We are 7 weeks old now!

Today I made the mistake of trying to take individual photos of our Indians and let me tell you, it's much easier to just lay on the floor and take pics of them while they are playing. Not a single Indian was happy to sit still and smile nicely for the camera. These may well be the last individual set of photos that any of our new families see! When you consider that all 6 of our Indians are particularly photogenic, then you would think that an individual photo session would be relatively simple.

If you look very closely at the faces on our darling Indians, you will see just how unhappy and annoyed they all are at being made to endure "photo sessions", and by the time we had finished, I was equally as annoyed :) The babies did not want to stay on top of the posh box, they kept crawling to the edge and trying to jump off. I lost count of how many times I positioned them back on the box. I had to be incredibly careful because while I was trying to take the photos, the Monkeys were running all around the floor, under my feet so whilst trying to keep the Indians on the box with one hand, I was trying to take photos with the other hand, and was still trying to watch the floor at the same time to ensure no one was trodden on.

For the life of me I can not understand why our Indians have no interest whatsoever in the Monkeys. Last night the Monkeys were allowed room access in that the ramp to their "posh box" was let down, yet not one Indian ventured over, despite seeing the little Monkeys running/falling up and down the ramp. The Indians were far more interested in carrying on their own games and Kenny was the only baby who even ventured close to the Monkeys. He tentatively walked over until he was quite close to the ramp, but he stayed on the other side of the biscuit bowls, just watching with a look of curiosity on his face. After about 30 seconds, he then just turned and wandered off. I am guessing that at the moment, the Indians are aware that the Monkeys are still too young to join in their games and play with them.

Last night, Ryan proved himself to be a typical dozy Red male bless him. He came to the conclusion that as he is now 6 weeks old, he must therefore be a big boy now and no longer a baby. He decided to prove this climbing up on top of the work surface to check out what was on there. I have a feeling he did not take into consideration that his spatial awareness and distance skills are not yet finely tuned at this age. When he had finished exploring the work surface, he decided it was time to get off, he looked at the chair, spent 20 seconds judging the distance from the work surface to the chair, figured he had worked it out, took a flying leap, and landed straight on the edge of the radiator. He then lay then totally stuck and just hanging with his right legs down one side and his left legs down the other. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry but I ran straight over and picked him because the radiator is quite hot obviously as it is on all of the time. Ryan was not hurt, nor phased by his little mishap but I'm sure that like me, he is wondering just where he went wrong. To have missed the chair completely, he has got to have veered to the right in mid leap, something I would not have thought possible. It all ended well though as he was quite pleased with himself by having been the first child to explore the work surface.

Again today I had to lie on my stomach on the floor (this time stuffing myself between a litter tray and under a chair) just to take photos of these precious little darlings.

When I woke up this morning and came out of the bedroom door, the first sight that greeted me was an open kitten room and there were adult cats in the kitten room, Toussaint was nowhere to be seen, the Indians were in various places throughout the room, the Monkeys were in their box wondering where their mum was, and Drambuie was prancing around looking quite pleased with herself. The little minx had, at some point during the early hours of the morning, opened the door and let herself out and everyone else in. To say I was not best pleased was an understatement.

I grabbed all the adults who were in the room that shouldn't have been and turfed them out, I shut the door, came downstairs to find Toussaint sitting near the front door, picked her up and took her back upstairs into the room. I then did a baby head count and everyone was accounted for thank goodness. I tell you that I do not need my mornings to start off like this! Drambuie and I had a little chat about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour and I assured her that very soon her door would be open and she would have full house access again however this will happen when I am ready, not when she feels the time is right.

As for today's photos, well I certainly hope you can appreciate them because the babies decided they would play on the floor behind the scratch post so I had to lie on the floor for a good 20 minutes angling myself underneath a chair and squeezing behind the "posh box" just to try and get some decent photos. At the time of typing this, I've not downloaded the photos yet so I'm just desperately hoping that they will actually turn out okay!

Day 45 - December 1, 2007

There are no photos at all today sorry as it's been a manic day with 3 babies having left us this morning, and one more to leave this afternoon so I've not really had a spare moment all day to take photos of our babies. We do only have 1 kitten family who will possibly be visiting tomorrow so there will definitely be photos in tomorrow's kitten diaries.

As each day passes our little Indians are becoming more adorable and much more sociable although I have to say that the boldest of all 6 Indians is CC. That girl is just beautiful and she wants the whole world to know it. There is no shyness about this little lady at all, she is a true Tortie! I really can't wait until Monday morning when I open the kitten room door and give the babies whole house access because I think they are going to have the time of their lives and it will be interesting to see which Indian will be the first to step out of the room and start exploring.

They are incredibly active little children and their favourite game at the moment is still chase and wrestle and the girls in this litter give as good as they get. Sometimes with babies, the boys often win the wrestling matches as they are so much bigger in weight, but Casey, CC, and Rafael won't let their brothers get away with anything and they are very stubborn little girls, just like their mum, their Aunty Sambuca. and their half sister, Nocello.

Day 44 - November 30, 2007

This is the beginning of an extremely manic weekend as we have babies leaving us today, tomorrow and also on Sunday. This means that we obviously will have kitten families here throughout the next 3 days and I will be constantly doing paperwork. Basically, between now and Monday, all kitten diaries will be fairly short with only a few photos, but I will do my best to make sure there is an entry online every day.

I am very surprised to see that so far none of our Indians appear to have any interest at all in the little noises coming from the "posh box". They are obviously very aware that there is a new person in the room as Toussaint makes her presence known, but I've not seen any of the children, apart from Ryan, showing any interest in checking out the newbies. When Ryan did so, he did the whole "Basil Brush" impression with the arched back and bushy tail, making himself as tall as he possibly could. I have no idea why as Toussaint was on the other side of the room at the time so I'm not really sure who he felt was a threat to him. There are only a few more days before our Indians are given full house freedom and goodness only knows what they will make of that, or what they will think of the rest of our cat family who will no doubt go in and out of the kitten room to see who the new people all are.

Day 43 - November 29, 2007

Drambuie and her Indians now have new room mates which you may already realise if you have read the Monkeys' kitten diary prior to reading this one. I honestly can't see that the Indians will be too bothered about having company as they are just happy to get on with life and play games and eat without a care in the world. So long as they don't try and climb into the "posh box" things should hopefully go okay. Today I did not go overboard on the photos with the Indians because I do have 2 babies leaving home tomorrow and as it stands at the moment I have not even done any paperwork at all!

Day 42 - November 28, 2007

Six weeks old today and such little terrors bless them. I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed a litter so much but in reality that could be because this has been such a hectic year for babies. To sit in the kitten room and watch the babies play chase and chew each others' paws, legs and ears, is incredibly entertaining and even Drambuie is smart enough to get out of the way when the Indians are in their "manic moods". As of yet, I've not seen any of our Indians eating the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits but they are all well and truly weaned onto solids in the form of wet commercial foods and home cooked meals. As per usual today, I have gone overboard with photos but it's really not my fault. These kids are so incredibly photogenic and it's very easy to just lay on the floor taking photo after photo without actually realising how many I have taken.