Happy Mother's Day to all the mum's out there who may be reading this today :) I'm delighted to see that the sun is shining today which makes me rather happy indeed :) Unfortunately, there's no photos for today's entry because after I took the first one, the batteries died and are now being recharged. Our Herbs were left on their own for a little while yesterday while we went to the football and after we returned it was nice to see that the room was still in one piece. As we were gone for a few hours, we left both mum's in the room with the little ones. As soon as we opened the door when we arrived home, both mum's shot straight out of the room at 100 miles an hour! At a very rough guess, the babies had been playing lots of games and driving them mad. Cacao has been very funny this morning because she's been pretending she was a kitten again and encouraging the Herbs to join in her mad antics. She's been running from the kitten box, diving into the cylinder shaped post, climbing out through the top (no easy feat as she's a very long girl), while the Herbs have been chasing her through the cylinder, back into the box. Once in the box, she would pin them down, playfully nip them, then groom them and then she would take off again. Poor Chives got pushed off the work surface this morning, by Parsley, but fortunately she landed straight onto the chair which is carefully placed there in case little accidents like this do happen. Within 10 seconds, she was back up on the work surface battling it out again. As it stands at the moment, if any of them are pushed off the work surface, they have a very good chance of landing on either the carpet covered pyramid, the chair, into the box, or onto my chair (or lap if I'm sitting here). The first few hours of this morning were "mad hour" and the little ones have been running throughout the entire house, chasing each other, hiding behind things and pouncing on their unsuspecting litter mates and generally creating havoc. None of them have ventured up the stairs yet but I have a feeling that won't be too far away before they are brave enough to try it. They do now leave this downstairs part of the house and go into the front entrance to check out everything in there and that's where the stairs are. I have seen a couple of them sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching our adult cats go up and down and it's funny to see the quizzical look in their eyes as they watch the adults and are trying to figure out just how it is they are getting up and down.

Graham made me laugh today because he came into the back room to get something and was moaning about the fact that he doesn't get to be with the kittens as much as I do so next thing you know he's taken Chives from off the chair, carried her out to his desk, put his jumper on the desk to make a bed for her and promptly proceed to place her on the jumper just so he could "have" some kittens too. One minute later, he then asked me to bring him Thyme as he felt that Chives would like some company as well however Chives was more interested in exploring yet another new playground (namely Graham's work surface), whereas Graham felt that Thyme would be much happier and warmer in his jumper (see the first 2 photos). I really had to smile. It didn't last very long with Chives however as Cacao realised that 2 of the Herbs were missing and went on a search and rescue mission to return them. She went up to Graham, expressed her disapproval in no uncertain terms and sure enough, Chives came back out to the back room with Cacao. See.........even we humans are scared of upsetting the babies' mums. Thyme however promptly fell asleep in Graham's jumper so Cacao was happy to leave her where she was. You can also tell from the first few photos that the Herbs no longer rely on each other for company when they are sleeping and it's now not uncommon to see them asleep in various parts of the room, on their own. When I came downstairs this morning I was incredibly relieved to see that my work surface, and everything on it, was still in one piece. I had visions of them having destroyed it during the night. Twice today I have had to remove Chives from inside the printer. She climbs in through the front, goes right up to the back of it, then pretends she can't climb out so I have to open up the printer to remove her. I can't wait for the day that she is too big to fit in there. I've come to the conclusion that Parsley does not like sharing his food at all. Poor little Thyme was chomping away at the kitten biscuits yesterday when Parsley decided that he also wanted some however, he was of the opinion that there wasn't enough room for two. When Thyme put her head in the bowl to get another mouthful, mean little Parsley physically pushed her away from the bowl and then put his right paw up in the air to prevent her coming near it. I was a little irritated with him at doing this to Thyme so I brought the other food bowl over as well (it was only a couple of feet away), and I picked him up and placed him in front of the other food bowl and put Thyme back near the bowl. This wasn't good enough for Parsley though! Even though both bowls contained exactly the same food, he wanted to eat from the same bowl that Thyme was eating from. I did try to explain to him that Thyme really needs to eats lots and lots and he shouldn't be so mean to his sister but I'm afraid that it fell on deaf ears so I had to sit there while they ate, to make sure that Thyme was not getting pushed away by her brother. Apart from that however, all the little ones really enjoy their biscuits now which is great. I love to see babies with good appetites. Mind you, with the amount of running around they do I'm not surprised that they eat so much because they are expending so much energy throughout the day.

