We are 2 weeks old now!

Day 13 - September 13, 2007

Let's start with our Chefs' weights.................

Baby	Colour	Week 1 Gain	Current Weight
Heston Blumenthal	Oriental Black	11g	119g
Gordon Ramsay	Oriental Black	109g	258g
Jamie Oliver	Cinnamon Oriental Tabby	81g	202g
James Martin	Blue Point Siamese	114g	239g
Antony Worrall Thompson	Oriental Black	92g	217g
Gary Rhodes	Seal Point Siamese	105g	234g

To say that I am very surprised by the Week 1 weight gains is an understatement! If you have been reading the Chef's kitten diary right from the beginning, you will remember me talking about how Sambuca does not do well with "big" litters, and that she has a very poor success rate with her Siamese babies. Yet I look at the above weights and am just totally amazed at the remarkable progress of 5 out of our 6 babies. As you can tell, Heston is miniscule compared to the rest of his brothers and sisters however that doesn't mean to say he will always be that way. For him to have come this far is absolutely fantastic and whilst we still have a very long way to go with him, at the moment we are winning the battle. Our children will be 2 weeks of age tomorrow and this has come around really quickly and I'm going to be interested to see what the 2 week gain is for all of our Chefs.

Day 12 - September 12, 2007

I did manage to take individual photos of our Chefs today and I'm sure you will agree with me that all 6 of our babies are just totally and utterly gorgeous :) They are such very good babies and we are really lucky to have them. Little Heston's gains were quite poor today, but, they were still gains, and with a baby like this, there will always be good days, like yesterday, and not so good days. The winners of the Fattest Baby competition in this litter is James and Gordon, both of whom are quite large boys. Today I caught Heston trying to climb down the ramp of the posh box, but he was scooped up incredibly quickly and put back in the box, right up towards the very back. There is no way on earth at a mere 12 days of age that boy is going wandering anywhere. I'm still quite pleased with the progress of our Chefs as all 6 babies are progressing exactly as they should and they are so much more alert and awake now. I do often find though that when younger babies are mixed in with older babies, such as this litter, that the younger ones tend to mimic the older babies and advance more quickly than they would if they were on their own.

Day 11 - September 11, 2007

Heston has had an amazing 24 hours and has had his biggest weight gain yet. Even better, we have now got him over the 100 gram mark. His gain during the last 24 hours was 16 grams which, for a little guy who has only ever gained between 2 and 5 grams each day, is simply remarkable. As you can imagine we are over the moon. We only have about another week and a half of 2 hourly feeds with him and he can then go on to 3 hourly which will be nice :) The rest of our Chef's are all doing extremely well and I'm trying to resist turning them upside down every time I'm in the room to try and confirm just sexes they all actually are. I had been a bit concerned that because they are younger and smaller than the Ray J's, that they would have difficulty getting to the milk bar and might have been pushed out of the way. That is not the case however as their weights were perfectly normal when I did the weigh in session this morning so the fact that they have three new room mates has not affected them at all.

Day 10 - September 10, 2007

I went into the kitten room for the 2nd "Heston" feed and to weigh the babies, and realised we were missing someone. Gordon was nowhere to be seen. I figured he must be in Amaretto's box and I had a look and sure enough there he was. So I took him out, I put him back in Sambuca's posh box, I wrapped up Heston in a towel and commenced feeding. While I was feeding him, Sambuca came out of her box, with Antony in her mouth, took him to Amaretto's box and dropped Antony on Amaretto's head <sigh>. She then climbed out of Amaretto's box, back into her own, picked up James and took him over as well. At this point in time I felt sorry for her so I scooped up the remaining babies and dumped them all in the box as well to save her having to go back and forth. She then came back to her own posh box, stuck her head in and made sure no one had been left behind, and when she was satisfied that everyone had been moved, she climbed back into the box with Amaretto and the 9 babies, did yet another head count, and then settled down next to Amaretto. So now we have 9 babies climbing over the 2 mum's and very little room in the posh box. Tone.....................between now and next year, please, please, can I have a longer and slightly wider posh box?????????????????? There are more advantages than disadvantages of having both litters in the one box. Actually, the only disadvantage obviously is little Heston. He still has not reached the 100 gram mark and it's bad enough that his own brothers are sisters are over 100 grams heavier than him, but when you have 3 pork pies aka Ray J's, then it is imperative I monitor him extremely closely to ensure he is still gaining weight and not getting squashed. This could go in his favour though in the respect that 9 babies and 16 nipples means he may well have a better chance of feeding from one of the mum's. One of the advantages about them sharing the one box is that my washing has been reduced slightly :) As you are probably aware, the bedding in all the posh boxes are changed and washed every single morning, so that is one less load I will now have to do.

