We are 12 weeks old now!

Note for all new kitten families for the Nuts, Detectives, and Water Babies........................ Okay guys, feel free to scream abuse at me because there will be a slight change of plan now to the date the babies are leaving. Mainly because I didn't get my act together and get them booked in for first set of vaccinations. Obviously with 9 babies, it's not usually a case of getting an appointment on the day I phone up because this many babies requires 3 consultations all rolled into one as it is time consuming. So I do apologise for this. I will know by the end of Monday and "official leaving date" so please bear with me until Monday afternoon when I can confirm this.

Poor Miss Marple and Nancy Drew are thinking twice about coming downstairs at the moment because Amarula has decided that those 2 babies in particular belong to her. Every time the poor girls come downstairs, Amarula sees them, goes straight over to them, chattering away in a motherly tone of voice. That is fine, the babies don't object to that, but what they do object to is the fact that she constantly picks them up by the scruff of their neck and tries to cart them off somewhere. The poor girls don't know what to make of it or why she is doing it. What is odd is that Amarula won't do this with any of the Oriental babies in the home, it is only the Siamese. Our Detectives were actually quite well behaved today and I think they knew that their human mum had an awful lot to get through and lots of paperwork to sort out so even though they were downstairs periodically, they actually left me alone and didn't create to much havoc.

I must first warn you all that there will probably be no photos until Monday now. Reason being is that today has been a very hectic day, tomorrow I have quite a lot to do, and we friends and a kitten family visiting on Sunday so I really don't have a great deal of time at all.

All is going well with our Detectives at the moment although Nancy Drew is really starting to frustrate me a little bit. During the past couple of her days, she has been in one of those moods where she feels this incessant need to run into every single room that I go in and out of. These rooms include: the 2nd kitten room where is certainly not allowed as our 2 newest litters are in there; the kitchen where she is definitely not allowed as this is the one and only room in the home where the cats/dogs/kittens are not allowed into; our bedroom when it's very late at night and time for sleep. I think I have spent more time trying to retrieve Nancy Drew from places she shouldn't be, than I have actually cooking for the kittens/cats and feeding them. Morse is really starting to integrate himself with family life here in our home and it is not unusual now, when the babies are awake, to see him roaming around downstairs, or out in the cat run, or creating havoc amidst our adult cats.

Entries today are incredibly short due to lack of time.

Today's Detective photos are rather boring sorry because when I was upstairs taking the photos, the only baby that was awake and playing was Sherlock. The other 3 Detectives were all crowded into the top bunk with Toussaint who was more than happy to feed "her" children. I do have to smile when I see the babies all piled into the bed together. Poor Morse isn't even visible in the photos because he was buried right underneath the pile of babies and goodness only knows how he was able to breathe!

Despite the fact that it is incredibly chilly today, the Detectives still spent a good part of the morning running in and out of the cat run. Sherlock makes me giggle because even though she is so much smaller than everyone else, she runs around and climbs with just as much agility as all of the bigger babies. I don't think she actually knows how small she really is. I had to shut the big window in the kitten room today because when I went in there first thing this morning to give the babies their breakfast it was apparent that they were all feeling a little chilly as they were all huddled up together. The central heating is always on high in this house, so the babies were warm enough overnight but I'm freezing today and I figure if I'm cold, the babies must be :) All 4 of our Detectives are doing extremely well though and when they're running around, the sound like a herd of elephants. I don't know how such graceful felines can make the thundering noises that they do as they run up and down the stairs.

Sorry, they are just "photo" entries today :)

All of our Detectives, except for Sherlock, have been out in the cat run today. They actually were driving me bonkers this morning because they did not sleep at all from the moment I got out of bed, up until about 1:30 when I took them up some freshly cooked mince for their lunch. Fortunately, after that, they appear to have settled down for a long snooze. They tore up and down the hallway, chased each other in and out of my room, up the scratch post, and out into the cat run. I know I should be thrilled that they were all out there but I was trying so desperately hard to sort out the individual pics for the younger kitten diaries and I just could not concentrate at all. They were running into me, trying to climb my legs, annoying the older cats, making each other squeal. It was just total and utter havoc. The 4 of them were zooming around so fast, along with the Nuts, and it was just little blurs running past me (or into me!). I didn't even attempt to take any photos of their mad antics because I knew full well that none of them would have turned out.

There are no photos in today's entry, solely because I'm having a day off :) I probably could have found the time to take a few photos but sometimes it's just nice not to feel pressured into getting the diaries online because the photos are the most time consuming aspects of each kitten diary.

We have some rather interesting news today............................early yesterday evening I made the decision to spend an hour filling in the registration forms for the 3 older litters so that they can be sent off next week. Prior to filling in the "colour" section on the reg. forms, I went upstairs to double check the colours of our Tabby Point Siamese, and some of the suspected Blues, are actually looking Seal, but that's neither here nor there. The biggest surprise of all is that whilst looking at colours and examining tails, back of heels, paws etc. I happened to notice that our darling Sherlock is in fact, a GIRL!!! Now I don't know when I last looked at the sexes of these babies but it must have been many weeks back and for some reason, I never actually checked during the past few weeks to see whether or not the sexes were accurate. Of course the fact that Sherlock doesn't have a home to go to at the moment anyway means that I wasn't really that bothered. To say I was shocked though was an understatement. I came downstairs to tell Graham and he asked me what she was like, to which I replied "stunning" because she is the one girl who seems to be other breeders' "pick of the litter" with regards to type. He then asked me should we be keeping her then. To say I was stunned is an understatement!! The thought had never crossed my mind, I guess mainly because we are Oriental cat breeders although we do have 2 Siamese breeding queens. To be honest though, it's still early days and I'm not in any rush to either home her, or add her to our own cat family. Nancy Drew had a special day today because she had a visit from her mum and dad, Nicky and Karl, as well as Sam and Richard. Both she, and Miss Marple were in their "biting" moods bless them. It was so lovely to see Nicky and Karl again and great to meet the boys as well. Sam and Richard are lovely boys, a credit to their upbringing and both boys were so polite and great with the kittens. Sam in particular was a real hit with Pistachio and Nocino, whereas Toussaint showed her approval of Richard by briefly attempting to restyle his hair. In typical fashion, Tia Lusso showed off by playing fetch, whilst Amarula just growled at anyone who happened to walk past her. Sometimes, you meet kitten families and you just know if someone were destined to ever breed cats it would be Nicky and Karl.