m now a single mother

In a major life update, I am now a single parent to a beautiful little girl.

She is sweeter than sweet, my little Lychee!

I’ve had her for about a week and man. #noregrets and everything but trying to get to know her and get her comfortable in the house has been a bit hard. Coupled with a stressful work life at the moment, I don’t know how all these working parents do it.

A bit about my child

Lychee is around 1, and was found running around in a cat colony in a new build suburb near Pukekohe as a kitten. The fosters were feeding the colony, and found she was the most friendly and wanting to be with humans.

They trapped her around Christmas time and she has been living in their garage ever since. They would’ve kept her, but their two original cats couldn’t stand her, poor thing. Lychee does like other cats because she grew up in a cat colony, however she is a bit shy with humans but I can tell she has the potential to be confident. I adopted her through a cat rescue/charity called Lonely Miaow.

Journey to motherhood

It took me a few weeks to find and adopt Lychee – I was convinced my firstborn would be an orange cat, however an orange cat was becoming extremely hard to find. I saw Lychee’s picture on Lonely Miaow’s facebook page and saw she had a little orange stripe on her head and I was like ? could this be my daughter?

And I guess yes, it could!

So I took her home last Friday and have been a single parent ever since! But like all new parents, she is on my mind like all the time.

Here are my top concerns about my child at the moment:

• Isn’t food motivated: I’m trying to get her to like a treat. I actually want to get to a point where I can add raw food to her meals but she isn’t even a fan of cat crack, aka Temptations treats.
• Likes to hide under my bed: it’s only been a week and a half, but I really want her to come out and sit in the living room, or even on top of my bed. She does sleep with me which is cute, and she gets really affectionate during night time. However, during the day time she’s hiding and acting brand new. I just want her to be empowered to explore the rest of the house all the time, god dammit. 
• Doesn’t want to explore much: I want to get her out of my room more so I can move the litterbox and food which is currently in my room
• Doesn’t care about catnip
• Doesn’t know her name: I did change her name and have been calling her Lychee for a week; however because she isn’t food motivated I find it very hard to get her attention to associate her name with something good. Her original name was Pixie.

She is a good girl and is eating a more regular amount now, and she is very gentle and soft. I just like, want her to be prancing around the house having a good time, you know…

I need to remind myself it’s only been a week and a half. Baby girl needs to adjust.

And honestly, even though I do feel responsible for her life and wellbeing, I still feel like I am looking after someone else’s cat (and I’m sure she feels the same about me… some random human that has trapped her in a room lol).  I honestly don’t know her very well, and I don’t have the tight knit bond that I had with nemo. I am not sure when my flatmates’ cats started feeling more at home and roaming around the house, but it did take several weeks, I know.

I just want her to be happy, fulfilled, confident and living her best life. 

I really am being a mum!!