Firstly let me say.........I HATE THIS DARN WEATHER!!! If this snow doesn't stop soon I am going to hibernate because I've had enough of it! Poor Cacao's position has now been usurped as Amaretto is back! I allowed Retto back in with her babies yesterday from lunch time onwards. The first thing she did when she came downstairs was go and sniff and lick each of the babies in turn to make sure I hadn't "lost" any of them. Once she was satisfied that everyone was there, she checked out the room, sniffed the litter trays and used the scratch post. By late yesterday afternoon, both she and Cacao had it worked out between themselves. Some of the Herbs were in the kitten box suckling from their real mum, others were on the hooded bed suckling from Cacao and then everyone would wander off and swap over again. Cacao is a little annoyed that Amaretto has taken over the kitten box and she keeps sticking her head in when Retto is in there, wondering whether or not to barge in but one look from Amaretto tells her to think twice. Then as soon as Amaretto gets out of the box, Cacao goes straight in there trying to entice any Herbs who will follow her. When the little ones are awake and playing, both "mums" sit on vantage points from high above (like the top of the fish tank) and watch the Herbs play. It's really sweet to see how they both decided straightaway that there was more than enough room for 2 mums in the house and how they are sharing their duties so well. My main concern is that with Amaretto back, the Herbs will revert back to not eating dry food and become dependant on Amaretto. It's for this reason that I will not be letting Amaretto in with them of an evening because I want the babies to continue to think that if they want food during the night they have to eat the kitten biscuits. Sage has spent an awful lot of time this morning up on my desk exploring and I'm not sure what fascinated him more, my hands flying across the keyboard, or the smell emanating from my coffee cup. I'll just be happy enough if I can keep him out of the printer :) If you suddenly start to see strange "things" appearing in the diary, you'll simply have to put it down to the "typing assistance" from the Herbs. Sambuca, who is expecting her first litter early April, has been spending loads of time in the kitten room during the last 48 hours. She is just so fascinated by the Herbs and watches everything they do. You may notice in two of the photos that she is actually letting Tarragon sleep with her (although in both pics she just looks like a black blob!). Mind you, 10 minutes after I took that photo, Chives came up to see what was going on and got a smack in the ear for her trouble by Sami. Go figure! One thing I've noticed today, although you can't tell from the photos, but Thyme's fur is actually starting to grow now and cover her body like a real little kitten which is really lovely because she did look slightly bald for a rather long time. Hopefully you'll be able to tell by some of the photos just how difficult it is for me to get anything done at the moment because the Herbs are all convinced my workspace is their new playground <sigh>. They spent all of yesterday afternoon up on the work top, climbing into and over everything and destroying things in their wake. It's like 6 miniature furry hurricanes have suddenly struck. But one thing we breeders can never say is that living with kittens is dull because they are so very amusing and keep us entertained for hours on end :) I have to say that I think the last 2 photos in today's entry are absolutely beautiful because it shows all the Herbs with both mum's sharing "their" babies and it really made me smile.

I got quite a surprise when I came downstairs this morning because instead of the Herbs screaming at me from their bed on from on the floor, they all suddenly started to appear out of nowhere from various places on my work surface (where the pc sits etc). Then 5 seconds later, Chive started crawling out from inside the printer!!!! Obviously they have now reached the age where nothing in the back room is out of bounds and it didn't take me long to figure out how they got up there when I saw them climbing down my chair, onto their kitten box and then onto the floor, apart from Tarragon who went down our daughter's chair, onto the pyramid and then onto the floor. I'm actually rather relieved that the printer is not left switched on! This also means that I'll have to make sure there is no paperwork left on my desk overnight as well because it would be just my luck to have one of the little darlings wee on something important! I've now come to the conclusion that my life revolves around nothing more than preparing kitten meals, cleaning litter trays, sweeping their room and feeding them! Just like normal children, the older they get, they messier they get. I think that Cacao is starting to rethink her newly "adopted mother" status because the Herbs are running her ragged which is rather amusing. During the day, she spends a lot of time sitting on my lap, just trying to get away from them as they won't leave her be. They want to play with her constantly and when they are running around the house, she is forever getting up and down to check on them and make sure they are not in any harm. I did tell remind her that she volunteered for the mothering job so it's her own fault. I also told (which she found offensive) that now she has been spayed, she really needs the exercise anyway so she won't get fat.

For the first time ever, when I came downstairs this morning, my little ones didn't all come running out to meet me. I soon discovered why when a flash of white, as quick as lightening, streaked passed me under the dining room table and into the lounge room. That was followed by a streak of black traveling at the speed of light also! My babies are now at the stage of their lives where I call them "Zoom Babies". For those of you who don't know what that means I'll try to explain it. The babies suddenly get to a stage (and it happens overnight), where they discover that they can really run very fast on their little legs so they make the most of this by chasing each other from one end of the house to the other, zooming back and forth all over the place. It's a very scary time indeed for anyone else living in the house because you can be just standing there, or walking around normally when this little furry thing runs into you at 100 miles an hour. Unfortunately, when they discover how fast they can run, they seem to forget what their eyes are for! It is so very funny though to watch them chase each other. Even the adult cats actually all sat on the dining room table, watching in amazement and not one of them was brave enough to step onto the floor in case they were run over by one of the Herbs. It was actually another 1/2 hour before they stopped playing Zoom Babies and realised that mum was now downstairs and that they hadn't been fed in 100 years (or so they tell me). I didn't take any photos of their zooming because from previous experience, all I end up with is a load of blurs in the images. The one and only real problem with zoom babies is that the back room now looks like a bomb has struck. They have been running through the water bowl, through the dry food, through the litter tray and as a result there is just a horrific mess everywhere! But at least they're having lots of fun :) Considering our Herbs have now been without no mum of an evening for a few days now, I'm delighted to say that their weight gains are stable and increasing every night. Even little Thyme now weighs 310 grams! It does really help that they are all eating dry food now and I've actually put 2 dry food bowls down now. I haven't taken any photos at all yet today so I will try and take some this afternoon and post them in this entry a bit later on.

