Kittens: One Year Later

It's been a little over a year since we brought home our kittens Marcello and Bolvar. And in that time, they've truly developed their own personalities — and their own flavor of sibling rivalry.

Marcello remains as handsome and charming as his namesake. His key traits are his aggressiveness and his playfulness. And the fact that 99.99% of the time he is about to do something very naughty.

What do I mean by naughty? Shredding the notes slipped under the door by our property manager and then soaking them in the water dish for good measure naughty. Drowning grey mousey in the water dish naughty. Luckiy for him the naughty is balanced with his sheer joy of playing.

Although he can entertain himself for hours chasing light beams from the window around the living room, his favorite game is fetch. He'd fetch a flippy toy or a mousey for a half hour if you had the patience for it. He murps and runs and retrieves the toy, running it back to you with immense pride.

Much of the aggressiveness comes out towards his formerly BFF, his brother Bolvar. Gone are the days of the two snuggly kitties on the chair. They are engaged in a full out battle for dominance of the household. And the war is typically started by Marcello walking up to his brother and giving him a slap (or three) in the face. It'w one of the funniest interactions to witness. Especially once Marcello runs away murping, after Bolvar takes the bait and comes after him.

Over the past year, Bolvar has really come into his own. Gone is the somewhat passive, teeny kitty that would get pushed aside at the food bowls. He's now the bigger of the two, and a real chowhound (every kitty gets his own dish here, and there's no stealing each other's food, thus his bulking up.)

He's nearly as handsome as Marcello, save for a big raised scar across his nose, which we think came from one of his boxing bouts with his brother. Bo's the lover of the pair, always coming up to us looking for pets and chin scratchies. And frequently lolling on his back for belly rubs and gentle wrestling.

He tries every so often to vocally communicate with his humans, sounding off with the most pitiful wails if we are 15 minutes later than usual with dinner time. But his most common sound is that of purring. At about the time my alarm should go off each morning, I am instead awoken by PURRPURRPURR in my ear. I've never met a kitty whose motor sounds as loud as Bo's. And if you pet him…it gets even louder!

These little guys have helped immensely in replacing the void left by Mister Bill.

P.S. for more kitty baby photos, check out their flickr album. I can't believe they were ever so tiny…