Great thread! I am thankful that I still have both of my parents, and the are for the most part, in decent health. Yes, DF has suffered some cardiac problems as he has aged which have slowed a man who lived to coach softball. First with co-workers and until the most recent problem, a senior softball league. He now goes occasionally to watch, but despite the cardiologist leaving it up to him as to whether to participate, he has chosen not to play. He has his routine that starts at 4 a.m. Works out at home each morning after he has breakfast and reads his newspaper. Very good from a mental standpoint, loves to talk current events, history, politics, etc. He also opens and closes the pool each summer and tends a rather significant amount of tomato plants. DF still does his own lawn and home maintenance as he always has. My DM is in seemingly very good health for her age. With the exception of problematic arthritis and sciatica which have caused her to lessen her spring/fall "housecleaning" regimen. I always thought that whole exercise to be nuts, personally, but that's how things were done in her family for generations. A total tear apart every room twice a year for a "deep" cleaning. While she still attempts to do it, I usually will set aside a couple of days each spring and fall to give her a hand with things that she cannot physically do. lol DM still gets together with her high school girlfriends once a month either for lunch or dinner. When I compare her to her friends, only one other of her friends is in as good of shape as DM. The others aren't concerned with keeping themselves up to date with regard to their attire or hair. My DM would die before she would put on a pair of elastic wasted polyester pants. No offense to anyone here who may enjoy those. DM just doesn't. She hasn't ever been one to drive on major highways, so the fact that she continues not to do so, is nothing new. I make a point of getting her out for clothes and holiday shopping when I am able to tolerate a trip to the mall. DM and I go to the same hair salon. I am sure her highlights and reverse color hide the small amount of grey that she has. Together with keeping up with current short hair styles she looks much younger than her actual age. DM dresses everyday, Pal your mentioning your mom and her shoes - just in case, definitely made me smile. My parents keep a theatre package, attending 6 or so shows per season. Go out for dinner at least once a week. Also, they cook and eat well. They love to take advantage of the senior bus trips available to them in our area. One thing that I've noticed is that my DF seems more hesitant about long distance driving, thus enjoying the bus trips. It is hard for me to pinpoint an age at which I see them. Perhaps it is because I see them so often, at least twice a week. I pop in to take a new dish I've tried or drop off some fresh produce from the farmstand. Really, I don't need much of a reason to visit, I just enjoy doing so, and it allows me to keep an eye on them. Have to say that I have enjoyed reading everyone's stories about their parents. Also, this particular thread has accentuated my good fortune in still having my parents as they are in their early 80's. So, if I had to put an age that I visualize them, I guess I would have to put it at between 55-60. Funny because I am now 50!

That screaming is not because she wants to go outside, it's because she's in heat and wants to get BRED! If you let her outside, she WILL GET PREGNANT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY. Put the kittens in one room. Put the mother in another. Wait a week for her milk to dry up, then get her spayed. DO NOT LET HER OUTSIDE UNTIL AFTER SHE HAS HEALED FROM HER SPAY. If you let her out before she is spayed, you will either have to wait until she has her next litter and weans them, or you'll have to spay and abort her new litter. You may have a diffuclt time finding a vet who will spay her now while she's in heat because spaying during heat involves more blood loss and greater risk for the cat. In other words, you really have no easy options here. 1) Keep her inside in a room separate from her current litter, tolerate the howling until she goes out of heat, then get her spayed immediately. 2) Find a vet who will spay her now and hope that she doesn't lose too much blood during the procedure. 3) Let her outside and deal with the inevitable pregnancy, either by allowing her to have another litter or by aborting the litter and getting her spayed. Laurie

I think your kittens are bonding already. Kittens do a lot of mock fighting, chasing, and lying in wait and attacking each other, and it is all part of "growing up cat." I bred Abyssinian kittens in Japan for 7 years, so I have had the fun of seeing a lot of kittens. It sounds to me like the case Cat Mom describes. I always assumed that a kitten that squealed was protesting being hurt, but something interesting happened to me when I was bottle-raising an abandoned kitten. I used to "play' with it. It would get on its back and attack my hand, biting and scratching me. My hand would pretend it was trying to reach the kitten's tummy to tickle it, and I never did anything that could hurt the kitten, but IT would squeal as if it were being hurt, while it really was hurting my hand. That tipped me off to the fact that at least some of the cries kittens utter while play-fighting really just mean that they are excited. There were times when we had a new kitten and some adult cat didn't like it--maybe even administered a small bite or slapped the kitten on the head, but even then, there was no damage, and within two weeks at the longest they were friends. Just supervise a little when they are playing.

My relationship with my mother is odd, to say the least. But she has always been the only "mom" in my life. When I was a teen I jumped on the band-wagon of calling my friends' moms "mom". Oh, she was not happy about that. At the time, I didn't understand but now that I am a mom myself, I totally see where she is coming from. One day after X broke up with GF and then got back together, he was in a particularly cantankerous mood at baseball practice and out of the blue he said "GF and I are back together and we're probably getting married at some point. If DS wants to call her 'mom' I'm going to let him". I said "why would he do that? He spends a total of 4 days a month with her and he's been calling her by her first name for 2 years now. If that's the case then you won't mind if he calls FDH 'dad'. He said "but I don't see him doing that" and I said "well I don't see him calling her 'mom' either so how about we leave it the way it is" BM pushed for FSD to call SF 'dad' since they got married, but she says it was so that their baby didn't get "confused" (a baby that wasn't conceived yet). It's still painful to FDH to this day when she calls him that because he's tried so hard to be involved in every way possible. FDH has always felt like BM is trying to erase him from FSD's life and replace him with SF. Even moreso now that they live farther away. FSD will talk to him about something they did and say "Yeah, Mom and Dad took me shopping today". Then she catches herself and changes it. It's like a stab in the heart.