Not the longest of entries today as we've been out for a while. Cacao has been relegated to our bedroom today after she attacked Sabre for no reason. Up until now, the babies, cats, and dogs have all been living harmoniously in the house, but for some strange reason, Cacao decided that today would be the day to have a go at Sabre when she happened to walk too close (in Cao's mind) to one of the Potters. Hopefully, after a little while in our bedroom she will settle down a bit. The break from her little ones certainly won't do her any harm either! The problem is that when she does something like that, it can send our socialisation work backwards because when the babies see their mum's reaction to one of the dogs, they then think that the dogs are something to "worry about". I'm hoping that with Cao out of the way now, and the dogs still inside, the babies will realise they are no threat whatsoever. The funny thing is that the kittens are forever sniffing our small dog, and whenever they go near her, she sits up in the dog bed and moves as far away as possible because she doesn't know what to make of the babies. Apart from that, everything else with the Potters is going along quite normally, at least as normal as those mad little babies can be! It appears that late afternoon/night time is their truly "mad" time of day and this is when they are their most funniest, and most destructive as well. Even Hermione, who used to be our most laid back, chilled out baby, is now rather insane. At the time of writing this entry, all the Potters are sound asleep on the dining table chairs so it's incredibly peaceful which is rather handy as I've started the Gumnuts on their first stages of weaning now.

There are no photos today I'm sorry but not from lack of trying! Ever since the Potters had their first meal and the door was opened up, they have been running around like hooligans and not all in the same place either! Some have been upstairs, (I caught Hermione chasing Sambuca down the stairs), some have been on the lounge and others have been on the dining room table. They've just been mad little babies today. Of course, it's lovely now that they are being mad throughout the house as opposed to here in the room with me :) McGonagall is truly fascinated by the aquarium and when she's awake, it's not unusual to see her standing on her back legs with her fact pressed to the tank, trying to catch the Tetras and Catfish. Now that they have whole house access, the babies are in the habit of eating the James Wellbeloved Adult dry food as well as their own kitten biscuits. I don't think it will do them any harm though as long as they continue to eat their kitten biscuits too which they are doing. They were all a bit naughty last night when it came to bedtime. At about 8:30pm I went back downstairs to close the back door to the cat run as it was starting to get dark and I wanted all the babies inside, however, they refused to come in! I had to go into the run, pick 2 of them up and put them inside and close the door, go back out, get another 2, but as I put those 2 in, one of the others gets back out the door, so I go back and retrieve that baby plus one other, get them back in the room with no one escaping, went back for Madam Hooch who absolutely refused to go inside, so here's me in my PJ's, chasing Hoochy around the cat run like an absolute idiot because obviously you can't catch little babies who are having too much fun playing "hide from the human"! After about 5 minutes of looking rather stupid, I finally got her, put her in the door and Ron got out! Fortunately, Ron was much easier to catch than Hoochy. I know that sometimes my neighbours look out of their windows as they love to watch our babies play in the cat run but I do hope that last night wasn't one of those times!!!

I'm afraid to say that the little brats have learnt a new game, much to my annoyance. It's called "Swinging on the Tablecloth". As the Potters are only babies, they are unable to jump onto the dining table from the floor so McGonagall figured out the best way was to jump to the tablecloth that hangs down over the table and then swing to and fro for a bit before clawing her way up the tablecloth to she reached the table. It might not have been so bad except that both Ron and Hermione saw her do it, thought it looked like fun and tried it themselves, both with great success. Now I will add at this point that I make a habit of pulling a chair from each side of the table, out from the table so the little ones can jump onto the chair and then straight onto the table from there as it would make it much easier for them. (I'm such a helpful human mummy). I started doing that as soon as they were able to play in the whole house. If it wasn't so funny to watch them swinging on the tablecloth I'd be incredibly annoyed about their new game. It really is lovely having the whole house opened up again with no doors closed downstairs. I was starting to feel rather isolated as I appear to have spent most of the past few months in the back room with the door closed. It's also so much better for our adult cats who have been missing their jaunts out into the cat run. To be perfectly honest with you, half of the time, I have absolutely no idea where any of the Potters are at any given time. Obviously they are always somewhere in the house, upstairs or downstairs, but it's so nice to know they're "out there", wandering about, doing whatever they like and hopefully enjoying themselves. Of an evening, they do still all sleep in the back room with the door closed though as I don't like little ones roaming about totally unsupervised when our dogs are in the house. Although the dogs are extremely gentle and are very used to our cats and kittens, it's all too easy for a misunderstanding to happen which could have fatal results. Our Potters don't appear to be scared of the dogs now which is great. After dinner of an evening, we sit on the lounge to watch the Olympics and the dogs are in the lounge room on the floor and the Potters run about the lounge, or sit on our laps and whenever the dogs move, the Potters sit up, walk over to edge of the lounge and peer down at them.

