These are really super quick entries today as it's been one of those days where I've had a lot to do and there just is not enough time in the day. Already it's 1346 and I am only making a start on the diaries now. The babies all had their first meal of fish today (plaice) and up until now, they have not had fish before and to be honest, I did have my doubts that would actually like it but I was certainly in for a shock. The moment I put the plate down, they all went tearing over to the plate, and were so enthusiastic about the fish that they were putting the paws on "their own pieces" and growling at each other. I was taken aback to say the least. There is no need to guess what I am about to do after the diary is uploaded....................I'm off to buy lots of fish. Everyone has made gains today except for Patriot who is still causing an awful lot of worry. All of the kids have spent more time in the cat run today than anywhere else as there is a lovely cool breeze out there. Although having said that, every single baby has been spotted upstairs at one point or another during the day.

Today's entries start off the same, but only because one or two things apply to all 7 babies. The mum's have been away from them now for a few days as you are all aware and I was saying to Linda (owner of Patriot, Braveheart and Salt) just yesterday afternoon what a difference there is in the babies now. This could well because the mum's are no longer within the vicinity, or it could be that the babies are just at that age now where suddenly "everything changes". For example, as most of you know yourselves, when you were here last the babies were still not particularly confident and they were not really going too far, even though the house is opened up now. However for the past couple of days, the change has just been amazing in the respect that the babies not only have been tearing through the whole house and exploring it, they also now even venture upstairs which I did not discover until yesterday afternoon and I must admit that it was a bit of a shock because up until a few days ago, the kids only really tore around in the back room and the cat run. This is such a massive difference to see them making use of the whole home and another than has changed is their confidence level. Almost as if it has happened overnight, they have become fearless babies who are not bothered at all now when the older cats growl at them (as indeed some of them still do). They approach all of the older cats, and they play with Cointreau as well. Of course we still have the occasional arched back and bushy tail if an adult growls at them when they don't expect it but that is normal really. It's just so wonderful to see them going where ever they want and making full use of the home. Of course there is one drawback in this with regards to the fact that at feeding time, I never know where the darn babies are so while some are being fed, I'm searching high and low throughout the house to find the missing children. It's exhausting let me assure you. One thing Linda said to me yesterday was that I must be pleased when our babies all go to their new homes. In a way, she is right in the fact that I am just so tired from all the work that has gone into raising these kids, however, the problem is that the more time and effort you put into the "problem children", the more of a bond you form with them and the harder it is when they actually leave me. By now, all of our new owners should have received an email from me explaining that the babies will probably be here an extra week (instead of being able to leave on the 7th) because they can not have their first set of jabs until Patriot has more weight on her. The risk to her with vaccinations at this size is quite tremendous and I am not prepared to put her through it (nor is my vet). So thank you to all of our new kitten families for being so understanding about the situation.

Now I do love Lethal Weapon dearly but if he runs into me just one more time I am going to sit him down and have rather strong words with him! That boy is just too energetic some days and he tears about the place giving absolutely no thought whatsoever as to who is in his current path because if someone, albeit me, or indeed another kitten or older cat is in the way, he just runs straight into them without a moment's hesitation. He is like a bull in a china shop sometimes. The problem with him of course is that he is just soooooooo appealing that even when he does run into you, all you can really do is pick him up for cuddles and kisses. Patriot has gained a little this morning, not a great deal but she has definitely gained. I did get a bit of a shock when I was upstairs doing the litter trays this morning and I turned around to find Patriot in the upstairs hallway exploring and having the time of her life. Even when her grandmother growled at her, she refused to concern herself and just carried on with what she was doing. At the moment she is under 500 grams so you can see obviously why I am so desperately worried about her, however, up until this morning, for the past couple of days she was losing, so if she continues to gain daily then it will be a real bonus. Mad Max, as per usual today had no intentions of sleeping when the rest of the babies did which meant he had to resort to playing Paper Football again and when he had enough of that, he thought it would be much more fun to get in my way while I was trying to work. The problem with him is that his eyes are just so expressive and when Mad Max wants attention, it just takes one look from those blue eyes and everyone is prepared to be at his beck and call. As for Braveheart, well she is spending a lot of her waking time either playing or exploring. She is fascinated with the home (can't for the life of me think why!) and most of the time, I have absolutely no idea where she is and then after searching for her, she will suddenly appear from upstairs, or from some corner she's been exploring and I am positive that wherever she appears from, I had already checked that area and she wasn't there. Go figure! All of our Mel's had gains this morning so things are looking up but again, I would still please ask for prayers because even though I do not want to be the voice of doom and gloom, I know that we still have a battle ahead of us.

