Sorry guys, there are no photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries and the entries are the same for our older litters, and our Chefs/Ray J's diaries are the same. It has been an exhausting day as I had to be at the vets at 9am with some of our ladies who were booked in to be spayed. When I came back from the vets I had to move the babies around and thoroughly clean both kitten rooms and the upstairs part of the home. I started the cleaning at around 10am (much later than normal due to the vet appointment) and I didn't actually finish the cleaning until around 1430. I also have to go back to the vets to pick up our girls and settle them in the upstairs room to recover from their ordeal.

Our Water Baby, Detectives, and Nuts have been evicted from the kitten room now and fortunately, they don't seem to mind at all. The timing turned out quite well in the respect that the babies have started sleeping downstairs with our adult cat family, and those who sleep upstairs only sleep in the bunk beds in the hallway so in fact, no one really making much use of the main kitten room anyway. Of course I could have done without the mess the babies created overnight. They had yet again stolen one of the toilet paper rolls, a full one one I might add, and the entire roll was strewn throughout the main kitten room. Totally shredded and the mess was just horrendous. So I went into the room, hoover in one hand, black bag in the other, various scrubbing equipment and left them room 1 1/2 hours later by which time the babies were all downstairs apart from Pistachio who was sleeping in the top bunk. I am really thrilled with how well the babies have just fit into family life. So far, none of them have shown any interest in trying to get back into "their" room which is a good thing as it is now occupied :)

How is it that our Nuts don't know that they had such a "traumatic" time late yesterday afternoon by having their first vaccination? How is it that they don't know that since being vaccinated, they should have settled down a little bit and possibly slept or become slightly more "sedate"? They are just too full of life this morning. I started typing these diary entries quite early as I have so much to do today, and on 4 occasions now I have had to leave my desk and go upstairs to find out what the huge "bang" or "crash" is. The older our Nuts become, the more energetic they become but my one consolation is that they were only tearing about downstairs for about 40 minutes this morning. The rest of the time they created havoc upstairs. As Pecan matures, he is looking more and more like is father every single day. I look at him sometimes and I know I'm looking at a mini Ashanti. He has that same long straight face, and that same look in his eyes. Fortunately, he is not as mischievous as his father was. Macadamia on the other hand, is the spitting image of his grandfather, Bailey. I remember Bailey as a kitten and if Macadamia grows up to be as handsome as his grandfather, then he will be an absolutely gorgeous adult boy. With Cashew and Pistachio, I have absolutely no idea at all who those 2 look like. I can see some of Ashanti in them, but I can not see their mother in them at all, not in any of the Nuts actually.

As you know, today was vaccination day, and we received some devastating news. 8 out of our 9 children are perfectly fine and had their vaccinations. I really do not know what to say. When our babies have their vaccinations, our vet Jo, is extremely thorough, she checks, eyes, ears, takes temperatures, feels abdomen, and listens to heartbeats. Jo does this for every single baby. I can now confirm that our darling Sherlock will be remaining here in the Schimmel home as one of our "loveable loafers". Jo has given Sherlock 2 years at the very most. She has a heart murmur, quite a significant one, and Jo feels that she will die of heart failure before she turns 2 years of age. This news has just totally rocked me to the very core. This is the very first time we have ever experienced a heart murmur, large or small, and I am just at a total loss. Jo and I had a chat about it, she explained everything to me and she feels we have been extremely unlucky....................yet again. She asked did we still want to vaccinate Sherlock, which of course we did, so Sherlock was done along with her brothers and sisters. She was so very good bless her. This does explain why, when both she and Morse were hand fed and struggled from birth, why Morse picked up yet Sherlock didn't. Every other baby has perfectly normal hearts, they all passed their vet check with flying colours. Even now, I can't quite take this in, but I am not going to automatically assume our little girl has a definite death sentence. I refuse to. She will, as I said, be spayed, she will have a wonderful home here with us, and she will stay here until God decides he wants her more than me.

The only baby who created a fuss as the needle went in was Morse. He screamed at Jo and I as the needle went in. Everyone else was just so beautifully behaved. During the next 48 hours are the scary times as our babies will be closely monitored for any adverse reactions to their vaccinations.

CONFIRMED LEAVING DATE: Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Our babies are being vaccinated tomorrow, this means that they will be ready to leave home any time from October 29th onwards. So this is only actually 4 days later than the original planned date so hopefully that won't put any of our kitten families out too much. You will notice that I totally skipped yesterday's diary entry. We did have a kitten family visiting, then we had friends over in the afternoon so it was a lovely day and so I had a "day off" from the diaries.

Note for all new kitten families for the Nuts, Detectives, and Water Babies........................ Okay guys, feel free to scream abuse at me because there will be a slight change of plan now to the date the babies are leaving. Mainly because I didn't get my act together and get them booked in for first set of vaccinations. Obviously with 9 babies, it's not usually a case of getting an appointment on the day I phone up because this many babies requires 3 consultations all rolled into one as it is time consuming. So I do apologise for this. I will know by the end of Monday and "official leaving date" so please bear with me until Monday afternoon when I can confirm this.

Our Nuts have now reached the 13 week mark and this is where their diary will change to a "photo only" diary. As previously mentioned, rather than stop the diary altogether now and just put in updates on special days, we will instead have a photo of each baby because at least their new kitten families can still continue to "watch" their babies grow. Yet again today our Nuts have destroyed another roll of toilet paper as we woke up this morning to find an entire roll strewn throughout the upstairs part of the hallway, the main kitten room and the bathroom. I'm positive the Nuts were the instigators because they were still playing with it when I opened our bedroom door :) They were not pleased with me when I cleaned up their mess and took it away from them. With all the kitten toys on the market today, nothing amuses them more than a cardboard box or toilet paper roll.