Saturn isn't having a particularly wonderful day today. Twice so far he has stood in the water bowl by accident, and he climbed up the tree in the cat run and couldn't get back down.

There wasn't really a great deal to put in today's entry, which is why it didn't go online as per normal. A lot of my day was actually spent out in the back yard with the trimmer and mower, still trying to get the jungle under control. The babies however were thrilled to see that the cat run had been mowed and they actually spent the majority of today out in the run. Their appetites have waned a little but I think that is due to the heat that we had today as they are not used to this sort of weather. Even the mum's didn't eat as much as they normally would.

So far today has been relatively peaceful, well as peaceful as it can be with 3 adult females all calling at the exact same time in various parts of the house (none of whom can be mated I might add as 2 of them were mated within the last week) and the other can't be mated for a while)! Sambuca has now come back into full call, the first time since having her litter, and it's causing problems like you wouldn't believe. The poor Planets are constantly being picked up and dragged back to the bed where they are then pinned down by mum and given a thorough bath. Mars gave me a slight scare yesterday and I actually wasn't even going to share this story with you here in the diary but have since thought "what the heck". As you know, Mars was recently discovered to have been a girl however, yesterday, I looked at little Mars (must really stop calling her that as she's only 50 grams behind the next smallest in the litter) during the course of the day, from a distance i.e. she was at one end of the room, I was at the other. She was standing near the small litter tray and as I happened to glance at her, I thought I could see something resembling "crown jewels" attached to her rear end. I went over, picked her up and on closer inspection realised that her anus was looking slightly bigger than it should. I won't even begin to tell you what thoughts were going through my mind or how much I was panicking. I put her back on the floor, was about to pick up the phone for advice, when lo and behold she jumped into the litter tray, did 4 very firm, rather large "nuggets" and hey presto, the anus was normal size again. I must have picked her up just as she was about to go to the toilet. You have absolutely no idea how worried I was for those brief few seconds and the worst possible things were going through my mind. After that, I sat down, had a coffee and tried desperately to remind myself why, when breeding is so full of worry and stress, do I actually do this.

I am extremely proud of Saturn today as he is the first of our babies to use the "grown up" litter tray. I had heard some scratching around in the big hooded tray and thought how odd because it didn't sound like the normal scratching that our adult cats do. Yes I know it's crazy but truly, I know my cats so well that I can tell who is in the litter tray even if I can't see them. I waited a moment because experience has taught me to never stick my head in a tray if someone is going about their business. Reason being is that the poor cat gets very embarrassed if he/she is being watched, and very occasionally, that same cat will be so humiliated and having their toilet movements witnessed that they will get out half way through the process. Anyway, who should come out of the large tray but Saturn. Once he'd walked away, I stuck my head in and sure enough, he had been to the toilet :) One thing I was not impressed about this morning was the mess that greeted me in the room when I first came downstairs. I just can't believe that 8 little kittens throughout the course of the evening can so rapidly alter the appearance of the room. It was if a hurricane had blown through overnight.

As you can see by the photos below, Sambuca and some of the babies have taken over my chair so for the entire morning, I have only been able to sit just on the edge of the chair! Yes I could have moved them but they were so comfortable, and some were feeding and I just didn't have the heart. As I type this entry, I have Neptune & Saturn sitting behind me on my chair and Aramis is on my lap. This morning, all the Planets were outside as usual in the cat run (which still hasn't been mowed!) and I think they must have tired themselves out because by 10am, all of them were sound asleep, so much so that when it came to 11am and time to give them another meal I actually had to wake some of them up and put them in front of the plate. Chances are though that by the this afternoon comes around, they will be tearing throughout the house as per usual and that will be a good time for me to try and get some more work done in the back yard. I can't believe that they are all 7 weeks old now and to me it looks as if they have not grown at all but when visitors come over to see them, they always tell me they that have grown heaps since they saw them last. Neptune and Jupiter look very similar at the moment and it is a struggle sometimes to tell them apart.