We are 13 weeks old now!

I am pleased with how well our babies have coped with their first vaccination and so far, we have not seen any side effects at all. Not even for Sherlock so this really is a huge relief. As per normal, our babies have been both upstairs and downstairs today and I swear that Miss Marple and Nancy Drew don't come downstairs until I have been back up to brush my teeth etc. They know full well if they come downstairs straight away, not only would they miss their breakfast (this is still fed to them upstairs), but they would also miss the opportunity to bite my toes. It's not just "teeth cleaning" time that they do this though. They also did it to me today as I was leaving over the bath bleaching all the litter trays. I am sure they think it is tremendous fun to make "mum" scream in pain. In comparison, Morse is such a very well behaved baby, so is Sherlock. Whilst both these kids will happily tear around and create havoc, neither of them get under my feet in the same way that their 2 sisters do.

Sorry guys, there are no photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries and the entries are the same for our older litters, and our Chefs/Ray J's diaries are the same. It has been an exhausting day as I had to be at the vets at 9am with some of our ladies who were booked in to be spayed. When I came back from the vets I had to move the babies around and thoroughly clean both kitten rooms and the upstairs part of the home. I started the cleaning at around 10am (much later than normal due to the vet appointment) and I didn't actually finish the cleaning until around 1430. I also have to go back to the vets to pick up our girls and settle them in the upstairs room to recover from their ordeal.

Our Water Baby, Detectives, and Nuts have been evicted from the kitten room now and fortunately, they don't seem to mind at all. The timing turned out quite well in the respect that the babies have started sleeping downstairs with our adult cat family, and those who sleep upstairs only sleep in the bunk beds in the hallway so in fact, no one really making much use of the main kitten room anyway. Of course I could have done without the mess the babies created overnight. They had yet again stolen one of the toilet paper rolls, a full one one I might add, and the entire roll was strewn throughout the main kitten room. Totally shredded and the mess was just horrendous. So I went into the room, hoover in one hand, black bag in the other, various scrubbing equipment and left them room 1 1/2 hours later by which time the babies were all downstairs apart from Pistachio who was sleeping in the top bunk. I am really thrilled with how well the babies have just fit into family life. So far, none of them have shown any interest in trying to get back into "their" room which is a good thing as it is now occupied :)

Today's kitten diary is in 2 parts, the first part is the "normal" diary about our children, the 2nd part is about Sherlock. I can appreciate that not everyone wants to read about the "sad" parts of breeding however, as per usual, particularly with me :) there are things that must be said...

Our Detectives
You wouldn't have known that our Detectives had even had their vaccination yesterday afternoon because not only did they thunder around the house half they night, they have just been total live wires this morning. All 4 of them have been far more active than usual and I'm rather desperately hoping that at some point today they will settle down and have a nap just so I can have some peace and quiet :) Nancy Drew and Miss Marple are still causing me agony every morning when I'm in the bathroom as both girls seem to think that my toes are fair game. There is nothing worse than trying to clean your teeth whilst screaming "Ouch" or "Ow" every 5 seconds because the girls are biting my toes. As for what the babies have been doing today, well, Morse saw fit to steal the nail brush from the bathroom. I didn't even know he could reach up onto the windowsill but I caught him in the act. I had just taken the washing basket back upstairs and here was Cashew, nailbrush in his mouth, about to climb down off the shelf. Sherlock has decided to single handedly destroy the sheet of cardboard that sits in front of the stair railings so the babies don't fall through. She was up on the very small scratch post, chewing the cardboard and tearing at it with her claws, and when they didn't have the desired effect she decided to try and climb up it. Nancy Drew and Miss Marple, well to be honest I don't care what they are doing at this precise moment in time so long as they are leaving my toes alone!!

