Mom will NOT leave her babies in their box!!

I have kittens that are a little over 2 weeks old. They were not born inside of the box that I would like to keep them in -- in fact they were born loose in my room -- but I NEED them to be inside of a box, any box or any enclosed object. Leaving them loose in the room was fine before, but now all of them are crawling very well and beginning and walk and they are ending up in all areas of the room. I am so afraid that one of them will crawl around my desk chair without my knowing and I'll end up running one of them over, or I'm afraid that I'll get up in the middle of the night and step on one of them!! There is one in particular who is quite the active kitten and very often I find her crawling around my chair and underneith my desk. I am really worried that I might roll back and run her over.

The problem is that mom will not keep them in the box. She goes CRAZY with them in there, running around everywhere meowing, and jumping in and out of the box. She will jump in and take one completely random kitten, jump out, and then just lay there with that one kitten and leave the rest in there. It's not like she's trying to hide them from me or anything - she just takes it right out, right next to the box and lays there with it right outside the box. Right now she actually seems to be doing okay - she's laying with them inside of the box while they nurse. But I'm willing to bet that when I wake up tomorrow morning, they'll all be laying right outside, next to the box.

I don't know what I should do, but I do not think that it is safe for them to be able to run around the room when they can't get out of my way fast enough if I do not see one of them (like an adult cat). I do not have an extra bedroom to keep them in where they can be loose without my worrying. I have 2 bedrooms; mine and my husbands, and my 18-month old sons. The really isn't any other place for them to be except for in my bedroom.

What should I do?

Can you put them in a bathroom? That way they can be behind a closed door that doesn't constantly have people in it.

Otherwise, do you have a dog pen? At the very least you could put a dog pen around your computer desk to block off access to that, so you don't have to worry about rolling over them with your chair, or stepping on them while standing up.

Perhaps you could provide an alternate spot for the mother to enjoy some down time? Give her another box to sleep in somewhere away from the kittens, set up a cat carrier with some nice towels in it and a blanket ontop for some privacy, get her a cat pillow on the floor. Anything.

Sounds like mom might not be the best mother out there, or she's still searching for a secure place to keep her babies. Often mother cats will move themselves and their kittens around if they do not feel safe in their current nesting spot. Hence why I say, try to give her another alternative place to mover her and/or her kittens to. Try a box or a carrier under the bed, something, anything.

In the daytime when you can see them, let them have one room to run in. At night, put them in a bathroom, or clear out a closet temporarily, buy one of those baby gates, make sure it is small mesh holes in it, so the kittens don't get their head stuck, and put the gate up as a block to the closet. Or find a cupboard they can stay in and be safe. In the daytime, just be aware of where they are at all times. Once they are off mom's milk, get her spayed as well.