Poor Amaretto! The babies appear to have driven her totally insane. She's currently calling again, however since late yesterday afternoon, she has been walking around the house, singing at the top of her voice, with a large, fluffy pink toy in her mouth and she will not let it go (see below photo). So she spends all her waking moments walking from one part of the house to the other, carrying this toy, making this muffled calling sounds at the same time because she obviously can't open her mouth up in case she drops the toy. I will add here as well that the toy is actually mine and sits on top of my pc (or used to anyway). The darling Gumnuts can't understand her actions at all. I did tell them that if they had been much nicer to their mum, she probably wouldn't have gone insane but they are insisting that it's not their fault. I can truly say that things are rather noisy in our house at the moment with Cacao in full call screaming like a banshee, Amaretto now in full call making loud weird noises with a mouthful of toy, and Ice in the run attached to the stud house, singing back to all the girls, making sure they know he's out there. The babies have been relatively good today (which actually means a bit boring) but they are doing very well. They're still on 3-4 wet meals a day but they are going through an awful lot of dry kitten biscuits, not that I mind because it's good to see them with very healthy appetites.

Our babies have had a new "sister" for a lot of the day as Hermione has insisted that they are her family so she has spent a lot of her time curled up sleeping with them and playing with them. It's going to be very strange when Hermione leaves us on Wednesday. She is like part of the family now. The Gumnuts haven't been out in the cat run for the last day or two as the weather has just be dreadful. It's so wet outside so they created havoc throughout the house instead! I had a slightly scary moment after lunch when I thought I had lost Cuddlepie! I had closed the back room to feed the babies (whenever they are fed, the door is closed so that they can eat in peace without the big cats coming in and eating all their food) and after lunch, they started playing games. About 15 minutes later I looked around to see that there were only 2 babies so I opened the door, went throughout the main part of the house and couldn't find her. It then occurred to me that she had been shut in the back room with everyone else for feeding, the door was still shut so she had to be somewhere in that vicinity. I looked everywhere, even in stupid places that she couldn't reach in a million years. I suddenly spotted a movement out of the corner of my eye and sure enough, there was Cuddlepie running around in the cat run, playing games with her imaginary friends. I was rather relieved to say the least. I didn't fancy having to phone Sam & Dean to tell them I had lost their baby. So after me saying at the beginning of this entry that the babies don't go into the run lately, Cuddlepie had to make a liar out of me by going in there.

Snugglepot had a good day today as Carol, his new owner, (and her family) visited him. He was very well behaved (makes a change) and enjoyed his cuddles I'm sure. When Carol first arrived the little Gumnuts were sound asleep but it wasn't long before they were on the dining table playing and having lots of cuddles. Cacao was very mean to the little ones today. They were sound asleep on the chair and she jumped up and started grooming them, which woke them up, and as soon as they were awake, she then smacked them and growled at them. The Gumnuts weren't particularly perturbed as they just went back to sleep and obviously I removed Cacao from the chair. I do think she is upset because they aren't her babies.

I didn't have the normal amount of time for my Gumnuts today that I normally would as I had so much to do around the house. They still had a lovely day though, playing in the cat run, playing with rolled up bits of paper all through the house, and actually spent a lot of the day in the upstairs hallway with the bigger cats. They found the "hot spot" in the upstairs hallway, the same spot every other litter is drawn to, and spent quite a few hours up there asleep, obviously enjoying the warmth. We've had the heating on during the day and evening now as it's getting so much colder and I always have this fear that the babies will be too cold and sure enough, most evenings, they sleep in their little box which is right beside the radiator.

I received a bit of a shock yesterday evening to find the babies had actually ventured outside. It started when we were having dinner and Amaretto was dragging poor little Cuddlepie across the floor (Retto still has this bad habit of doing that with the Gumnuts sometimes) so I got up from the table and rescued Cuddlepie and told Amaretto to stop it and then I realised why. She was actually trying to prevent Cuddlepie from going into the cat run. When I looked into the run, I was stunned to see Banksia Man and Snugglepot both out there having the time of their lives. For those of you who aren't aware, the Gumnuts have had access to the cat run for the last 4 weeks or so yet up until this point, not one of them would go out into the cat run which really surprised me as our other litters have all loved having access to the run. I was really pleased to see them out there enjoying themselves. Again today, just after lunch, the babies were out in the run having a wonderful time, playing chase, chewing the grass and stalking each other. The babies are always so lovely to watch when they are playing in the run. Amaretto, for whatever reason, doesn't want them in there, but she has figured out now that there's nothing she can do about it, other than keep an eye on them. Little Banksia Man got a smack in the mouth today by Satan's Hell Child (Cacao). Unfortunately, Cacao is calling at the top of her voice, has been for the last couple of days, and is rather hormonal and rather cranky. She keeps walking through the back room to get into the cat run so she can call to Ice, who in turn is in his cat run calling back to her, but whenever an unfortunate Gumnut happens to be in her path, she growls at them, smacks them and walks off. The Gumnuts are such fearless little babies that rather than cower and run when she does this, they all choose to growl back which obviously makes her even more cranky. Just like every other day, our babies had great games playing on top of the dining table today. I know I really went overboard with photos today, however Snugglepot had "found" the fish for the first time and she was getting so much enjoyment out of trying to catch them that I just had to take loads of photos so I did get rather carried away.

Poor little Banksia Man! I feel so sorry for her. She was sleeping on my lap when Cuddlepie came over, jumped on top of her, bit her on the bum, and then lay on her, grooming her ears when all Banksia wanted to do was sleep. She then proceeded to "move" Banksia in a more suitable position and pushed her around a bit so that she could use her as a pillow! I've noticed over the last few days that when the babies are sleeping, it's always Banksia who they lay on top of. Not that Banksia ever really minds, and if she does, she just either gets up and finds a spot on her own, or she moves out from under them and then finds somewhere else to sleep (usually my lap). Even today I noticed when Hermione decided to join the party and sleep with the Gumnuts, she also viewed Banksia Man as the "pillow". Of course it didn't last long at all because Hermione is getting a lot bigger now and is much too heavy for the Gumnuts so within minutes, Banksia had crawled out from under her and went to the other side of the chair. The babies have been relatively well behaved today, apart from Snugglepot who managed to actually pull my wall calendar totally off the wall, making me spend half an hour looking for the thumb tack which fell out as well as I obviously couldn't leave the tack lying around the floor, he also chewed my daughter's school timetable which is stuck on the wall!! Bless him :)

My Gumnuts are 8 weeks old and the time is going by way too quickly. I can't believe that they are booked in next week for their first set of vaccinations. They are such a lovely little litter in regards to personality and I know they will certainly keep their new kitten families entertained and will bring them lots of love. Each baby seems to have the best of both parent's temperaments. The little ones are doing very well and at the moment of writing this, Banksia is on my lap, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are sleeping behind me on the chair so it's rather peaceful thank goodness.