Day 27 - October 14, 2006

There is not really any entry or any photos for today as we have spent the day exhibiting Sage at the Cambria Cat Show today and we are extremely pleased with his results. This meant however, that we left home at 6am and didn't arrive back until early evening, meaning that our daughter was in charge of the children for the day and she did a fabulous job :)

Weaning progress is going slowly but surely and while we still have a long way to go (apart from with Boule who knows exactly what to do), the babies are definitely getting there.

Day 26 - October 13, 2006

The Gamblers are loving having the entire room to themselves now where they can run about to their heart's content and I must admit that it is so very much better for them as well now. Toussaint is no longer in the kitten room, she is back in our bedroom (see her kitten diary for today as to the reason why), and Drambuie is also much happier now that she doesn't have Toussaint in there. Graham has now totally fallen in love with the Gamblers, whom he had not really seen much at all since they were born. Normally when we have babies in the home, whilst they are up in the kitten room, they are all mine and I am the one who deals with them solely, but yesterday afternoon when we were moving Toussaint out, he was able to see exactly why I have been going on and on about the Gambler's personalities and he was totally enamoured with them. It made no difference to the babies at all that he was a "stranger" to them, they were all over him like a rash, wanting to climb on his feet and up his legs and he is now really looking forward to having them in his room during the day when the Burps finally move out of there. Weaning is a very slow process at the moment, but Boule is still taking to it quite well thank goodness, as she was my main concern as you know. So far, I have not used a syringe for the past 24 hours which is rather nice. I have discovered the one bad thing about the babies starting to eat properly, and that is, when they are eating solid foods, they start to do little poos............................everywhere. Next to their bed, next to their mum's litter tray, but how lucky am I that they are extremely firm, solid little poo's that leave no mess :) My own fault really as they will be 4 weeks old in 2 more days' time and I haven't even given them a litter tray of their own yet. Needless to say, they have one now, whether or not they will use it yet will be a totally different matter! I did manage to take some photos today, okay they aren't great photos, however, I was too scared of Teen phoning me to have words with me about not being able to see a pic of her baby girl, Roulette :)

Day 25 - October 12, 2006

All 3 kitten diaries are the same today due to changes in the home that have affected all babies. I always knew this day would be the hardest, both physically and mentally, and how right I was unfortunately. When I woke up this morning, and after litter trays had been done, and everyone had been fed, it was time to hoover Graham's room so that the Burps could come downstairs as they have now been evicted from the kitten room. It took me roughly an hour to do the floor and then transfer all the babies, their bed, litter tray, Cointreau, toys etc. into Graham's room and set them up. What is actually depressing is that by the time late afternoon comes, they will all be moving back upstairs into the upstairs landing as that is where they will be living of an evening from now onwards. Anyway, once they had been settled in, I then hoovered the main part of the kitten room that the Burps had come out of. The next job was to move Drambuie and the Gamblers out of their smaller section in the kitten room, and put them in the main part, along with all their equipment and kitten box etc. This was extremely difficult because the problem with the Gamblers is that they are very attached to me and I can not move in the room without them clinging to my feet and climbing my legs because they want cuddles. This is of course, lovely, but not when I have hours of work ahead of me. Trying to get in and out of the 2 sections in the kitten room was horrendous but eventually everyone was out and the Gamblers were tearing around the kitten room while Drambuie was going nutty about the fact that her kids suddenly had more freedom. The next step was then to hoover and clean the smaller section of the kitten room where the Gamblers had been because Toussaint and the Trotters had to be moved in there, along with their bed, litter tray and food/water bowls. I moved the babies in first, and then Toussaint, and that is where the problems then started...........................Toussaint was incredibly stressed by the fact that she had been moved, and this was not helped by Drambuie being her typical self and making it perfectly clear that there was a new mum and babies in the room (she had previously been more than happy to share with Cointreau and the Burps), and this was upsetting Toussaint an awful lot. I then had to get a sheet to put all around the wire panels that divide the room so that Toussaint could not see out and Drambuie could not see in. I then came back downstairs for a sip of what was now a very cold coffee, flew back upstairs only to discover Drambuie had climbed straight over the wire panel and was in Toussaint's part of the room. Obviously there was no fighting going on because mothers do not fight with each other as they know that babies must be protected at all costs, so Toussaint was sitting on her children, while Drambuie was walking around glaring at her. I took Drambuie out, came downstairs and told Graham that we had to sort the panels out now before we had a real disaster. At this point, I must explain the panels don't go all the way to the ceiling as there has never been any need for it and if you remember, the panels were put together very hurriedly, as a very temporary separator while we had more than 2 litters in the home of different ages. We then had to staple more wire to the top of the panels (yes we're looking like a prisoner of war camp at the moment!) and bend them over forwards so that Drambuie could no longer enter get in over the top of the panels. By the time that was done, I had to finish hoovering the entire house, have another few sips of yet another cold coffee, and make a start on the diary entries. As I'm sure you can appreciate, there are no photos at all in any of today's entries because I still have a minimum of 15 loads of washing to do, to say nothing of yet more feeds for mums and babies. But at least, hopefully, the worst is over, as the kitten moving is all now complete, and we can get back to normal which is very important particularly as we have an incredibly hectic few days from Friday onwards.

