It's been yet again another busy day today, particularly as Amaretto is due tomorrow so the Potters didn't get their daily run around the upstairs of the house. They still in a very cuddly mood which is really lovely. The heat hasn't seemed to have affected them at all thank goodness. Now that the babies are growing up and getting a bit more in dependant, when it comes to nap time, it's not unusual to find that they will sleep in different places. Ron likes to sleep on the little cat box, McGonagall prefers to sleep either on the sofa or on the chair, Harry will sleep inside the little cat box and Madam Hooch and Hermione will sleep in the cat carrier. The favourite spot though, when they all sleep together seems to be on the chair with the white teddy bear that the Potters appear to have adopted as their own now. I tried the babies with some tinned fish this afternoon but there was absolutely no interest at all. Even when Cacao came back into the room and ate the fish, the babies came over, had a bit of a sniff and just walked off. They are certainly going through quite a lot of dry kitten food at the moment, much more than any other litter I've had here. They do seem to prefer the dry food to anything else. They're also still feeding off Cacao obviously and will continue to do this for another couple of weeks at least. Hermione and McGonagall are still very interested in the outside world on the other side of their door because even now, as soon as I open the kitten room door, both of them zoom straight out. In the last 48 hours, both Hermione and McGonagall have now had accidental meetings with Sambuca, and haven't been phased at all by another cat approaching them so I was really pleased with their reaction.

The Potters have been in very affectionate moods today because every time I've gone into the kitten room, they have been talking to me and trying to climb all over me for cuddles. Their purrs are getting louder by the day. They've also been in funny, playful moods as well which you can tell by the photos below. Particularly the naughty torties! All of our Potters are currently having 6 meals of kitten mixture per day as well as eating the dry kitten food constantly however they still won't touch any foil/pouch food for some strange reason. It's not doing them any harm at all though as they all have excellent appetites and weight gains. I'm really looking forward to bringing them downstairs with me on Monday and have a feeling that I will not get as much work done from then onwards because they are going to be extremely distracting. It's not a particularly long entry at all today as I've been in and out and trying to get things sorted.

The Potters had the door of their room open for the majority of the day today and have been exploring everywhere. Harry and Madam Hooch, both came to the top of the stairs to have a look and see if they wanted to go further but neither of them did. I'm hoping that they will tackle the stairs over the next few days because as of Monday, the Potters will be moving downstairs with me because the R's, sadly, are leaving me this weekend to move in permanently with their new owners. This week's diary entries probably won't be particularly long as it's my busiest week this week as I need to have all the paperwork etc. prepared for the R's new owners. Cacao is still singing at the top of her voice for half the night. I'm hoping this won't last for too many more days. Our babies are now getting into absolutely everything in the kitten room because throughout the day today I have seen: Hermione on the TOP SHELF of the kitten cupboard, in the midst of knocking half of the bedding onto the floor; Ron climbed into the shelf of the kitten cupboard and proceeded to knock the heat pad off the shelf and onto the floor; McGonagall (and don't ask me how) managed to get from the back of the sofa onto a shelf containing the scales, bedding and other bits and pieces and then got stuck and had to be rescued. So far today, at the time of writing this entry, Harry and Madam Hooch have not been into any mischief at all. Mind you, there is still the rest of the afternoon and evening for them to get up to something. The babies really do love their freedom when their door is left open and will play "Scare Each Other" at least 4 times a day which is still very funny to watch. I am sure that when our babies are moved downstairs that they will certainly make the most of their sudden freedom and the cat run.

