On Monday we pulled up the faux-wood-paneling foam floor in the villa, which was shedding foam crumbs everywhere and had become hard to clean. We replaced it with a more industrial-looking set of interlocking foam mats like those we use in our basement. The new floor is less photogenic, but we can live with that if it also proves less tempting to needle-sharp feline claws.

We gave the foam a day to off-gas, then stuck the Divers in the villa Tuesday morning. They're not Campers, but they're definitely turning into happy little furballs. It didn't take them long to explore the villa's topography and hiding spots. While their first instinct is still to retreat under the futon when the door opens, they start purring and reverse course by the time we have one leg over the baby gate. When we sit down, they climb the futon to greet us, or start playing with our feet. They're even turning into face-nuzzlers and hair chewers!

It's hard to believe that Oggi now weighs two ounces more than Samoa did when he graduated from 50K, or that Gigi is about as big as Scout was a week before she was adopted.

Now that they have sufficient territory, the Divers have started to scamper around, climb, leap, and wrestle, just like our previous fosterlings. Their left eyes are still a bit clouded, but the opaque white disks that obscured their corneas two weeks ago are gone. And their right eyes both look normal.

The Divers will definitely need a little more time with us to solidify the progress they've made, on both the health and socialization fronts, but there's no longer any reason to think of them as kittens with special needs, or put an asterisk on their adoption profiles.

By the time they're ready to find their forever home, they'll just be a couple of healthy, fun-loving furballs.

filed by: TS