Young master Atticus's ear size and set are wonderful and his eye shape and size are beautiful. His paws are huge and his boning is heavy. At 16 weeks, we began to see a bullseye on his sides and shoulders - he is a classic tabby.

Atticus is a super sweet and happy kitty. He cuddles in our laps in the evening, and purrs loudly when he greets us in the morning (which he doesn't do until he hears we are awake).

He's very intelligent and learns from his mistakes. For example, he jumped on the toilet to supervise the litterbox cleaning. It was open and now he jumps on the trash can by the litterbox, (all our trash cans have lids) to supervise.

Atticus with his Flingamastring toy. He's actually not as serious about it as he looks in this picture.

Everyone is very well-behaved about taking turns, except Atticus, who flings himself in front of whoever is playing with it.

But then, Atticus recognizes no limitations - not that he's only 12 weeks old nor that he only weighs four pounds. He'll take anyone in the house on, even if all he can effectively attack is their head.

Atticus doesn't really think he's little. He stalks, pounces and chases the adults.

One of our friends described his coat as "Rembrandt coloring" -- dark tones touched by brushstrokes of light.

Here's Atticus with some of his toys. He's very active now and although he doesn't have littermates, he plays happily, making up games and batting things around, or chasing the battery-operated floppy-feather and Panic Mouse toy.

Early handling, socialization and environmental enrichment are the keys to raising a "Supercat," according to the book by that name. We spend time with him; he sleeps with us or with his mom, and the other cats are in the room with him, so he's well socialized both with cats and people. He's a very charming kitty.

Actually, most kittens sit outside and bat at the ball in the "fishbowl," but Atticus climbs in and bats the ball from inside the bowl.

He's a very good kitty. At four weeks he started using the litter box and he hasn't made one mistake since. They're so cute at five weeks.  At this age, I'm always keeping them.

Today he was clearly bored and lonely in the bathroom. He was crying and pawing at the gate, so I let him out in our room and he explored it carefully. Eventually he found a clean cat bed under the dresser and went to sleep.

I spent the day cleaning and disinfecting our bathroom and moving Atticus from the warm bedroom upstairs. He adapted without a bother, happy to have his crate and bed, mom and beanie buddies. Now he'll have more interaction with us and the other cats so he knows he and his mom aren't the only cats in the world.

Missy was in raging heat for a week. This afternoon it's finally over and she's a calm mother again.

Here's Atticus with one of his beanie baby buddies. His pupils definitely shrink in response to light now so I can take a picture using the flash.

His ears came up yesterday and are bigger today. His eyes are huge and he has a very sweet expression.

He eats canned food with goat's milk now - 10 to 20 cc's of Wellness canned food mixed with goat's milk and goat's milk yogurt. Then he goes back to his "cave," and sleeps soundly for a couple of hours. or he does some laps around his area, or attacks a beanie baby.

He's interested in the food on our finger so we expect him to start eating off a plate soon.

He's three weeks old so we set up a boot tray as a litter box outside his crate. He goes in the litter box but can't quite give the command to his muscles yet to release on his own so we help him while we hold him in the litter.

We're adding Beechnut chicken baby food to his formula which should take longer to digest so food will stay with him between feedings.

Meanwhile, his mother, is in raging heat a second time. 

This is the age when kittens start batting at each other. We'll make the beanie kittens bat at him.

He's really smart and is now very aware of his surroundings. He knew right away that I'd put two new natural mice in his bed today, and went over to investigate where the "beating heart" is under the blanket, because it's beating much stronger with a new battery in it. He makes eye contact and when I blink, he blinks both eyes back (communicators say that's "I love you.")

Missy's out of heat now and calmly cares for him. Because we made her stay with him, a little of her milk has come back, enough that we don't worry too much if we're late with his three-hour feeding.

The little guy is doing great. He's a roly-poly one pound kitten. I found the orange "kittens" online. They have buckwheat bags inside to microwave for warmth, but he likes the beanie babies that look more like real kittens better. He cocks his head when the beanie baby wags his head at him. This evening he had a good tussle with it, (I was the operator), and then he fell asleep with his arms around it.

The next challenge is to keep him from being bored.

I've heard that a litter of one can be in as much danger as a litter of eight, and sure enough, Missy is in heat and he's a week old. Her milk has dried up, and she's abandoned him.

So every three hours, we feed Atticus 6 to 12 cc's of goat's milk and Just Born formula with a little rice syrup and B vitamins for cats. He sucks hard and pulls the milk out of the syringe on his own. I've never seen the plunger just go down like that. Then we burp him - he always burps nicely.

He's in a crate, so we zip Missy in with him for two or three hours at a time. The good news is, he tries to nurse and when she's in there, she cleans him and makes him pee and poop, since he can't do that on his own yet.

Missy's been in labor all day, and this evening she had a kitten. We've had many litters of eight and seven but we've never had a litter of one. We are very happy that he was born without trauma or complications and he is a big kitten.

I put a "beating heart" (the kind you can get for orphaned kittens), under his blanket, so when his mom isn't with him he has a reassuring heartbeat, and he sleeps next to it when she's not there. Under his baby blanket he has a space blanket to reflect his body heat back. The room is warm and the thermometer in his crate shows it's a constant 74 degrees.