We are 8 weeks old now!

Day 55 - June 27, 2007

Do you ever wake up some mornings and just know that it's going to be one of those days? Well, that's me today. Sambuca is screaming like a banshee in full call, Dublin flat out refused to eat breakfast, and during the evening, Drambuie keeps opening the kitten room door to let everyone out of the room! One of our ladies isn't due for about 2 weeks and she is the size of a horse, another lady due in a few days' time is refusing to use her kitten box, and Ashanti sprayed IN one of the flippin' water bowls. If I wasn't a cat breeder I would go back to bed let me tell you!

Sami's calling is relentless at the moment. She comes down to the bottom step and she sits there screaming at Ashanti, while he sits on the other bottom step, screaming back at her through the barrier. One of these days I really am going to invest in a pair of earmuffs! The Tails of Hans Christian Anderson are not bothered at all by their mum's screaming and rolling around and they just totally ignore her antics and continue with their games. Despite her calling though, Sambuca is still being a very attentive mother to her babies, not that it matters a lot because at this age, they aren't really that dependant on their mum's other than when they are sleeping and want to feel warm and secure by curling up with one or more of the mum's. During their waking moments, all 4 Tails of Hans Christian Anderson (never again will we have a theme litter with a name this long!) are happy to play chase and run around and they don't even seem to remember that they have any mum's. Today I thought I would share of babies' weights with you so you can see how they are doing and see the differences between some of the babies. Snow Queen amazes me because she is the smallest of all 4 babies, yet to look at her, you definitely wouldn't realise this.

Baby	Sex	current weight
Little Tuk	Female	788g
Ugly Duckling	Male	899g
Ice Maiden	Female	846g
Snow Queen	Female	707g

 

Day 54 - June 26, 2007

All 3 kitten diary entries are the same today with no photos. I couldn't do any diaries today as we had something rather "special" to do today which involved a long journey meaning that we were out all day. All I will say is that we had a wonderful time and all will be revealed soon enough ;) Prior to leaving the home this morning, the babies had been fed 2 meals, the 2nd meal remained left down for them, and obviously they had copious amounts of kitten biscuits and fresh water. The door to their room was left open so that they would have plenty of room to run around because at this age they can not be confined to one room, apart from when it is "bed time". Upon our arrival home, the first thing I did was dump our stuff in the kitchen, prepare a tray of food and went upstairs with it. I was fully expecting to see all of our babies come running to me like they usually do if they haven't seen me for at least an hour. To say I was disappointed was an understatement when I was halfway up the stairs and there wasn't a baby in sight. The reason for this however, became very apparent! Drambuie is the bane of our existence I tell you! She had only helped herself and the babies into our bedroom. We had made sure the door was shut prior to leaving the home, but I don't know why we bothered really because when I got to the top of the stairs, I saw our bedroom door open, and the babies tearing around like little hooligans in there <sigh> It's not that we mind them being in the bedroom, the problem is that if they don't want to come out, it can be a nightmare trying to find them. So I started removing all the babies, got to about 6 babies, stopped did a head count, yes definitely 6, went back in the bedroom, found 2 more, took them out, went back in, found another 1, took that one out, did a head count, thought I counted 10 babies. But to make sure, I then counted that we had: 2 Siamese, 3 Black Torties, and 5 Blacks, nope, I couldn't count right the first time, I was missing a Black Tortie. And of course it had to be Dublin. It took me a full 40 minutes to find the little minx. She refused to come when called, I must have lay on my stomach peering under the bed for a good 15 minutes. I pulled absolutely everything out of the wardrobe, still couldn't see her, came downstairs to tell Graham someone had nicked one of the kids, went back upstairs, back in the bedroom, and as a last resort, I opened the wardrobe door again, but this time I reached in under the unit that the TV sits on and sure enough, there she was, perfectly comfortable, not a care in the world, and most indignant that mummy had removed her. This only confirms that Dublin's registered name couldn't be more fitting!

Day 53 - June 25, 2007

I'm afraid that our Tails of Hans Christian Anderson refused to get out of bed today to have their photos taken. I did explain to them that their new mummies/daddies would like to see proper photos as there haven't been any for a few days but even that didn't entice them to get out of bed. To be honest, I can't blame them. It's such awful weather, we have the heating on, and as you can see by the photos below, they were so snug and cosy and I certainly didn't have the heart to disturb them. They are all doing incredibly well and I am more than satisfied with their weights, their weaning, and their litter training. One thing about the babies now is that they no longer rush for meals throughout the day. The only meal that they come racing to the tray for is breakfast every morning. They know that the day/evening meals will still be there are 15 minutes and they tend to carry on with what they are doing and then go to the tray when they are feeling hungry. It is also extremely rare nowadays to see any of the babies feeding from the mum's and I have spotted Ugly Duckling and Snow Queen having some nibbles on the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits which I am pleased about because despite the fact that their are biscuits in at least 5 bowls spread throughout the kitten room, up until very recently there has been very little interest in the biscuits. Mind you, some of the reason for that is the babies are too well fed with their home cooked/commercial wet foods, but so long as they do start to realise that biscuits are for snacking on throughout the day and night, we will have a lovely balance I think of dietary requirements.

Day 51/52 - June 23/24, 2007

We have had an absolutely horrendous weekend (not cat related) which is why there were no kitten diaries online. They will resume as per normal tomorrow.

Day 50 - June 22, 2007

I did manage to take individual photos again of our babies as I hadn't done that for quite some time and it was long overdue. Some babies were more compliant than others during the photos session, others were pleased to pose for the camera. This is the start of a very busy weekend for us, going into next week, as we have a few different things on the go at the moment, one of which includes monitoring a honeymoon that commenced today between Ashanti and one of our ladies, then there are a few other major events happening, so please do bear with me if diaries are short, or few and far between over the next few days. We also have a girl who is due in approximately 1 week's time so everything really is up in the air at the moment. My one bright spot in our very hectic schedule are the babies. I tell you, when there is so much going on, it is such a pleasure to be able to go upstairs and just sit with the babies and play with them and chat to them.

:Little Tuk took me too literally at my word when I explained to her I wanted her to look pretty for the camera. So much so, that she refused to change position at all so instead of 4 interesting photos of her, there are 3 that are so similar, and one of her stretching to tell me she has had enough with sitting still. For goodness sake, I didn't tell her to sit still, I just told her to look pretty, so there was obviously a huge communication problem between the 2 of us this morning. Snow Queen had the opposite problem. She was being a little minx! It's not that she objected to having her photo taken, it's just that she wanted to play, she is a very playful child and the meaning of the words "stand still for just 5 seconds" means absolutely nothing to her. The more I picked her up and sat her back down, the more she thought this was a really great game and you will no doubt notice some slightly blurred photos of her. It is a shame as she is such a sweet looking girl. Washington thought he would post for a couple of minutes, but then it was time to have a stretch and washing little manly bits and that was far more important to him than actually looking nice and showing his mummy how handsome he is. Then there is Ice Maiden..............not a single complaint, I managed to get the photos of her that I wanted so I guess 1 baby out of 4 isn't too bad <sigh> Seriously though, they are all such individual little characters and so incredibly adorable, even when they are winding themselves around my feet as I try to move around upstairs. They should definitely come with health warnings these babies because they are at the age now where you really have to look every time you walk somewhere because they are either trying to climb your legs, trying to trip you up, or springing out at you from nowhere.

Day 49 - June 21, 2007

Many apologies for missing an entry today however we had a number of things to sort out yesterday and there just wasn't time to get an entry online.