Day 9 - September 9, 2007

There are no photos in today's kitten diaries as it's been a "relaxing day" as we had our very good friends, Caryll, Ray, Jim, Jacqui and Marcelle visit us (and their respective babies) so we have had a lovely relaxing afternoon and quite a few laughs.

Our babies are doing quite well at the moment. Even Heston continues to hang in there and while his gains have not been particularly great during the past 24 hours, he is holding his own and continues to feed from the syringe. Now that they are a bit older, our Chef's are starting to have some tremendously volatile nipple battles, as witnessed today by our friends. Sami has so much patience though and continues to lie there feeding her children despite them scratching her with their needlelike claws as they all fight over the one nipple. We compared Jamie's colouring today, with Jonesy and Barry's colouring and I'm wondering if Jamie is actually a Cinnamon and not a Chocolate. He seems to be too light for a Chocolate and he does have that reddish tinge that the Cinnamon's have. We are also still wondering if he is in a fact a she. We are desperately hoping so and Caryll seems to think he is a she as well. If she is a girl, we'd best start looking for another liqueur that we haven't already used :)

Day 8 - September 8, 2007

Prior to typing today's kitten diaries, we would like to congratulate Linz and Martin on Tifa's fantastic show results and we would like to congratulate Julie and Andy on Mimi's fantastic show results today. Please Click Here to view the girls' results.

The Trials and Tribulations of Feeding Heston Blumenthal
I fill the syringe, wrap Heston in a towel and commence feeding.
Me: "In"
Heston: "Out"
Me: "In"
Heston: "OUT"
Me: "Right! Now we have to start all over again". I unwrap Heston from his tangled mess, I put him back in the towel, tightly wrap him, pick up the syringe again to start all over.
Heston: "Ahhhhhh too tight, too tight"
Me: "It is not too tight"
Heston: "I have no circulation left, too tight, too tight"
"Me: "Oh for goodness sake, it is not too tight" I then proceed to loosen the towel just very slightly. I put the syringe in Heston's mouth, he starts to drink.
Heston pops a paw out of the towel and waves it at me.
Me: "Put your paw back in there right now!"
Heston: "Look mum, whole leg is out now"
I stuff that leg in the towel and as I do, Heston gets an ear full of milk.
Me: "Now do you see why you have to be wrapped in a towel? You must stop poking your legs out because when you wriggle about, the syringe comes out of your mouth and goes in your ear or up your nose".
I then unwrap Heston and re wrap him yet again.
Heston: "Look mum, here's another leg, you forgot that one".
Me: "Right you little monster, now you are going to be wrapped tightly and NO limbs will escape."
Heston is then unwrapped, and rewrapped back up.
Heston: "Can't breathe, can't breathe, too tight, help me..................."
Me: "I am really running out of patience with you, now drink the flippin' milk"
Heston then stops wriggling and starts drinking.
Me: "Finally" and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Heston: "Look mum, both legs out now and look, I can hold your finger while I drink"
Me: "Yes dear, more eating, less talking"
Heston: "Oops, there's nothing left in the syringe mum"
I refill the syringe, re wrap Heston and we start all over again...............................

Day 7 - September 7, 2007

Diaries today are very short, due to our battle with Ock, but at least there are photos, albeit "sleepy" ones.

Well our babies are 7 days old now and I really do not know how Heston has made it this far. But he has bless him, and he continues to fight. My aim a few days ago was to try to at least get him back up to his birth weight by Day 7. I never thought we would actually pass it, not by much admittedly, but he is now a few grams heavier than when he was born which is just amazing really. Our Chef's are quite slow at opening up their eyes because even now, some of them are only just starting to open up. Normally with our litters they have their eyes fully open by Day 7. All seems to be well though and I am quite happy with where things stand at the moment. I did have intentions of sharing everyone's weights with you but I will do that tomorrow I think when I have a bit more time. It's already 1746 and I haven't finished all the kitten diaries yet.