We are 3 weeks old now!

Day 20 - November 6, 2007

I am really pleased to say that our smallest 3 babies have made some very good weight gains during the past 24 hours however now is not the time to become complacent. As of tomorrow, our Indians will be 3 weeks old and I will be starting to wean them. They are still so very young so this will not be a serious attempt at weaning i.e. I shall not be forcing the issue, but if I can get some of them interested in food then that will be great. All 6 of our Indians are starting to show extremely high activity levels and there is no way at all that they remain on the bed any more. What does surprise me though is that Drambuie is happy for her children to wander around and unlike some of our other mum's, she does not go chasing after them to bring them back to the bed. Perhaps she remembers just how stubborn and independent she herself was as a baby and realises there is no point trying to make the kids behave. I will say that knowing who 2 of these babies are going to be living with, I am certainly not prepared to make them behave, in actual fact, the naughtier they become, the better :)

Day 19 - November 5, 2007

You will notice that I'm having the same problem photographing these children, that I am currently having trying to photograph our black Chefs. Ultimately, it's extremely difficult to distinguish which head belongs to which body. I did think by giving them "pink" bedding (a colour that I loathe!) would make them stand out a bit more, but nope, that wasn't the case as you can tell by the blobs pictured below. Our poor babies had an incident last night that resulted in them being quite cold and I felt so sorry for them. In our home, the heating is on 24/7 usually about 30 deg. C. Last night, at around 2230 I was checking on the Indians again and when I went into the kitten room, to my horror they were all huddled together, on top of each other. I felt the babies straight away, particularly their ears, and they were definitely a touch chilly, not enough to warrant the panic I got into, but certainly enough to have bothered them had they remained like that for a day or two. So I touched the radiator to find out it was stone cold. Flew back into the bedroom in a panic, told Graham I was going downstairs to get th extension lead to plug in 2 heat pads for the babies, as the ******* radiator was not working and my babies were like ice. He told me to check the boiler, I asked where it was and what it looked like <sigh>.. I came downstairs to do that, didn't really know what I was looking at, Graham came down as well and checked it, the boiler was fine, he then checked a few downstairs radiators to find they were also off. He went to the wall, looked at the thermostat to find it was on 0 instead of 30. That is why the radiators was cold. He turned it up straight away while I was going off on one about the fact that it was not on blah blah blah. We both went back upstairs, I went back into the babies and "snuggled them all up" until the radiator started to heat up again. This morning, when I woke up and went in to feed Drambuie her breakfast and have cuddles with the children, I was rather relieved to see that the room was like a hothouse again :)

Day 18 - November 4, 2007

There are no photos today sorry and the entries are rather short as this day has not gone as planned at all. We also had the last of our older children leaving home today so with one thing and another I didn't get the chance to take any photos. I also have numerous diary entries to finish off for our older babies and still haven't had the time to do so.

I'm not happy at all with Casey's weight gains (or lack thereof) at the moment and as such, she has been supplemented with KittyStim for the last 2 days. Then today I have also encouraged her to lick some evaporated milk mixture and baby rice from my finger. Yes it is definitely way too early to be weaning her, however, at the moment all that matters is that she makes better gains as she is a very long way behind everyone else at the moment. The rest of our Indians are all doing extremely well and I was really happy that today they have not moved off their bed at all, at least not during any of the times I have been in the room. I do feel that in about a weeks' time, Drambuie is going to have real problems trying to keep these children under control.

Day 17 - November 3, 2007

Today I managed to get some individual photos of each of our 6 Indians. I don't know that the photos are great, however, it will give you an indication of how our babies are progress and just which baby is which. We are thrilled to bits with our babies' type, so much so that we are hopefully for 2 of our children to go to breed/show homes, and we will definitely be seeking a loving, show/pet home for Kenny. But looks aside, they are just such adorable little children and already they are are exploring the room. At a mere 17 days of age they now clamber off the bed and go wandering around. This is a little earlier than I would like to see them exploring, but they can not come to any harm in their room so if they feel the time has come to start to exercise their little limbs, then I am more than happy for them to do so.

Day 16 - November 2, 2007

Many apologies for not having a proper entry online today but it's been a manic day. We had one baby leaving us today, and we also had to take 9 babies and 1 adult in to our vets for vaccinations. That in itself is a military operation to get all the babies and their names etc. sorted out so I just haven't really had a chance to take any photos at all today. One thing I can say is that things are finally starting to slow down a little for me now and it's been great because I have been able to spend so much more time with our Indians. They are at that beautiful stage where they lay on the backs, waving their arms and legs in the air while their tummies are being tickled. Yet again, Ashanti has done us proud, by siring not only a litter of babies with stunning looks, but also, a litter of babies who are already showing signs of having amazing personalities.

Day 15 - November 1, 2007

The first of our children to go "Walkabout" is Ryan. When I was in the kitten room cleaning today, Buie got off the bed to have something to eat and that is when the babies woke up and wondered what they should do. Ryan stood up, and started walking towards the bookcase/shelves on the wall. He looked so funny bless him, and he did struggle to walk in a straight line but that's normal for babies of this age as they are still struggling to coordinate their limbs. I was very proud of him though as he did make it all the way to the wall. Of course the problem was then that he had no idea what to do and it never once occurred to him to actually turn around :) I ended up picking him up and putting him back on the bed. Kenny has a new game called "Squash the babies". He has already passed the 300 gram mark and spends a lot of time just flopping down on whichever baby is closest to him and oh boy do they have to struggle to get out from under him.

Day 14 - October 31, 2007

Our darling Indians are 2 weeks old today and the first 2 weeks of their lives has simply flown by. As each day passes, our babies are getting stronger and are trying desperately hard to stand on all 4 legs and attempt to walk. It is funny when the babies do this because they have such a look of determination in their eyes as they concentrate on getting their limbs into position. Unfortunately, as well as progressing physically, our Indians are becoming more and more vocal as each day passes. They are going to be very demanding children I think because they don't hesitate to scream at their mother if she is not in the bed. I am hoping to take individual photos at some point this week, if time permits, because as it stands at the moment I am probably the only person who can tell our Spotted babies apart. On the whole, I am happy with the children's' progress for the 2 week stage although I would like to see Casey put on a lot more weight than she currently has.