Day 27 - January 26, 2004

Our little Warriors are all making really good weight gains and are still all eating solid food except for Calisto. Although Calisto is getting the hang of it slowly thank goodness. Poor Calisto had her ear bitten today by Piper and she let out a horrid squeal. As the age difference between both litters is 2 weeks, the Siamese are awake for more of the time than the Orientals. Unfortunately, when the Siamese are awake, they play rough and have a habit on chewing on the ears and tails of the Orientals whilst they are sleeping. The little Warriors really love cuddles with people and will quite often fall asleep on our laps. We have to be so careful now, both in the Kitten Room and in the room downstairs because the babies move so very, very fast now. Before we can take 3 steps, they have come zooming over to us and are halfway up our legs. I managed to get some more individual photos of each baby today, again not great, but it will give you and idea of how they are coming along. I often think that Gabriel is sometimes the most intriguing one of all, because even though she joins in the play and is very active, you often see her, just sitting or lying down watching what everyone does so intently. It's as if she's studying them and wondering why they are doing whatever it is that they do.

Day 26 - January 25, 2004

Hercules had put on another 20 grams last night so obviously he is getting back to normal weights now. 3 out of the 4 little warriors all now eat solid foods. The exception is Calisto who still hasn't quite got the hang of it yet although she's very interested in the food. It appears that the Orientals seem to be developing a lot faster than the Siamese did. I remember with the Siamese we started weaning at this age and didn't have any real success until they were about 5 weeks old whereas the Ori's have taken to it straight away so I'm really delighted. No matter how hard I try I have not been able to get one single decent photo today! It got to the stage where I gave up because it is so difficult to photograph the Ori's due to their colouring. They really starting to develop nicely now and you can see new changes in them every day. It's for this reason that we won't be choosing which girl will stay with us until they are 12 weeks of age and I think it will be a very difficult decision indeed. When they are awake, they love to play with the Siamese and with each other and every single Oriental baby has picked up the bad habit from the Siamese of scaling my legs. They each climb up my legs until they are sitting in my lap. Whenever the babies are awake I seem to always have one attached to me somewhere.

Day 25 - January 24, 2004

Great news last night as when I weighed Hercules, he had put on 13 grams which is his first proper gain in 3 days. As a result I won't be topping him up today, I will see how he gets on and hopefully he will have gained again tonight. The little warriors are now at the stage where they are tearing around the room like lunatics! More exciting news is that when I gave the Charmed Ones their breakfast at 8.30am, Gabriel decided to join them and was eating straight from the plate. It doesn't look like I'll have any problems weaning her. Poor Hercules smelt the food, came tearing over to the plate and full speed, unfortunately though, he kept on running..............straight through the food! Even Xena and Calisto went to the food for a sniff and a bit of a lick so that's a really good sign. I think it helps having the Charmed Ones being a bit older because the Orientals seem to be copying whatever the Siamese litter do so they are in fact learning faster than the Siamese did. We had the new owners of one of Cacao's babies around today and it was really lovely as we hadn't met them yet and they are such lovely people and it's always a relief to know that our babies are going to homes where they will be cared for and loved. When I fed the babies tonight, Hercules started gobbling up the food and I was so proud of him. He figured it out straight away and just sat there merrily licking and chomping for quite a while. There's no photos today sorry but I will try and take some extra ones tomorrow to make up for it.

Day 24 - January 23, 2004

Our babies are doing really well at the moment. They are much more active now and unfortunately, much more noisier. They certainly have the Siamese beat hands down when it comes to being vocal. Xena is definitely the boldest out of all 4 babies and she is the first to try anything new. All 4 have their own little personalities starting to develop now. Calisto and Hercules are very similar whereas Xena and Gabriel are alike. All 4 are very inquisitive and as soon as I go in the room (when they are upstairs) they all look up and then come over and try to climb up my legs. As I'm still not 100% happy with Hercules' weight at the moment I topped him up today with a bit of Cimicat so hopefully that will make a difference. I also gave him a couple of drops of Nutri Drops last night as well. He plays just as much as the other 3, it's only his weight that still concerns me. Hopefully, the topping up will get him back on track. Calisto still weighs the least of all 4, however, she was born 31 hours after the others so I don't expect her to be on par with them. I've now decided to bring one of the cat crates indoors as every morning when I go to the Kitten Room to bring all 8 babies downstairs, as well as their equipment, it takes me 4-5 trips! I figure with the crate I can put all 8 in there and bring them down at once :) This will also help them to get used to crates for the car, as naturally, all new owners will be expected to bring a proper cat crate when they pick up their little treasures.