I had a wonderful surprise yesterday afternoon............................I was sitting here trying to get some work done, with Pepper curled up on my lap have little kitten dreams, when I heard some crunching behind me. Figuring that it was Sage (boy can that cat eat!), I turned around only to discover Braveheart at the kitten bowl crunching away on the Iams biscuits! Now these are not the biscuits that were soaked with the salmon juice because I gave that up as a lost cause due to the fact that after a few nibbles, no one wanted to know. They were just the plain biscuits in a bowl. This really is such a relief because what it hopefully means is that Braveheart will continue to eat the biscuits, the other babies will then see what she is doing and over time, they will copy her. Now branching out onto a totally different topic, Patriot who is supposed to be such an intelligent kitten, is in fact a wally brain! Playing out in the cat run with everyone else, the little minx decided to scale the "tree" (which is really part of a tree trunk that we pulled out of the garden a couple of years ago and stuck in the run) and she flew up that tree so quickly. For some reason though, it didn't occur to her that you have to be able to get back down once you get up there. I happened to glance out into the run where the babies all were and found this rather pitiful little figure at the top of the tree, totally confused as to what she should do next. So after taking a couple of photos of her being stuck, I then rescued her and put her back on the ground. Within 10 minutes she went straight back up there, again only to find that she had the same problem <sigh>. So again, I removed her from the tree, again she went back up, and again, and again. I think that if anyone is looking for a new fangled way to lose weight, they should simply spend a week at my home with these kittens because I swear that you don't get to stay still for any longer than 2 minutes. Even more wonderful news is that by late yesterday afternoon, both Mad Max AND Lethal Weapon were eating the Iams kitten biscuits which is just so marvellous. What I do not understand though is why Lethal Weapon insists on putting one of his paws (the left front one) in the bowl as he eats? Is he not worried he will accidentally eat his own paw? By the time this morning came around, every single baby is eating the dry kitten biscuits, the Iams, not the JW but so long as they are eating one type I don't mind at the moment which one. I can always add the JW to the Iams biscuits at a later stage. Mad Max and Braveheart have a new friend in the form of Cointreau. She has been unable to resist the babies antics this morning and has been joining in their chase games and playing hide and seek with them which is lovely. Patriot's weight is still concerning me greatly so I will be off to see my vet this afternoon.

During the last 24 hours, some babies gained whilst other lost. The majority of their weights are fluctuating at the moment. They are eating well though with respect that whenever they are hungry, they tell me, and I feed them. I am sure that half this "crap" they are eating is not really doing much with regards to getting weight on them. The problem is that at the moment they only want to eat certain things and if I don't feed them what they want, then they totally refuse to eat so I need to figure out a way around this problem. As you can see, I did manage a few photographs in today's entry. These were taken while the babies were having fun and games outside in the cat run.

Lethal Weapon is such a darling and even though he is much smaller than Joe Byrne was, in some ways he reminds me of him so very much. Particularly in the respect that while everyone else is sleeping, Lethal Weapon wakes up and wants to play, either with me while he sits on my lap and helps me work, or with his favourite game of paper football. He is also one of the first to always start a wrestling match, although he is quickly joined by Braveheart who has absolutely no idea at all that she is a girl. She firmly believes that because she is black like her brother, she is his equal in strength. No matter how many times he gets her in a headlock, she still keeps coming back for more. Patriot is much more gentle than the others, however, when she wants to, she can be an extremely feisty little girl and she is still unphased by everything that goes on around her. Even the adult cats do not worry her at all and she doesn't hesitate to approach them if she is in the mood to do so. As for Mad Max, will he will make a great companion for Joe Byrne I think in that he loves to play so very much, either on his own, or with the other kittens. He is just happy to have people who will play with him.

