Day 13 - April 22, 2006

There are no photos at all today sorry as we've had some visitors for most of the day and I've no really had the chance to take any photos.

Yet another saga yesterday afternoon between Tia Lusso and Ice!!!! I got to the door of the kitten room, plate of chicken in one hand, turned the handle with the other and before I had even opened it 3 inches, Tia Lusso shot out like a rocket and went straight for Ice. She was followed closely by Amarula, whom I am convinced is simply following Lusso's lead. I had to sit the plate on the floor, tear out the door and down the stairs after them. Fortunately, Graham had "rescued" Ice, I was able to grab Tia Lusso and carry her back upstairs, which was not easy to do because she fought me the entire way. When I got back up the stairs, Amarula was waiting outside the kitten room door to be let in to her children. None of our girls have ever done this before and I can't figure out the reasoning behind it and obviously, neither girl realises that poor Ice whom they are trying to attack is actually their own father!!!! I did notice though, when I came back out of the kitten room that someone had sprayed at the door. Now there is an extremely good chance that the culprit is in fact Ice, remembering that he has only recently been neutered and neuter boys definitely do spray, particularly if they are ex-stud cats. So I'm wondering if it's the spray that is causing both girls to become so upset. The more I think about it, the more possible it is because even though the hallway was full of other cats and babies when I opened the door, Tia Lusso only had one victim in her sights and that was Ice. I'm going to put some aluminium foil underneath the door to see if that will stop him spraying there and if so, that might help to alleviate some of the problem. Of course the one slightly irritating factor about this incident was that I had been in the middle of cooking some mince for the Pints and the Bush Rangers and it was on the stove, bubbling away when I took the chicken up. By the time the drama was over and I went back downstairs, as you can imagine the flippin' mince was starting to burn! Now that you've all read the fun times that we have in the Schimmel household, I guess that I had better tell you a little about the babies. Well our Condiments are doing very well and are gaining weight nicely. Their eyes are all fine but more importantly, I'm now going to share my secret with you regarding the babies' genders. I have put the details below and I was going to include their colours but I've looked at them 3 times today and I am not 100% sure at all. I know we have what appears to be a definite blue tabby, could be 2 blue tabbies, and a possible seal which could turn blue. I'm going to give them a bit longer I think before making a definite decision on their colours.

Salt	Female
Pepper	Female
Vinegar	Male

Now I would like to think that you will be kind enough not to refer back to the previous week to see just how wrong we are with our original guesses :)

Day 12 - April 21, 2006

Right, I am now convinced that 2 of our Condiments will be Blues (either solid or tabby) and the other is looking to be Seal. Last night, Graham and I went into the kitten room to do another "gender guessing" of the babies and it is all becoming much more apparent now as to what they are. However...................up until tomorrow's entry, it shall remain my little secret because I'm going to look at them all again tonight and see if I still feel the same way as I did last night. Graham got to see Lusso in action last night because up until now, he had been relying on my reports back to him on her behaviour when it comes to handling the babies but because he doesn't normally go in the kitten room to visit the babies (he generally sees them when they are moved downstairs at 3 weeks of age), he didn't really know what Tia Lusso was like. Last night as we were trying to determine sexes, he saw that she was indeed not particularly happy if one of her children was being handled and was not happy. She is definitely getting better though thank goodness. Although she and Amarula scared poor Ice last night because I went in to check on all the children and the mum's must have heard me coming up the stairs because as soon as I opened the door, they both shot out and then they both went straight for Ice who was just hanging about, minding his own business. I had to move rather quickly to stop Tia Lusso before she harmed him and managed to get both girls back into the kitten room. The problem then was that Amarula was unsure whether or not Tia Lusso was friend or foe so as I stood there in disbelief as Amarula growled at Lusso and then bit her on the bum. I don't know who was more surprised actually, myself or Lusso. Tia Lusso sniffed Amarula and vice versa and they realised that they are both actually friends and they went back into the box to feed their children. Our Condiments are doing great though, they had good enough weight gains in the last 24 hours and their mother's personality quirks don't seem to bother them at all.

Day 11 - April 20, 2006

I'm afraid that today we have "box" photos again. I had every intention of going up to the kitten room after lunch to take separate photos just like yesterday, however, I had the chicken in the pot for about 4 hours this morning and the problem is that because not only am I the worst cook in the history of mankind, I'm also the messiest. So time that should have been spent taking proper photos of the Condiments and the Mel's turned into time that was instead spent steam cleaning the stove top. Still, at least some photos are better than none and our daughter won't have to spend an hour scrubbing the stove when she does the kitchen this evening :)

I could have sworn this morning that I spied a tail on one of our Condiments that was starting to show some tabby markings which is really exciting. Tomorrow I'm going to have a really close look at all 3 babies (after I have put the mother's out of the room naturally) so see just what the colours are starting to become. It would be great if we had a tabby in there, particularly for Caroline as she has been wanting a tabby for quite a while now. All of our Condiment's are doing very well as you can see by the photos below and they all have fat little tummies and their weights are very good. I'm starting to see a couple of little scratches appear on them which means that while I am not in the kitten room, some rather ferocious nipple battles have been occurring. Judging by their weights though, all of them seem to have no problems at all finding the milk bar.