Our Potters were most unimpressed with the horrid rain we had today as it meant they couldn't go into the cat run. As soon as it stopped though and the sun came out, about 1:30pm they all went straight out there to play, along with Kahlua and Sambuca. Ron however, didn't like getting his feet wet so he came racing straight back inside to sit on my lap. For most of the morning, the Potters actually slept today and I can't say I blame them as it was rather cold and miserable. I took about 15 photos of them out in the cat run and not a single one turned out!!! Then I took some photos of the Potters on my chair (except for Harry who was asleep on a dining room chair) and as you can see by the photos below, they're not particularly great either. One thing I am pleased about is the babies interaction with our adult cats. They are no longer scared when they see one of our other cats approach them and they will happily run about and play regardless of who else is around. They are very wary of Tia Maria, but that is totally to be expected as she is still screaming her head off and is particularly vile to all the feline members of the household.

The Potters have had "whole house" access from the minute I was up and had fed them this morning. When their door is shut, they actually sit right by it and as soon as you open the door even slightly they try and run straight out. Of an evening when they babies are shut in the room for the night, it's actually extremely difficult to get in and out of the room because they do sit right in front of the door waiting for their first opportunity to get out. One manages to get through and runs under the table and you find that one, try and pop him/her back in the room and as you're doing that, another one gets out. Their main 2 places to play and wrestle now are on the lounge and on the dining room table. They spent quite a lot of time this morning playing on the dining table with Sambuca who really enjoys the kitten's games. During the day, they now choose to sleep on one of the dining room chairs and no longer come into the back room to sleep.

A rather short entry today with no photos I'm afraid as I've been out all afternoon at football to watch Queens Park Rangers. This meant that I had to be up early to give the Potters 3 meals prior to leaving here. They have all spent the entire morning running around like lunatics as per usual which is really good news as it appears they have coped with yesterday's vaccinations extremely well. I spent a short while this morning working on the paperwork for all the Potters' new owners and fortunately that is all coming together fairly well. It was made slightly difficult by the fact that Harry and Madam Hooch wanted to "help" me by trying to stick their heads in the printer as paperwork was being printed out! Hermione had a bit of a shock this morning because I was getting a scoop of dry food out of the tub to fill one of the adult cat bowls and when I put the scoop back in the tub and went to close the lid, I suddenly heard some strange noises, only to find that Hermione had been in the process of climbing INTO the tub when I put the lid back on it. Hopefully, she has now learnt to keep out of the big food tubs! I've had a bit more success with wet/moist foods as I've made a habit of putting some wet food mixed in with their kitten mixture and they are eating it quite well now. They won't touch any of the wet food if it's just given to them on a plate but if it's covered in my mixture, they will eat it with no problems.

It's been quite a big day for our Potters today as they were vaccinated this morning. I was absolutely amazed at how well behaved the babies were, even Madam Hooch and McGonagall whom I fully expected to make a fuss. I could have sworn that while Hermione was being vaccinated, she was actually purring!!! They were all extremely noisy in the car though on the way to the vets but fortunately, it's only a 5 minute drive. The first thing Ron did when they were back home and out of the carrier was head straight for the dry kitten biscuits and he had a rather large meal which did surprise me. After about half an hour of being home, all the Potters climbed into the carrier and settled down to sleep which I was fully expecting. They slept right up until 2:15pm when they woke up and had quite a large meal after which they went out into the cat run for a little while. They are definitely more subdued than normal but that's quite common after vaccinations and I guess I should be making the most of the peace and quiet! So far, the Potters have had unusual reaction to the vaccines and apart from being slightly more sleepy than they normally are, I'm really pleased. The first of the 2 photos below are extremely bad quality however I've taken them specifically for Debs and Gary who will hopefully see the significance of Madam Hooch in very close proximity to Sambuca who is in fact the Potters half sister. At about 3pm I made myself some salmon on toast and when I'd eaten it, I came back to finish off the diary entry however Harry, must have a good sense of smell because he came inside from the cat run, jumped straight up onto the work top and sniffed my fingers before taking a massive bite! I put him on the floor and he came straight back up, had another sniff and bit my fingers again. After that I gave in, and treated the Potters to a very rare treat indeed of a plate of salmon. Every single baby ate like there was no tomorrow and like they hadn't been fed in a month! I was relieved once they'd finished eating because it meant my fingers were safe and I could finish off today's entry.