I thought today that I'd try and take photos of the little ones actually "doing" things instead of lying around and I think I have succeeded. Actually, I'm rather pleased with today's batch of photos which makes a nice change as my photos are normally dreadful. The Herbs were very active yesterday and again today but fortunately, they are equally as active in the dining area so it's not all confined to the back room. Poor Tarragon had an accident with the water bowl this morning and was rather surprised. She was running around with Rosemary, not looking where she was going and stood straight in the water bowl, sent the water everywhere and got all 4 legs and her stomach soaked. I picked her up and dried her off straight away and you would have thought she would appreciate it but no, as I'm drying her off, she's biting my fingers! Our other Herbs really do seem to get naughtier by the day and this is the stage of their lives that is just so exciting to watch because they are so active now and so very brave. They all explore absolutely everywhere and have no fear whatsoever. Sage got a bit of a shock today when Rosemary pushed him straight off the cylinder post that they all sleep on. I am not kidding, she deliberately pushed him off, I'm sure of it because they were sitting on there, when she looked over the edge, then reached out her paw and shoved him. The poor little guy did a belly flop straight onto the floor but fortunately wasn't hurt. Thyme is still doing really very well and I'm so delighted with her progress. She is gaining weight slowly, although she'll never catch up to her brothers and sisters, but more importantly, she's been playing with all the other Herbs whenever they play. She no longer sits on her own in a corner but is as active as the rest of them. If that's not enough to make me very happy, late yesterday afternoon, Cacao was eating the dry kitten biscuits, when Thyme came over, watched Cao eat, then she promptly proceeded to climb INTO the bowl and sit on top of the biscuits eating them!! (see the first couple of photos). After that, she then sat beside the bowl with Cacao and ate loads! I am just over the moon about this because up until now she has been relying on either my feeding or her own mother's milk and I actually thought it would be weeks before she'd attempt the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits. It's absolutely the best thing I've seen in days (in case you hadn't noticed, I'm thrilled to bits). Actually, this is where we've been so lucky to have our darling Cacao because Cao is the sort of mum that teaches the babies everything whereas Amaretto would never have taught them to eat dry food, she would have let them figure it out for themselves. Cacao actually waits until the babies are watching her, then she goes to the bowl while they follow her, she looks at them and then starts eating. She then stops, looks at them again and then they start to eat. She's also been teaching some of them to use the large hooded litter tray because I turned around today to see the back end of Rosemary disappearing into the tray and 5 minutes later she came out again and sure enough she had been to the toilet. So at this point I'm going to drop in a huge Thank You once again to my very good friend Donna for breeding Cacao and then trusting us with her because Cacao is one in a million and we are convinced that her temperament and personality is down to the way she was brought up by Donna, prior to living with us. I'm also going to thank my other very good friend, Kim, who has been an absolute angel with her support to me regarding Thyme. Kim has made herself available to me constantly whenever I've needed her advice or someone to talk to and she's really helped me far more than she'll ever know.

Six weeks old today and everything is going quite well for this stage of our Herbs' lives :) The little ones have now discovered our Chinchilla's and are totally fascinated by them. It started when Sage managed to climb from one of the tubs up onto the work top where the Chinchilla cage and one of our fish tanks sit. Sure enough, once the other Herbs realised what he was up to, they thought they would have a go as well. They all walk around the chin's cage, sniffing at them, and Piko comes right up to where the Herbs are and start waving her whiskers at them and trying to smell them. It's rather funny to watch because the Herbs have absolutely no idea what the Chins are. Cacao was very funny this morning because out of all the mum's we have here, Cacao was the most protective of her little ones and Drambuie, (Cacao's daughter from her first litter) came into the back room this morning and started growling at Sage. Being a male, Sage was not going to back off or show any fear whatsoever, instead he arched his back and started growling back which was rather cute as at this age, he has a very pathetic little growl that wouldn't scare a worm. In response, Drambuie laughed at him and then bopped him on the head, and next thing you know, Cacao came tearing over, hissed and growled at Drambuie and chased her out of the room and then sat in the doorway to make sure she couldn't come back in to hurt her babies. I'm sure that all of our new owners will be delighted to hear that their Herbs are in such good paws with their adopted mum. I'm really pleased to say that for the last few days, little Thyme has been joining in everyone's activities and now climbs wherever they do, even onto the cylinder post and up onto the tubs. She doesn't let size phase her one bit. Just to give you an indication of how small she actually is, at the moment she weighs 276 grams, whereas the average weight of the other Herbs is 473 grams so there is a massive difference as you can see. Amaretto is starting to look a little better now having had a total break from her Herbs for a couple of days.