Mama kitty fights her kittens after they have been neutered

I'm worried!

A little bit of background first- I'll be breif I promise.

My boyfriend and I have 3 cats- 2 kittens (Sidney and Johnny- 9 months old), and their mother (Stella- 2 years old). Stella was spayed about 5 months ago. We just took Sid and John to get neutered yesterday and brought them home last night.

Everything seemed fine when we first got home. But this morning I wake up to "cat fight" sounds coming from our living room. The mother cat was "attacking" her, now neutered, kittens! Now these kittens are not young- they're almost 9 months old, and the mother is over 2 years old. They have always been very affectionate, cuddly, and happy groomers of each other- a very close cat family! Never had any problems with this sort of thing in the past.

What I'm wondering is if any of you have any clues as to why this would be happening now. Smells from the vet? The neutering itself? The kittens being away for a whole day? I want my happy cat family back!!

Any advice you could give would be totally appreciated! I'm really worried about this!

Thanks!
-Jen

This is actually quite common. Just because she is their mom she realizes that they need to be on their own and quit bugging her. Sometimes the kittens even when older want to try and nurse mom and once weaned, this does not work. Just give them their space. You can bathe your kittens, if could be the smell of the vet is stressing mom out as well. But make sure that you only do a damp cloth bath and you don't get the incision wet. You can also try taking a little bit of vanilla extract just a tiny drop and putting it under mom's nose if you don't want to do the damp cloth bath idea.