We are 2 weeks old now!

Day 13 - September 7, 2007

Diaries today are very short, due to our battle with Ock, but at least there are photos, albeit "sleepy" ones.

Again today, I am struggling with what to actually write as our darling little pork pies have done absolutely nothing apart from eat, sleep, and Jonesy screamed at me while I was trying to weigh him. So I guess everything is perfectly normal. The jury is still out on just what sex poor Ray is but we are rather desperately hoping he will be a female. We had thought that Barry was looking like he may be female as well however today he looks male again. Who would know!

There are no kitten diaries today. Please read the Water Babies' kitten diary for an explanation.

Day 11 - September 5, 2007

It has been one of those days whereby every time I have attempted to start today's kitten diaries, my attention has been drawn elsewhere and as a result, it is now 1612 and I am only now just starting to type the entries. This means unfortunately there are no photos in any of today's diaries and all I have really done is just scribble a few lines. We have 2 of our older Oriental Black kittens leaving home tomorrow which meant I had to spend a minimum 2 hours doing their paperwork and preparing for them to leave. Tomorrow, there WILL be photos, one way or another :)

Today's news, which is no shock, but is extremely welcomed, is that it is more than likely we have 1, possibly 2 female tabbies in this litter. Definitely 1 though we think. This does of course mean, once we know what "Jamie" is in the Chef's litter, we will be making a decision as to which baby will be remaining with us :) Our Ray J's beautiful colouring was admired today by our friends, and kitten family, Nicky and Karl and they had cuddles with our Ray J's. As each day passes, I am finding myself falling more and more in love with these children. Amaretto has really done us very proud, but then, this is no surprise at all considering she stems back to an amazing Maroochydore Havana :) I am hoping to be able to take individual photos of our Ray J's tomorrow as I have not done this for quite a while.

Day 10 - September 4, 2007

Today, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to talk about with our Ray J's because they are at that stage where absolutely nothing happens from day to day. As you know, their eyes are fully open, cords are gone, they are more active, but to be honest, all they do is eat, sleep, and crawl around (not very far I might add), and it makes diary entries rather difficult and a tad boring. I can tell you that Jonesy is the biggest "moaner" out of these 3 babies because at weigh in and examining sessions, Barry and Ray are more than happy to be handled and popped on the scales whereas Jonesy screams at me when he has had enough and let me assure you, he has quite a set of vocal cords on him for one so young. It is actually just as well that Jonesy is a definite male because had he been female, I would have thought twice about keeping him here because his own father, Ashanti, is quite a vocal boy and I don't think I could cope with 2 of them :)

Day 9 - September 3, 2007

Our little "butterballs" are now 9 days old and doing very, very, well. I don't have a single complaint with any of them, and Amaretto is such an incredibly doting mother. She does adore her children and she is really pleased to have Sambuca in the kitten room as well. I am relieved though that Retto has not wanted to move her babies into Sambuca's box because going off the size of our Ray J's, i think they would squash our newborn babies. As far as personalities go, obviously it is still very early days but at the moment, I'm not seeing any major differences between the 3 babies at this stage. Jonesy appears to be the laziest of all 3 because if the other 2 are feeding, and decides that he should as well, he doesn't really put in much effort to try and reach a nipple. Instead, he just flops down on top of Ray and Barry and goes to sleep. Hard to imagine he is the biggest of the three with that sort of attitude towards feeding :)

Day 8 - September 2, 2007

You can probably tell by our photos below that our darling little Ray J's have turned into little porkers! They are doing very well in the weight department and are looking like little rolly polly's :) However, you would have to agree that they are very adorable. Jonesy is steaming ahead in the weight department and I think he is going to be quite a nice size boy. I have doubts that Ray and Barry will ever catch up to him. What you can't tell in today's photos (which are rather bad I must say) is that all 3 of our Ray J's now have their eyes open and all cords have finally fallen off. Jonesy was the last baby to lose his cord. At some point this week I will get around to sharing their weights with you so you can see for yourselves just how nicely they are progressing. Ray is showing signs of being a definite Spotted Tabby. I'm almost certain this is what he will end up being. The jury is still out on Jonesy and Barry for the time being.

Day 7 - September 1, 2007

There are no entries today in any of our kitten diaries. It's been a long 24 hours as one of our ladies went into labour. The labour lasted from 9pm last night until just after 9am this morning and we also had one of our older babies, Ice Maiden leaving home today. Entries should resume as per normal tomorrow.

Message for Diana: If you are reading today's entries, can you please call me ASAP on my mobile?