We are 13 weeks old now!

I must first warn you all that there will probably be no photos until Monday now. Reason being is that today has been a very hectic day, tomorrow I have quite a lot to do, and we friends and a kitten family visiting on Sunday so I really don't have a great deal of time at all.

I really do not know what to say about our Nuts, mainly because to my mind, they are no longer little babies, they are truly part of the family. All 4 of them just go wherever they want, they do want they want, and I think they are starting to think they actually live here permanently now :) The one thing they don't do, and this surprises me because our previous litters all did this, was actually come downstairs to sleep. Our Nuts seem to feel that they actually own the upstairs part of the home and that is where they are supposed to sleep, whereas downstairs is purely for eating, playing, chasing, and making a huge mess. I'm wondering if the reason for this is because My Cino (aka Nocino), is the oldest kitten in the home and she is the "boss" of the kittens. She makes is perfectly clear that if any of the adult girls want to play at being mum, then they suddenly become "Nocino's mum", such as Cointreau who has adopted Nocino for the time being and is mothering her. Nocino does go upstairs and sleeps with the Nuts/Detectives/Thames, and plays with them but she doesn't seem to want to sleep with them downstairs and makes it very clear that she is the downstairs baby. I'm very interested to see whether or not this will change during the next 4 weeks or so.

Entries today are incredibly short due to lack of time.

You can tell by the photos below that when everyone was supposed to be asleep today during nap time, Pistachio was having none of it. He was wide awake and incredibly bored. He even went so far as to wake up Sherlock who was sleeping in the kitten room, and force her to play with him. He didn't actually go to sleep today until around 1400 which is unusual because from the moment he had breakfast, he was playing and running around non stop. By rights he should sleep all through the night but I doubt it :)

Before I forget again, I must let our Nuts' kitten families know that the time is fast approaching to temporarily cease the diary entries. Just like the kitten diaries for the previous babies, when the babies reach 13 weeks of age, the diary actually stops and I only do updates on those special days such as vaccinations or kitten families visiting etc. Normally, if we just had one or two litters in the home, the diary would carry on as normal until the babies leave home, however, doing 5 separate kitten diaries each day is incredibly time consuming as I'm sure you can imagine. As it is, our Nuts are like part of the family now. They have all found their place in the home which is typical for babies of this age. They know that they are no longer little babies any more, although when they get the opportunity, all 4 Nuts will continue to suckle on the mothers and it does always look quite funny because the babies are so big now. Actually, I've just changed my mind about the diaries. What I might do is just put one new photo of each baby in the diary each day. As I'm already taking photos of everyone else anyway, it won't take that much more time to take a photo of each of our Nuts. This way, their families can still get to see daily pictures of them. Then, if I have anything to actually write about them, I will do that as well, but for the most part, they will be mainly kitten photo diaries until the babies leave home.

Sorry, they are just "photo" entries today :)

Who would have thought that our Nuts could run so fast and create so much mischief as they have done today? I certainly didn't. Yes I know that they can be active little babies, but between them and the Detectives' antics this morning, I just want to leave home :( I do sometimes wonder if our Nuts know when I am trying to concentrate or get some "serious" work done because they always choose these times to totally destroy any concentration I might have. When 1400 came and they were back upstairs sleeping, I think I must have breathed a sigh of relief. I dread to think just how much havoc these 4 boys are going to create when they are living with their new families. They are totally adorable babies but they are such a handful at the moment. I have cheated today and just taken sleepy photos because I did not have the energy to chase around after them.

There are no photos in today's entry, solely because I'm having a day off :) I probably could have found the time to take a few photos but sometimes it's just nice not to feel pressured into getting the diaries online because the photos are the most time consuming aspects of each kitten diary.

Our Nuts have been little terrors for most of the day today and they have been behaving like proper little boys playing extremely rough games. I'm sure I've said this before but Ashanti babies, particularly the Tabbies, seem to have a permanent look of mischief in their eyes. Pistachio and Pecan in particular are forever seeking out other babies to pounce on or wrestle with and when they can find no other "victims", the pair of them have some very intense wrestling sessions. Whilst playing fetch with Lucy today, Pistachio decided it was his turn to play with Monkey so his mum left him to it as he promptly proceeded to do his level best to kill poor Monkey. As they mature, all 4 of our Nuts are starting to become quite large boys, not large as in big boned and solid, but large in the same elegant way that their father is, quite long, quite tall, and extremely proud. What does please me is that all 4 boys are being homed with lovely families where they will all have other feline playmates which is so important for these boys because again, just like their dad, they are extremely social and do love to play with their own kind.

The kitten diaries for the Nuts, the Detectives, and the Water baby are all the same today as it is regarding vaccinations and this concerns all of our kitten families. Originally we had decided we would vaccinate each litter individually when they came of age i.e. 9 weeks old, however, with me being so incredibly busy with Heston and the 2 hourly feeds, vaccines have not really been a priority. Tomorrow, Thames will be 9 weeks old and normally, first kitten vaccinations are done when the babies reach 9 weeks. As all 3 litters are now of an age to be done, then we will be booking the 3 litters in for their first set of vaccinations this coming week. This does mean that the earliest any of these babies can leave home is October 25. None of them can leave any earlier than this.The one bonus to having them all done at the same time is that we won't have to worry about any of the babies who have been done, shedding the virus, and causing mild infection for any unvaccinated kittens. It does also mean that Sherlock has had that little bit of extra time to develop although I don't know at this stage whether or not Jo will feel he is big enough to vaccinate, but we will take him along as well and just see what happens on the day. I do know that some of our kitten families like to ensure they book holidays at the same time their babies come home so that they can have a settling in/bonding time together, which is why I wanted to make a point of putting the date in the diary so that all families are aware of it.