Sherlock
Prior to even writing anything at all, I have 3 "thank you's", not in any particular order, but here goes. First is to one of my best mates, Caryll. Within minutes of yesterday's kitten diaries going online for the older 3 litters, I received an email from Caryll. I was so touched by what she written. Caryll will never know just how grateful I am for the words she had written. I won't publish Caryll's email however I have published my reply to her which was:

My reply to her was:
"It's come as a massive shock and it was the last thing I was expecting. I did briefly think, just for a split second, that perhaps I shouldn't have fought so hard and hand fed for the few 3 weeks of her life because now look what I've done. But you know what, I know I did the right thing. This isn't a death sentence, at least not just yet anyway, and she can have a wonderful quality of life. If I had not fed her and just let her die, then she would never have known the fun and joy of playing with her brothers and sisters, annoying her mother, destroying rolls of toilet paper, and everything else she has to come. So if she does have a shorter life than we'd hoped, at least it will be a life where she is loved by not only us, but the rest of the fur kids. That's what matters isn't it? I totally refuse to believe that she's going to die. She is too active a girl, particularly for one with a heart murmur."

That is how I feel. I have always believed that if a baby struggles from birth, provided there is no obvious indication of something being wrong, then while ever that baby fights, then you fight as well. Not once at the start of her life did Sherlock ever give up. We battled with 2 hourly feeding, it exhausted us, but oh boy is Sherlock worth it. And okay, she may not have the longest of lives, but there is not one of us who can say we wouldn't be hit by a bus tomorrow crossing the street. What matters is that you make the most of the time you do have, that is what's important. It's called "Quality of Life". In our home, Sherlock will be part of the family, yes she will be a bit special, and maybe different from the others in the respect that she will need close monitoring and very regular check ups for the rest of her life, but apart from that, she will just be a very mischievous fur kid, like the rest of our cats.

I also need to thank Teen of Maroochydore Siamese & Orientals. I swear that Teen's phone should be called the Kat Helpline because I am constantly phoning to Teen to ask for advice. It's just as well she doesn't have premium rates! :) . Every single time something goes wrong, apart from my amazing husband Graham, who was wonderful yesterday, the first person I need is my mate Teen. Not once has this woman ever let me down. Teen was brilliant last night, despite the "signal" problems from my stupid mobile phones! I can not thank Teen enough for her love and support, and like Caryll, she will never know just how grateful I am.

The last person to thank is my mate Marcelle. I received an email from Marcelle shortly after the diaries went online. I will not go into this email as this is personal to Marcelle only and her own experiences, so what I will say is that Marcelle's email gave me such hope, and she probably won't know just how much my heart lifted after reading her email. This is not the first time Marcelle has helped me. At the time of losing our beloved Ock, Marcelle and I exchanged a few emails, and I could not have asked for a more honest, more understanding person than Marcelle. I do often think in life that none of us, myself included, ever really take stock of just how lucky we are to have the friends that we do and I know that I certainly don't appreciate mates like Marcelle anywhere near enough.

So to those 3 people, and of course Graham, thank you. I would also like to thank our friends on Siamese Cat Chat for their kind messages of support, and our friends on Purrfect Chat.

As for Sherlock, now that the shock has passed, I feel able to talk about this a bit more than yesterday. As mentioned, Jo and I chatted about this, one of my first questions was "can we operate" and "what can we do". Jo explained that while it is becoming more common with dogs, an operation of this calibre is not often done with cats and it would be extremely risky to little Sherlock. I'll be honest, my heart sank. I don't know why but I always feel with today's so called technological advances, something can always be done. This isn't the case. My next question to Jo was "Is this hereditary". Jo asked me was this a first time litter for the mum (Lucy), to which I replied that no, we had been using these lines since 2003, and in fact, most of our cats, bar a couple of breeding cats, are ALL related via this line in one form or another. That, and the fact that Sherlock's' siblings all have perfectly normal hearts makes Jo feel that we have just be so unlucky, and sometimes, something like this happens for no reason. So what I have done, as I always do with any problem, is make a note of it in the breeders software program that I use. It is imperative that breeders keep records of ALL health issues, no matter how big or small because it are these same records that help us determine just how healthy the lines we are breeding from are. It is these records that determines whether or not we spay a cat, or spay/neuter entire lines. I have to be back at the vets again today as Ashanti's booster is due, and one of our ladies is going in for an ultrasound, so I will beg 5 minutes of Jo's time to discuss Sherlock with her in more details. I couldn't have done this yesterday as I was in shock but now, there are things I do need to know. But you know what? It's okay :) This is something we will deal with. The thing is, babies like this are so incredibly special, they are put on this earth for a reason. I have no idea what that reason is, I never will, but that is not for me to question. What I WILL do is make sure that our Sherlock has the most amazing life she possibly can, whether it's long or short makes absolutely no difference. You may feel, having read this, that I am being overly optimistic, but I'm not. I have accepted what life has dealt with regards to Sherlock, quite calmly actually which is unusual for me. I had "my" time last night where I was able to cry on the phone to Teen, but this is a new day, and all the tears in the world will not change anything. Instead of feeling heartbroken about Sherlock, I am feeling so grateful to have this girl in our lives, and in our home. We will have fun together. This is certainly not a death sentence, this is the start of a wonderful, wonderful friendship and life together.