Before going any further, I must say Best of Luck to our daughter as her GCSE's commenced today and I hope that she does very well and will cope with the stress over the next week or so. I am so tired as I type this entry due to the feeding and I'm also running behind with everything today as I took 3 of my adults to the vets for their vaccinations and I was there quite a while. The kids are now booked in for the first set of vaccinations which will happen on Monday morning (12th). As for our babies, well I am still quite concerned about them and weights on a couple of them are not particularly good at all. Out of 7 babies, 5 had gained when I weighed them this morning but 2 had lost, Salt and Vinegar. Up until this morning, my biggest concern has been Patriot (as per usual) and Mad Max, both of whom looked extremely thin and had been losing. However, they both made gains in the last 24 hours, Mad Max made very good gains and Patriot gained just 2 grams, however, considering she had been losing again, this is very good news. Thanks so much to the Blue Paw clan for their support and prayers. Their diet at the moment consists of scrambled eggs mixed in with a/d and a bit of salmon, they will also happily eat Sheba as well as a "pate" type food. I am not happy at all about the commercial foods however the only thing that matters right now is that the babies are eating, regardless of what it is. Remember how I went out to get Iams kitten biscuits yesterday in a moment of desperation? Well the kids were not impressed at all. Then at 7pm last night I had a brainwave and I opened up a tin of salmon, poured the juice over the biscuits that were in the bowl on the off chance it might tempt them to eat them. I then went up to the bedroom to put the ironing away only to be told by our daughter that "Patriot is eating biscuits from the bowl". My reply was "Which one?", her reply was "Patriot....................the brown one". At which point I looked at her in disbelief and said "Mo, I know which baby Patriot is, for goodness sake I do know my own babies, I meant which BOWL was she eating from!" The reason I asked was that I have 3 bowls of kitten biscuits down for them, one of JW, one of Iams, and another one of Iams with the salmon juice on it. Sure enough it was the one with the salmon juice. Then as the night progressed, more and more babies were eating the biscuits as well thank goodness. I must admit that at the 11pm feed, I took the "Holy Oil" downstairs as well and put some on each baby as I said a prayer because if anything is going to make a difference, that certainly will. I did learn that one really should not feed babies when one is so very tired because at 11:30pm last night, I came downstairs for another feed (the babies not me) and the babies were asleep so they needed to be woken up. Naturally, babies are more inclined to eat when they have been expending energy so I figured the best way to get them running about was to start up a game of paper football which I did, using 3 screwed up paper balls. It worked straight away and within seconds the kids were having the time of their lives playing football while I sat on the floor flicking the balls to them. I guess that it was just very unfortunate that I was tired and I flicked one of the paper balls straight into Pepper's face. Okay fair enough my aim is not great at the best of times, but when I am tired, it's even worse. Poor Pepper was not impressed at all and I can't say that I blame her. After about 10 minutes the babies were all wide awake and ready to eat and when I put the plate of food down, they all tucked into it. The meal at 1:30am went roughly the same way. As I type this entry it is now 11:46am and the babies are sound asleep and not due to be fed again until 1pm so I am using this time to try and get an entry online. Of course if any of the babies wake up in between, they get fed straight away as well. Like just now for instance, Salt poked her head out from underneath the throw on the chair so she is now eating a plate of food. The majority of my time is spent going in and out of the kitchen preparing meals. She has now been joined by Braveheart who, even in her sleep, can obviously smell a plate of food! And now Patriot has joined them! You wouldn't think these babies were only fed at 11am when I got home from the vets. Still, the more they eat, the happier I am, and hopefully, the bigger they will become. I am sure that our new families must be rather sick of seeing the same entries in the diaries, but please do bear with me because at the moment, I really need to concentrate all my energy on the babies, rather than the diaries.

