If you haven’t seen this sweet kitteh hugging her very young baby, you probably haven’t been on the Internet this week. Watch for the real hug about halfway through:
If the hugging mama kitteh is already old hat, then you’ll want to proceed straight to these three clouded leopard cubs, born in the Nashville Zoo (via William K. Wolfrum). There’s no actual mother in this clip, only a human simulation of leopard-mama technique. Watch for it starting at 1:05. (My first thought: Oh, if only my son the Tiger had enough of a scruff for that trick to work!
And on the theme of calming our cubs, I’m besotted with the cover of this book,
which isn’t out yet, but is eagerly awaited.
The cover art alone gets the Kittwampus pawprint of approval for felinity. Want to see the cozy cat family inside? The whole cubs, kits, and kaboodle has been leaked and put up on YouTube:
Sweet dreams! I, for one, am off to emulate that lucky mama tiger, except I won’t be using either of my cubs as a pillow.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
The tiger at our local zoo had four cubs last summer, and they were just about the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I was there last month and was pleasantly surprised that they were still there with her. I asked one of the docents, and she said they’ll stay with their mother for about two years, which is about as long as they would stay in the wild, before going to other zoos.
And the drawings in the Go the F- to Sleep book are just gorgeous. But my two favorites are actually the sock-clad feet of the parent who has fallen asleep in the kid’s bed, while the naked toddler can be seen romping in the hall through the open doorway, and the baby giving that eager “pick-me-up” look from the corner of the crib.
i’ve heard the author is going to issue a G-rated version as well, suitable for actual children. Not that mine have such virgin vocabularies. One night we were playing Scrabble Flash, and the Tiger came up with S-H-I-T, then said rather sheepishly that he knew it was a bad word. I said, “How do you know how to spell it?” He said it’s carved inside the giant tire on the school playground. So by second grade there’s not much innocence anymore. (Of course, he’s heard his parents say it on occasion, too!)
The young lions at the Columbus Zoo are also still with their mother, and they must be about 1 1/2 years old now. I never got to see them in person when they were little, which was a crying shame – only online. They were born in fall, then they were protected (indoors) during much of the winter, and before you knew it, they were big.
Absolutely adorable!!
Cuteness as antidote to the ills of the world!