Tiny Tyrants in Training (a progress report)
By Ashley Schausten
Progress report, from the front lines of my living room: the little ones are doing so well.
Every single one of them is getting beautifully socialized. The hiss-then-run is turning into the hiss-then-actually-let-me-pick-you-up. They're learning that hands bring food and laps bring warmth and that the vacuum is, in fact, not a predator. We have a former feral who now falls asleep in my hoodie pocket. We have a bottle baby who chirps at me like I'm her mom. We have one who has decided my laptop keyboard is a bed, and I simply do not have the heart to move him.
My arms, for the record, are sustaining new scratch marks by the hour. I look like I lost a fight with a very small, very determined rosebush. There's always at least one who hasn't learned that claws are optional yet.
And things genuinely never slow down around here. There's always a feeding, a weight check, a laundry load, a panicked text about a kitten who sneezed twice, a new intake to pick up. The rhythm is relentless.
And I wouldn't trade a single second of it.
That's the part I didn't expect to feel this strongly. I knew I'd love it. I didn't know it would fill me up the way it does — that fostering would give me a purpose beyond anything I'd imagined for myself. There's something about a tiny life getting a second chance because you showed up, day after ordinary day, that rearranges what you think your life is for. I go to bed exhausted and certain, in a way I'd never been certain before, that I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing.
The scratches will heal. The purpose doesn't.
