Day 55 - October 21, 2006

There really is no entry or photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries because this morning, 2 of our older babies, Frosticles and Shreddies left us to live with their lovely new family. Then this afternoon, we drove to Kent to pick up our own new kitten which is really exciting for us so it was a rather hectic day.

Day 54 - October 20, 2006

Today's entries are not very long, but at least I managed to include some photos. The reason that the entries are short is because 2 of my older darlings are leaving me tomorrow to move in with their lovely new family which means I have an awful lot of paperwork to prepare between now and tomorrow morning and I've not even started it yet!

Our Burps are turning into remarkably pretty babies and I am thrilled to bits with the chocolate colouring on Pepsi, Sprite and Fanta. It can be really difficult to get that milk chocolate appearance which fortunately, is exactly what we have :) But that aside, I know that I am extremely biased but I think all 4 of our Burps are incredibly beautiful and I am sure that their new families (apart from Pepsi who has no family yet) will agree with me. As each day passes, they are becoming bolder and bolder, and just slightly more mischievous which is exactly how Siamese kittens should be. When they reach 9 weeks of age, and once their first vaccinations have been administered, I shall look at moving them here into the back room with our adult cats and myself during the day because by that time they will be more than ready to mix with the rest of the household. You will notice that all of today's photos are simply named "The Burps" and the reason for that is not only does it save me a bit of time, but also because when I was taking photos, the children were tearing all around the room and even I could not tell our Chocolate babies apart!

Day 53 - October 19, 2006

Graham tells me that our Burps are definitely much more naughty and active now as they have apparently been creating havoc in his room this morning. Rather him than me! They have a new "favourite" food now...........freshly cooked chicken. This morning, as soon as I got up, I put the fish in the steamer, put the chicken on the stock pot, and put the mince in the saucepan. Then by the time lunchtime came around, I was actually a bit confused as to which meal I should actually feed to the Burps and eventually decided on some chicken. I mixed a bit of Hi Life in with it and the babies ate as if they had not been fed for a month. Fanta really made me laugh because Cointreau was beside him at the plate and every time her mouth went too close to where Fanta was eating, he actually picked up his left front paw, placed it on his mother's head, growled at her and pushed her head back. There was no way he was going to share his chicken with anyone. If he'd bothered to have looked up from the plate he would have seen that there was more than enough food for everyone. At the moment, the Burps are on between 4 - 5 wet/cooked meals per day and they do have their kitten biscuits left out all of the time as well.

Day 52 - October 18, 2006

Today, every time I start something, I am constantly getting interrupted and I did have my doubts as to whether or not I would get any photos in the kitten diaries. In the end, I came to the conclusion that it's better to have just a few photos than none at all so that will be my aim for the next few weeks, to ensure that each entry has at least 4 photos.

As per usual, our Burps are plodding along although I do believe that they rely on their mum way too much, even for feeds, when at 7 1/2 weeks of age, they should be eating more than they currently are. I think I will give them until about 8 weeks of age and will have a serious think about removing Cointreau from the babies for a while to see if they progress a bit better. On the whole though, they are doing extremely well and I guess that next week I will have to look at arranging to book them in at the vets for their first set of vaccinations. Doesn't time fly? They have definitely become a lot more playful within the last few days although I must say that they are extremely well behaved babies, probably the best behaved that we have ever had. They still have a way to go though so it will be interesting to see if they remain good children or start to become a bit more mischievous.

Day 51 - October 17, 2006

I had full intentions of taking individual photos of our Burps today, however, when I had finished taking photos for the Gamblers and Trotters' kitten diaries, both Graham and I had to spend the rest of the entire day sorting our some calendar photos and it's now just gone 5pm and I am only just starting the entries.

Our Burps are becoming much more playful and active now. I don't know if this is because their mum is no longer around during the day time to stop them getting out of bed, or if it's because they have been watching the Cereals zoom around like lunatics. But either way, it's good to see them climbing all over the furniture and exploring the entire room. Of course, I did not appreciate it when Pepsi tried to jump from the back of one of the chairs straight onto one of the shelves in the unit where some of our Siamese ornaments are. Fortunately for our ornaments (but not for Pepsi), he fell short by about 1 inch and ended up on the floor :)

Day 50 - October 16, 2006

We are trying something different with our Burps at the moment. Graham and I had been concerned that they are not as forward as all of our other babies always are and we could not understand why, when they have been raised exactly the same. It wasn't until Tina, Tony and Val visited yesterday and spent time with us in Graham's room, that they realised what the problem was. It appears that Cointreau is still being too protective a mum and is refusing to let them play properly and really become naughty little babies. Whenever her children leave the bed, she is straight up after them to see where they are going and to try to put them back into bed. She is not letting them have any independence whatsoever. Now we should have realised that is where the problem was stemming from, but sometimes, it takes someone from the outside to actually make you aware of what is right in front of your eyes, just as Val did yesterday. As soon as she and Tina said it, to Graham and I it was suddenly very obvious and this is what I keep saying about breeding, that you are forever learning something new all of the time. Today, we put the Burps in Graham's room as per normal, however, we put Cointreau back in "general population" away from her babies, and we also put Weetabix and Shreddies in the back room with the Burps as well. The idea is that the Burps suddenly don't have the mum following them around everywhere and stopping them from what they are doing, and hopefully Weetabix and Shreddies will be a bad influence on them and teach them exactly how naughty little kittens should behave :)

Day 49 - October 15, 2006

Again, I am so sorry but there is no actual entry for today. We have had some of our kitten families visiting today, and have actually spend the whole day just chilling out with friends and showing off the babies. I've not even been on the computer other than very briefly earlier on this morning when I quickly downloaded emails but that is as far as it went. Tomorrow, all going well, all of our diary entries should be back to normal.