The babies have been roaming around upstairs today and again, they have had access to the stairs but none of them bothered to come down them. I now think I know why as well. Cacao sits right at the top of the stairs and as soon as any of the babies venture over to have a look, she glares at them quite ferociously, so they all turn tail and run up to the other end of the hallway. Obviously Cacao feels that her little ones are not ready to tackle stairs yet. We decided that our Potters really should have been called "bush babies" because half their play time moments are spent with their tails all bushy and their hair all puffed out. The reason for this is that they will just run up behind each other, and scare each other half to death constantly. I laugh so much when I watch them play, particularly now when they play in the hallway or the bathroom. Not a single minute goes by when someone in the litter isn't scaring someone else. Our of all the Potters, Hermione is one of the bravest. I was moving a large box in the kitten room today and made quite a large noise (or two) when I was putting it down and the Potters, who were eating at the time, all jumped up in the air and ran under the sofa bed, all except Hermione who carried on eating as if nothing had happened! Our Potters had a visit today from Yasmin and her family which was really lovely. Unfortunately the babies were far more interested in sleeping than doing anything impressive but at least that meant they were in a relatively cuddly mood. Cacao really enjoyed Yasmin's visit as she had so many extra cuddles and she was rather demanding of everyone's attention. I'm afraid there are no photos of the Potters today because I've had quite a bit to do around the house and haven't had a great deal of time.

The Potters had some really lovely time exploring today as I left the kitten room door open for quite some time to let them get out for a bit. They are just so fascinated by everything and their little eyes light up as soon as they "find" something new. While they were roaming about, I went and had a shower and after about 10 minutes, I started to see little paws poking under the door as far as they could reach. This went on for about 5 minutes and next thing you know, they had managed to reach the bath mat and started pulling it under the door! When I got our of the shower I started to get worried as the stair barrier had been knocked over (obviously by the Potters) and I had visions of them being halfway up and down the stairs, however, there wasn't a baby in sight. I went into the kitten room to find that they were all stuffed in the cat carrier, with Cacao sitting in the cat bed in front of them daring any of them to move a paw. The babies have "lost" all their paper balls now so I had to give them some new ones. No doubt their lost balls will be found under the ottoman tomorrow. Poor Harry dropped his ball in the water bowl today so he wasn't very happy and then went to steal Madam Hooch's but she was not having that. She picked her ball up in her mouth and growled at Harry which sent him running. After lunch, I removed the stair barrier giving the Potters access to the stairs for the first time ever. Ironically enough, none of them were interested, they all went over and had a look and then went scooting back up to the bathroom where they had been having little kitten wrestling matches.

Somehow or another, my Potters managed to reach 6 weeks of age without me knowing. It has really crept up on me unexpectedly. One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that all of our Potters have lovely little purrs. When they are in their cuddly moods, the will sit on your lap while you scratch behind their ears or under their chin and the purrs start straightaway. I really love listening to the little ones purr. Now that our little ones are so much older I really need to look at removing the stair barrier and giving them access to the stairs and the downstairs foyer. I am dreading it though because they still seem so very, very little and I hate the first few days when babies attempt stairs for the first time. It's so easy for little accidents to happen. I think that the more I think about this, the more I will try and hold off until they are just a big bigger. Ron and McGonagall both fell in the water bowl today which I must admit I did find amusing. They were playing/wrestling with each other on top of the sofa and fell off straight into the bowl. They didn't get too wet and once they were dried off, both were happy little babies again. Hermione has a new sleeping place now as well. When I was feeding the babies one of their afternoon meals, 4 babies started to come over to the saucer, but there was no Hermione. A few seconds later, a really sweet little miaow was heard, followed by another and I looked up at the chair to find Hermione curled up asleep on a white teddy bear that resides in the kitten room. It was really very sweet. Naturally, once I had spotted her, I then had to pick her up and put her on the floor in front of the saucer as that it what she wanted me to do. She was not going to bother climbing down herself and why would you when a human will happily carry you wherever you want to be. Madam Hooch has spent parts of the day today playing with her invisible friends. Why is it, that in every single litter, there has to be just one baby who has invisible friends that no one but them can see? We've had this with each of our 4 litters and it's so very odd. Sometimes it will carry on right up until about 10 weeks of age. Cacao is now calling <groan>. As if there wasn't enough noise in our house already. She howls for a good part of the night now, keeping us awake off and on. The Potters don't mind her noise at all but mind you, the babies are so noisy themselves that Cacao's singing wouldn't bother them one bit. None of the Potters will eat any tinned/pouch food yet. Having said that, I'm very happy with their current weights and the fact that they eat so much dry food means that it's not really worth getting concerned about.