Day 23 - January 22, 2004

All our little warriors gained weight last night except for poor Hercules which is a bit worrying so we will be keeping a close eye on him. I actually think I worry about weight gains far too much especially as all the babies are thriving i.e. happy, playing, eating etc. and that is always a very good sign. The babies are growing more beautiful and more active every day. They are really funny to watch when they play fight or when they want to join in the Siamese games. You would think they would be a bit wary of trying to play with the Siamese because the size difference is enormous, however, they really don't care at all and just get straight into the swing of it all. They starting to learn to run now and it's very amusing because they aren't very good at it yet and sometimes they fall over, or they stop as if they aren't sure what they're doing. When I was in the kitten room last night, both Hercules and Calisto were feeding off Tia which Tia was more than happy with, however I think Cacao was feeling a bit left out as everyone else was playing, so while those 2 were feeding, Cacao was grooming them at the same time. I did think I'd try something different today and instead of closing the glass door to the room where the kittens are I are during the day, I would put a barrier up so that the mums can still go out if they want and get a break from the squealing babies, yet the babes wouldn't be able to climb over the barrier. Within 10 minutes of the door being opened, Cacao had Calisto in her mouth and was taking her over the barrier to try and get back upstairs!! (reminds me of when Tia's babes first came down and we had the same problem). Needless to say the barrier stayed for a while though as every time Cacao tried to take a baby out, I returned him/her to their bed. As you can guess, I'm out of my seat every 5 minutes to "sort out" the kittens and mothers which really makes me appreciate feeding time when all babies are latched on to the mums and this blissful, heavenly feeling of peace and quiet enters the room!

Day 22 - January 21, 2004

The girls love having a whole room to run around in and are not phased at all by the Siamese who keep pouncing on them. All 4 girls made some good weight gains last night so I was really pleased because the one thing that has been worrying me is that if both litters were in the same room, as Tia's are bigger, the Ori's might have been pushed aside at feeding time but that obviously isn't the case. I didn't bring the little Warriors downstairs today as it was really difficult yesterday having them both down here, however I will bring them down tomorrow and hopefully it won't be as stressful. Xena and Hercules really enjoy playing with each other whereas Gabriel and Calisto are more interested in exploring and seeing what the Siamese are up to.

Day 21 - January 20, 2004 (3 weeks old today!)

The Ori babies are really enjoying being the kitten room and Cacao thinks it's wonderful. She now has company (Tia Maria) and she was so funny last night. Cacao went and lay on the kitten's little sofa bed and the Charmed Ones went up to her and chewed her ears so she put her arms round them, groomed them all over, and just lay there while they kept smacking her in the mouth and chewing on her tail. Both her and Tia are very happy now as they each think they have an extra 4 babies each! It's really shown how great their mothering skills are as well. The little warriors are really amusing now they are scrambling out of their box and walking around everywhere. They don't mind at all when the Charmed ones stand on them, walk over them and smack them. I am convinced that the Ori's will be ruling the roost in there. We've got 2 sets of photos for today, there are some pics that we took last night as the warriors went exploring for the first time ever, then there's today's photos taken here in the back room with us as I have made the decision to bring Cacao and her babies downstairs along with Tia and her babies. The move downstairs today with Cacao and the warriors has been fraught with anxiety on both Cacao's part as well as my own. Cacao, under no circumstances wanted them downstairs. So we battled with her moving them, and then it finally dawned on me that what Cacao actually wanted was to put her babies on top of the hooded bed, as opposed to them being in the box! So after a quick change around, Cacao was happy to feed the warriors whilst lying on the bed. Mind you, I had to get the Charmed Ones out from inside the bed and move them to the box because Cacao squashed them all!! At 1pm today, both mothers finally decided to settle down and feed their babies and I was able to get a few minutes peace!!!