As promised, there are a few extra photos to make up for none yesterday. Having said that, they aren't great photos...........yet again! At least though, you can now see by these photos that our babies are growing and are developing into lovely little Orientals. They are starting to become a lot more alert now. When I go upstairs and open their box up, if they are awake, they now look straight up at me, obviously wondering who I am. They are all much more comfortable now about being stroked behind the ear and being picked up and they seem more curious than afraid. Being Orientals, they do tend to be very loud at feeding time when they are fighting for nipples but fortunately, they soon sort it out and we have peace again.

I'm starting to feel a bit guilty that Tia's diary has so much more information in it than Cacao's. So let me assure you all that we love Cacao's litter equally as much, but as we are "not needed" by Cacao and her babies at the moment, there is always very little to report. It's much more difficult now that Tia's babies are taking up so much of our time, however we do still go up to the room and check on Cacao's little warriors every hour just to make sure all is fine. Their weight gains are actually more than Tia's babies were at that stage which both surprises and pleases me. I think though that as we had to keep supplementing Tia's babies for the first few days that could be the reason why. I'm hoping by the end of this week her little babies will be moving around quite a bit more and at least then I may be able to get a decent photo of them. There's no photos for today's entry sorry, but I'll try and take some extra ones tomorrow to make up for it.

Cacao has been very unsettled today in the respect that she is sick and tired of being a prisoner. So whenever the babes have been asleep today I have let her out of the room to join the rest of the household. She's always been a very active, curious cat and is finding it hard being in one room only with her babies. In another 8 days or so we shall be moving her babies in with Tia's litter in the kitten room upstairs so at least she will have company then. Still not much happening with our little ones. Their lives consist of 3 things: Eating, Sleeping, Screaming. We haven't taken individual photos of them today as that requires a lot more energy than I have at the moment so I'm afraid we've just got "Blob" photos today. I'm very surprised that Cacao hasn't been looking to move them about yet. Even though she is bored in the room, she is very happy with the babies staying in their box. I guess I should be relieved about this. Their weight gains are still very good and Cacao is still enjoying her evening bowl of Liquivite which I believe is certainly helping her milk supply along.

All they do is eat and sleep so there really is very little to say unfortunately. All eyes are fully open now and so are all their mouths! Particularly when they are being weighed! As it stands at the moment the 2 liveliest babies are Xena and Gabriel. They are the 2 who move about the most and are the loudest. Their weight gains are still fine thank goodness. Cacao is looking really well at the moment too and we're very happy with the way she has recovered from her first litter. She is still in the habit of climbing into bed with us at night for cuddles and it's not unusual for me to wake up to find her on my pillow and my head.

It was a very quiet day with the little warriors yesterday as we are still battling the downstairs kitten syndrome with Tia. The babies are getting more used to us handling them and stroking them now although Cacao still isn't 100% sure about it. So far Cacao has shown no signs of wanting to move the kittens to a new home and I'm really pleased about that. She hasn't even been looking around the room to check out any possible new homes, unlike Tia did, so hopefully that's a good sign that she will leave them where they are. When Cacao got out of the box at one stage yesterday the babies were most upset and quite literally screamed at her so she got back in very quickly. They are rather demanding of her when they are awake so it will be interesting to see what they are like once they start moving around.

I weighed our babies last night and they are all still making really good gains and now that their eyes are open they are just too precious for words. To hold them in your hand and have these gorgeous little faces looking up at you is just a wonderful feeling. They truly are just little miracles. It's times like that when you realise what it's all about. They are moving around quite a bit more now and their little bodies are getting stronger every day. Still didn't manage to get any decent photos yesterday at all so have taken some today. They still aren't great but at least in today's photos you can not only see that their eyes are open, but you can see actual shapes of ktitens as opposed to Blobs! I'm really going to miss them when the time comes to put them in the spare room but fortunately that is still a little while away yet.

When I checked on our little warriors last night I was amazed to see that most of them had started opening their eyes. They are really such lovely little kittens. At the moment they are gaining between 10 and 20 grams per day which we're really happy with. They seem to be making really good progress and we haven't had any dramas or problems with them all all. Cacao is still being a great mum and keeping them clean and feeding them. She also now gets into bed with us 2 or 3 times of an evening when her babies are asleep so she can have some cuddles. All 4 are still quite noisy at times, usually when it's feeding time and they are fighting with each other for nipples, or when Cacao gets back in the box and then proceeds to sit on them. One thing I will say is that I have found, now having had the Siamese as well as the Oriental litter that the Orientals are much, much easier to deal with. It will be interesting to see if this continues when we mate (hopefully) Amaretto this month or possibly next. I took 11 photos of the babies today, but not a single one of them has turned out! I will replace the batteries in the camera and try again later on this afternoon. So today's photos may not be online until much, much later this evening.