Here we go again, feeding and supplementing and yes, there is a sigh in my voice as I type this. I reckon by now I could feed these babies with my eyes closed as it seems that is all I have done with these litters off and on. I am just hoping and praying that when Sambuca gives birth in July it will not be a repeat of what I have just been through with our current kids. I'm not happy with some of the babies' weights, although everyone is still over 500 grams. Pepper being at the other end of the scale weighing in over 800 grams. No surprise there! I am sure with her weights she really is a boy in disguise! Again I have been doing weight comparisons this morning with lots of previous litters and I have had worse at this age, all of whom went on to be happy, health adult cats so that is slightly reassuring. It is no surprise having had some losses due to the milk from the mum's upsetting the babies, and also I feel that perhaps stress associated with the loss of their mum's has been an influence in the losses. So now I shall battle on again until I have weights that I am happy with and once the babies achieve this, hopefully, without the mum's there will be no more problems. Indeed, since the mum's were removed, there has been no vomiting at all and the meals that I am feeding the babies are being kept down with no problems at all. Today I am going out to buy some (and for me this is a dreaded word!) Iams kitten biscuits! I hate them, absolutely hate them, however the babies are not eating any of the JW kitten biscuits yet, so I am going to try with another brand. They are actually the first babies I've ever had that won't eat the JW although a few weeks' ago, a couple of them were happy to nibble on the biscuits when they saw their mum's doing it. The upset tummies put a stop to that initially so I don't think it was the brand of biscuits. Once they start eating another brand, I will start mixing the JW with it and that should do the trick. Today's photos are just a couple of "sleepy" photos as I have quite a lot to still do today including 2 hourly feeding.

As I write this entry, some of the babies are sitting on one of the office chairs and Lethal Weapon is attacking any baby who is closes to him, in this case poor Salt, however she didn't hesitate to nip him on the leg and show him that size doesn't matter in the midst of a battle. What has surprised me is that Sage, our new addition to the family, has developed an interest in the children. He's not ever seen a kitten before and when he spotted Braveheart going for a walk through the lounge room (don't know why I call it that as we don't have a sofa!), he sat next to her and just looked at her and kept inching closer so he could sniff her and check her out. He then came into the back room and sat out here with the babies, totally fascinated by the tiny creatures.

Well, despite everything I said in yesterday's diary, I will no doubt look rather foolish now because I have had to remove BOTH mum's from the babies so our children are orphans at the moment. With both girls calling, I have had babies vomiting up milk. They don't vomit up the proper food, only the milk, and the problem is that they are now less inclined to eat again because their tummies are upset. So I had to weigh up the pros and cons of leaving the mum's with the babies. Unfortunately, the risk to the babies' health now if I leave the mum's with them is too great. The weather is getting much warner now, babies who are vomiting, and not eating, can become dehydrated very quickly and we just can not take the risk of losing any of the kids due to the mum's milk. Both mum's are now in the kitten room where they will remain until they have both come off call. In the meantime, we have a big job ahead of us ensuring that the babies are eating properly and still gaining weight. I am also hoping that one of our older girls, either Cacao, or perhaps one of our other queens may decide to adopt the babies as this would be far better than having them on their own. Last night I had a long chat with my friend Mo of Keelokan Siamese about the problem and I am grateful for her advice on the situation, particularly as she has been through this herself. I must admit that removing the mum's does worry me a great deal however if they had remained with the kids whilst calling, the babies would have suffered quite a bit. So far, the babies have not seem too bothered by the absence of their mum's who, at the time of writing this entry at 1059, have been away from them for 2 1/2 hours. I shall see how they fare as the day passes. They have spent a lot of time on "their" chair, playing and sleeping however I am not the most popular person in the world due to the fact that I brought the dreaded hoover into their room and made a huge noise as I had a clean up and the babies were most unimpressed to say the least! After hoovering though, the babies settled back on their chair to sleep but they woke up rather rapidly when I waved a plate of scrambled eggs and salmon underneath their noses. Okay it sounds a bit extravagant with regards to the salmon however at such a critical stage in our babies' lives, I am prepared to feed them anything they want and they really do love the salmon. It is a fairly busy day today in the respect that we have some of our babies' families visiting their children.

Lee and Susie came today to visit their darling Mad Max and it was nice to see them again as it's been a little while since I last saw them both. Fortunately Max was on his best behaviour and was more than happy to share cuddles with his new mum and dad. Also visiting the Mel's today was Kerry, Chris, Kyle, Katie and Cameron because they are going to be Lethal Weapon's new family. This was the first time I had met Kerry and the gang and it was really lovely to meet them. And how beautifully behaved their children are as well. Kyle, Cameron and Katie are a credit to their parents. They were so gentle as they handled the babies and I was really impressed with the respect that they had for our cats. Braveheart and Patriot also had a visit today from their new mum and dad, Linda and Peter. It's always a pleasure to see them both and I am sure it was also very reassuring for Linda to see that her babies are okay after the problems we have had with them.