Day 10 - April 19, 2006

Tia Lusso is starting to calm down a little bit with regards to me handling the children. Today when I was weighing the babies, she was content to stay in the box with the others and she allowed me to weigh them all, and examine them and I found that so long as I kept talking to the babies and to her in a soft voice, she was okay about it all. This is really good news as it's important that she understands that I'm not harming her children and that I will return them to her as soon as I have finished what I am doing. I got a bit of a fright when I weighed Pepper this morning because it was very apparent that he had lost over 10 grams within the last 24 hours, only it turned out that I had picked up Mad Max by mistake! Obviously it is time that I re-marked Pepper's arm with the red permanent marker again. I tell you, I had panic bells ringing when I saw the weight. When I did manage to get Pepper on the scales, and yes I double checked that it was the right baby, I was rather relieved to see she had gained over 10 grams thank goodness. Everyone is doing really well though and Vinegar is definitely the quietest, and most calmest baby out of the three of them. Now whether or not this will remain the same, or change over the course of the next few weeks will be very interesting.

Day 9 - April 18, 2006

Due to a severe lack of time today etc. etc. both entries are exactly the same and there are no photos but I will make sure I include photos in tomorrow's entries. All of our upstairs children are doing extremely well and everyone made good gains again during the last 24 hours. The Mel's and the Condiments had some visitors today because Uncle Mike and Aunty Lulu came over to see them and the majority of the children didn't hesitate to show our friends exactly how vocal they can be even at this age. Vinegar was the only baby who was happy to be held without making a fuss. Even Tia Lusso and Amarula were quite good with regards to allowing visitors in to see the children which was a relief because due to Lusso's protective attitude I have been a little concerned about how she would handle visitors and whether or not she would even let them in the room but she was really quite good. She let me pick up the children to show them off but naturally once they started making a fuss, I had to return them to the box. Both mum's figured that the best way to stop me picking up the kids was to lie down and feed them and of course it worked straight away because the mum's know full well that I won't pick up one of the kids if they are latched on and feeding. On the whole I was really pleased with how well both girls accepted "strangers" into the kitten room and it does give me great hopes for when the babies move downstairs and their new families start to come to have cuddles with them.

Day 8 - April 17, 2006

Both diaries have very few photos in them today sorry and the photos were taken while the babies were in the box because Tia Lusso is not in the best of moods due to the fact that I swept and mopped the kitten room today and because she is so protective of the children, she did not appreciate the boom, or the mop coming anywhere near the box. I did try to tell her that it has to be kept clean so that the babies remain free from germs etc. but she didn't want to know. I figured that it was much better for her to then just snap a few photos without disturbing either her, or the babies.

All 3 of our Condiments have had more great weight gains in the last 24 hours and they are coming along in leaps and bounds. Their colour seems to be coming through so very quickly now and they are becoming more and more alert every single day. Poor Pepper was not impressed with me at all because as per usual, her red markings under her right am had almost vanished so she had to wait around on the scales until I could grab the red marker and colour her in again. I think, like me, she is getting sick of the smell of the marker. Hopefully, in a week or two, I will no longer need to mark Tia Lusso's children and will be able to tell them apart by the colour and their head shapes.

Day 7 - April 16, 2006

These are not long entries today as it is Easter Sunday and it's taken me an hour and a half just to sort out the photos alone for all 4 diaries. I also slept in this morning which has put me behind a bit as well.

One week of age today and already there have been so many changes with our babies in the respect that cords are all gone, eyes are all open and they are moving around the box quite a lot now. They are also quite vocal as well. It seems like it was only yesterday that they were born because the first week seems to have just gone by so very quickly. Tia Lusso is being a bit of a nightmare at the moment with the other cats because when I put her and Amarula in the bedroom while I take photos and weigh the children, Tia Lusso struggles to get out of my arms so that she can warn the other cats away from the hallway and the door where her children are. She is extremely protective, over protective in fact and I'm just hoping that we don't have problems with her when we move the babies downstairs at the beginning of May. I actually feel sorry for the Condiments because once they start running around and climbing out of the box I feel that their mother will not allow them any freedom at all.