Baby vignettes from my house

Baby scorpions are hilarious! Who knew? They run around waving their little pincers, trying to catch crickets, but they haven't quite gotten the finesse of hunting down completely. They must succeed at times, though, because the other day Azrael had what looked like a whole cricket head (I didn't examine it too closely) hanging out of his mouth while he raced around chasing other crickets. And the prey numbers seem to be diminishing--crickets no longer leap out every time I open the lid--so I guess he and Nightshade do manage to best the little Jiminys some of the time.

Sebastian Dickens K.Itten is at that age where you want to smack him for being obnoxious, except he's so adorable. He can't jump up to the bathroom counter yet, but he's figured how to scramble up, using the drawer edges as a ladder. He likes to take flying leaps at anything that moves, including his Auntie Isis (with whom he shares a suite). Auntie Isis tends to watch warily whenever he's out of view and smack him quite a bit when he is (which isn't as bad as it sounds--an important part of kitten socialization is being around another cat who can let it know when it's behaving inappropriately. That's how they learn not to bite HARD when they're playing, that it hurts to be scratched, etc. And being the most timid of my adult cats, Isis could benefit from having a playmate she has helped raise and therefore isn't afraid of, if it works out that way...). I often worry that she gets the raw end of the deal, but this morning I woke up to see them both stretched out on the mattress beside me, and his tail was over her back, just as if it was an extra arm that he had put around her. It was ever so sweet.