There's not really a great deal to say about my Gumnuts as nothing much has changed. All cords are gone now and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie's eyes are starting to fully open up now which is great. Amaretto now gets very distressed if I handle any of her babies longer than she deems necessary. She's always worse where Banksia Man is concerned as he is still the loudest and will protest at absolutely anything, even being weighed. Weight gains are up to 20 grams per day at the moment which is fantastic.

Our little Gumnuts are doing very well and one of two of them have lost their cords which I found in the bed this morning. Tiny little eyes are starting to open now as well which is really very lovely to see. Amaretto doesn't mind at all when I handle her babies. Even when I change the bedding in the kitten box she has no problems at all. She is such a trusting girl and such an excellent mum. Their weight gains are still very good and they do all seem to be such a content litter. I guess because there is only 3 of them that they don't have any squabbling over nipples because there are so many on offer that all they really have to do is latch on, feed, and then go to sleep after a wash from mum.

Just like the Potters' diary entry, I appear to have mixed everything up somewhere along the line and realised today when I was starting this that I was missing an entry in here. I have no idea what happened but like I stated in the Potters entry, it appears that due to all these babies everywhere, I have lost the plot and gone senile! Cuddlepie is our little "piggy" in the litter and is quite a strong little boy. If the other 2 babies try and steal Cuddlepie's nipple they get much more than they bargained for. He does cause a slight problem though in the respect that when he feeds, he sprawls right out and stretches out both front paws so that he covers up other nipples with his paws and body. This can make it a bit difficult for Banksia Man and Snugglepot to find nipples readily. Fortunately though, within a few minutes of trying, everyone is always attached and feeding.

Both Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are much more content babies than Banksia Man is at the moment. I am assuming this because the Siamese babies are not as restless and not as loud as Banksia Man is. Retto is so very good with them and is forever cleaning them and the minute any of them make a sound, she goes straight into the kitten box to lick them and settle them down. When they feed from her, she puts her arms around them to make sure they stay in very close to her which is lovely to see.

Our little Gumnuts are still doing very well and making excellent weight gains. I slept very well last night as Amaretto didn't share the bed with us at all and spent the whole evening with her babies. Banksia Man is the loudest of all babies at the moment. There's very little to say about them really other than they eat and sleep. Also, 2 of the R's left me today so I'm feeling incredibly sad at the moment.

A slight change today as I sexed the babies last night and realised that all 3 of our Gumnuts are in fact boys!!! This being the case, Ragged Blossom's name is now "Banksia Man" The babies have been doing quite well and I'm pleased with their progress in the first 24 hours. In actual fact, by the end of the first 24 hours, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie had both gained 20 grams each and Banksia Man had gained 16 grams!! I guess that having only 3 babies are such a large choice of nipples does make a significant difference to the weight situation. Fortunately, I managed to get a fairly good night's sleep however, I was woken quite abruptly by Amaretto at 5.30am! She must have gotten into bed with me at some point during the night and had decided that 5.30 was the time to go back and feed her babies again. I'm hoping she won't decide to put the babies in bed with us, particularly as the Gumnuts will be sleeping in our room until Thursday when they will then be transferred into the Kitten Room. Amaretto is being a very good mum and she spends most of her time with the babies, however, when the babies have finished feeding and are sleeping, she will come up onto the bed for lots of cuddles and attention.

Amaretto's official due date wasn't actually until August 5 however she was acting a bit odd yesterday which made us think she was preparing for the big event in the next day or so. We put her up in our bedroom while we had dinner and then after dinner, Graham went upstairs while I saw to our 2 litters and our other cats. Next thing I know, hubby has called me from upstairs so I went into the bedroom to find that at 7:53pm there was a baby being born. No waters breaking, no warning signs, nothing! Graham had been patting her and talking to her only 10 minutes prior and even then, there was no sign of contractions. By 8:05pm the first baby was born (on our bed) and Amaretto handled the birth very easily. She would not break the sac or cut the cord so I did that, and once the baby was born, she really was rather indifferent to it. I took the baby out, towel dried it, and weighed it. After that, I presented the baby back to Amaretto however she really didn't care. So we put the heat pad on and the baby was put on there as it was really rather cold to touch. The first baby was an incredible wriggler. After that, Amaretto started walking around the bed, then she went into the box to clean herself up. The little baby made a noise and she raised her head to have a look but that was all. After half an hour had passed, she wasn't showing signs of any more contractions so I gave the baby back to her but again there wasn't a great deal of interest. As this is her first litter and it's so important for her to bond with her babies, I left the baby with her and waited. At 9:28pm, she gave birth to a second Siamese baby so Graham was looking after the first baby on the heat pad while I tended to Amaretto and the birth. Again, with the 2nd baby, she wouldn't break the sac of do the cord, and while the 2nd baby was being born, she started to deliver a 3rd!!! I broke the cord on the 2nd baby and towel dried it, weighed it and put it straight on the heat pad so Graham now had 2 little ones to look after. The 3rd baby was born breech. Our first ever! Amaretto had no problems whatsoever delivering even the breech baby and it was over very, very, quickly. We were still missing one afterbirth though at this stage as she had only delivered 2 of them. The Oriental Blue was struggling to breathe once I broke the sac and was very still and appeared lifeless. I rubbed it with a towel quite vigorously and then placed it on the heat pad with the others. After a couple of minutes, the baby was breathing normally, however there was almost no movement. Amaretto was cleaning herself up now and settling down a bit so I put the 2 Siamese babies back in with her, both of whom automatically started feeding. This time, Amaretto was showing some signs of interest in the babies but I don't think at this stage she actually realised that they were hers. Not unusual for first time mums. The 3rd baby still had me worried so I rubbed it a bit more to try and bring some life into it and then gave it a little Rescue Remedy and within a minute, the baby was picking up, starting to wriggle a bit and move around. So I put the baby straight in the box with Amaretto and within half an hour, the Blue was trying to latch on to feed. By 10:36pm, all 3 babies were latched on and suckling away as if they had done it all their lives. Amaretto lay there, purring away, quite content, and just sniffed them every now and then and gave them a bit of a lick. We're really very proud of Amaretto who did such a fabulous job delivering her babies and she really did take it all in her stride. At 12:09pm she delivered the remaining afterbirth and then settled back down to clean herself up. She wasn't interested in having anything to eat or drink and I did try a number of different things, but she was feeling rather tired. I moved the box off the bed at about 12: 30pm but obviously then stayed awake keeping a very close eye on Amaretto because at this stage, I didn't know if she had finished the whole process (she was certainly acting like it) or whether or not she was having a rest before anything started again. At 2:17am, she got out of the kittening box and had a drink of water, some milk mixture and a nibble of dry food. When she had finished eating, she had a bit of a walk around which gave me the opportunity to have a good look and feel to see if there were any others. I could feel no other babies in there at all and it looked like Amaretto had finished for the night. She was content to let her babies feed and didn't mind me continually latching them on because for some reason, they all wanted the same nipple. Why is it that a cat has 8 nipples, yet 3 babies all want the same one! The babies are all very beautiful and look well, as does Amaretto. Amaretto really has done her breeder, Michelle, very proud. The babies haven't been sexed yet, and as most of our regular diary readers are aware, I'm not bothered at all by the sex of the babies. My main concern is that they are going to be okay however I will try and sex them either today or tomorrow. Many thanks to my husband Graham, for all his help last night.

Baby	Birth Time	Weight	Sex
Siamese	8:05pm	80g	?
Siamese	9:28pm	100g	?
Oriental Blue	9:32pm	83g	?