We are left with just one more problem now................................what the flippin' heck do we call her? Our cats are all named after liqueurs (except Sage and Parsley), and having just decided to keep Jamie, her new name is Kamora, we are fast running out of liqueurs. But hey, that is my husband's problem as he very kindly chooses their liqueur names.....................thank goodness!

As you know, today was vaccination day, and we received some devastating news. 8 out of our 9 children are perfectly fine and had their vaccinations. I really do not know what to say. When our babies have their vaccinations, our vet Jo, is extremely thorough, she checks, eyes, ears, takes temperatures, feels abdomen, and listens to heartbeats. Jo does this for every single baby. I can now confirm that our darling Sherlock will be remaining here in the Schimmel home as one of our "loveable loafers". Jo has given Sherlock 2 years at the very most. She has a heart murmur, quite a significant one, and Jo feels that she will die of heart failure before she turns 2 years of age. This news has just totally rocked me to the very core. This is the very first time we have ever experienced a heart murmur, large or small, and I am just at a total loss. Jo and I had a chat about it, she explained everything to me and she feels we have been extremely unlucky....................yet again. She asked did we still want to vaccinate Sherlock, which of course we did, so Sherlock was done along with her brothers and sisters. She was so very good bless her. This does explain why, when both she and Morse were hand fed and struggled from birth, why Morse picked up yet Sherlock didn't. Every other baby has perfectly normal hearts, they all passed their vet check with flying colours. Even now, I can't quite take this in, but I am not going to automatically assume our little girl has a definite death sentence. I refuse to. She will, as I said, be spayed, she will have a wonderful home here with us, and she will stay here until God decides he wants her more than me.

The only baby who created a fuss as the needle went in was Morse. He screamed at Jo and I as the needle went in. Everyone else was just so beautifully behaved. During the next 48 hours are the scary times as our babies will be closely monitored for any adverse reactions to their vaccinations.

CONFIRMED LEAVING DATE: Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Our babies are being vaccinated tomorrow, this means that they will be ready to leave home any time from October 29th onwards. So this is only actually 4 days later than the original planned date so hopefully that won't put any of our kitten families out too much. You will notice that I totally skipped yesterday's diary entry. We did have a kitten family visiting, then we had friends over in the afternoon so it was a lovely day and so I had a "day off" from the diaries.

You can no doubt tell that today's photos are absolutely awful. Not a single one of our Detectives would look at the camera and each time they did, by the time I pressed the shutter button, they had either turned their heads or were closing their eyes again to go back to sleep. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow's vaccinations brings for our little Sherlock. Due to her size, I don't know that Jo will vaccinate her but time will tell. As to whether or not any of the babies behave tomorrow, well who knows. I will probably need to spend 2 hours before the appointment just trying to find everyone and get them into their respective carriers. It will be a military operation let me assure you. It's hard to believe our babies are 12 weeks old already. Sometimes with litters the time goes by really fast but with the Detectives it doesn't really seem that long ago that they were tiny little kittens and they have all grown into beautiful young children now, albeit rather naughty ones :)