Our Gamblers, particularly Boule, had what I call a "crash course" in weaning today. They will be 4 weeks old in a few days time and it is imperative that start to learn to eat from a plate, the sooner the better as they are doing so much more running around now that and we can not afford to have any weight losses at all. This meant that I had to dig deep down inside myself to find that little thing called "tough love" because at the lunch time meal today, I flat out refused to syringe feed the babies. Instead, a massive plate of kitten food, mixed in with the evaporated milk mixture was put down on the floor, each baby, starting with Boule was picked up one by one, placed in front of the plate, and noses were dipped into the mixture. The reason for this is that the babies then clean their noses with their tongue, they the realise that there is food down there and generally, they get the hang of it. I was over the moon to see that Boule picked it up straight away as she is my worrying child as you know, and she was more than happy to eat from the plate, as was Two Up who seemed to get the hang of it as well. The other babies weren't too sure, but on the whole, the progress from everyone was quite good and I shall be doing this for all future meals until the babies have got the idea. What this does mean is that weights have to monitored extremely closely now to ensure that no one is missing out on essential meals now that they are not being syringe fed.

Day 24 - October 11, 2006

There are only a few photos in the diary entries for today and they aren't long entries. We are still trying to recover after yesterday's events and have so much to do now as it's a totally new routine for us with having an extra litter in the home and lots of adjustments have to be made so I would ask that you please bear with me and hopefully by tomorrow, diary entries will be a bit more normal.

Every now and then, a "special" litter comes along and for me, this litter is the Gamblers. I could quite easily spend all day with them as soon as I enter the kitten room now, the Gamblers' all come out of bed, screaming hello's at me, and then they all climb up onto my lap, or swing off my legs as I'm trying to get things done in there. The babies are so incredibly forward thinking and have no fear of anything at all in the world. Trying to take photos of them today was just a nightmare because I changed the bedding, put them in the box to take photos, but they didn't want to be there, they wanted cuddles, and as quick as I was putting them in, they were running back out. I think I must have sat there for 10 minutes just putting them in the box over and over again. Such strong little personalities these children have. Last night at "weigh in" time, I was not expecting good things because our day was very traumatic and as a result, some of the 2 hourly feeds were later than they should have been, so I was over the moon to discover that despite that, Boule had still gained 10 grams :)

Day 23 - October 10, 2006

There is no entry at all for today as we have new babies in the home.

Day 22 - October 9, 2006

There are no photos yet, but I am hoping to try and get some online a bit later this afternoon, but am not going to make any promises because everything is still riding on 2 hourly feedings, and Toussaint possibly going into labour.

Last night, Boule gained 15 grams in the 24 hour weigh in which was quite a bit relief let me assure you. Something I must share with you and I am sure she will not mind, but it goes to show just how kind some people are. As you know I had mentioned in yesterday's diary about Boule not gaining a thing and I had also mentioned current weights of the Gamblers. Well last night I received an email from Vicky, who is one of our kitten families, and shares her home with Misty Blue who was one of the "Herbs" babies. The email read:

"With regards to darling Boule's 3 week weight - MB was only 219g at the same stage. If I tell you her new knickname is " big bum" - says it all really. It was really funny cos our vet who is devoted to MB took exception to her new name - get a life I say !!"

I thought how lovely it was that not only had Vicky taken the time to look at MB's weight chart to see what she weighed at that age, but also to take the time to send me such a reassuring email. When I replied to Vicky, I did say to her that I had not even bothered to check the weight charts of our Siamese babies when I was comparing the Gambler's weights with previous litters because in my head, I always automatically assume that the Siamese will be bigger, and it was quite a shock for me to realise that Misty Blue wasn't much bigger than Boule at this age. It was also a huge comfort and really did lift my spirits. Misty Blue has grown into a beautiful girl as you can see if you look at her own photo gallery page here. All of our Gamblers come running over to me now because they know that when they climb on my lap, I will syringe feed all of them so it's no surprise that the feedings are now taking an awful lot longer. I do think it will soon be time to encourage the babies to wean because instead of suckling on the syringe, quite a few of them now are biting it and trying to eat it which is always a good indication that they are perhaps ready to tackle eating from a plate.

Day 21 - October 8, 2006

Last night, when I weighed Boule, I could not believe that she had gained absolutely nothing at all during the previous 24 hours. I double checked, and there had been no gains at all. Then again this morning, there had still been no gains between 10pm and 7am. To be honest with you, I was quite despondent about this, and also quite angry because I could not understand it, although I'm not sure who I was angry at. She had been feeding all day 2 hourly, as per normal but obviously she was either having a bad day, or something wasn't working. I made the decision that it was time to add something more substantial to the evaporated milk so I opened one of the tins of Liquivite. I am fully aware that it states weaning from 6 weeks however, with Boule not having made any gains, I had absolutely nothing to lose by using it. Naturally I ensured it was diluted and I added that in with the Evaporated milk. Fortunately, she still enjoyed the taste and she drank quite a lot of it and I was so incredibly relieved to see that by 12noon today, she had already gained 10 grams, finally taking her just over the 200 gram marks. 201 grams to be precise, which is very tiny for a 3 week old baby, however, we have had smaller at this age, who, after many battles, went on to become big, strong, healthy adults. As a whole, the Gamblers are not a large litter, with regards to size at all. Roulette and Poker are both over 300 grams now as they are our largest 2 babies, but the remaining 4 Blacks are between 201 grams and 290 grams. Size aside though, they do appear to be thriving in the respect that they are all healthy, there is no outward signs at all of anything being wrong with them, they are talkative, have good appetites and are becoming very active now. I know that I am probably extremely bias, but I will say that all of our Gamblers are becoming more and more beautiful as each day passes. Blackjack got in trouble from his mum this morning, because when I was taking Boule through the "door" to pop her on the scales, I left the door open, but while I was weighing Boule, here came Blackjack trotting along through the open door into the part of the room that currently belongs to the Burps! Drambuie was after him like a shot and picked him up by the scruff of his neck and carried him back to the box. She then glared at me for being so daft as to allow one of her children to escape.