A very quiet day today as Cacao is due. The babies are coming along really well and are getting louder every day! We're really pleased with their weight and feel that they are maturing as they should. The sticky eyes is definitely on the mend, however, we had to cancel our vet appointment which was for this afternoon. Reason for this is that about an hour before the appointment, Cacao started showing early labour signs so obviously we couldn't go anywhere. We will however phone the vets again in a day or 2 and make another appointment.

Yesterday afternoon, hubby and I spent a couple of hours totally rearranging the bedroom as we needed to make more space because with Tia's litter now in one of the clothing shelves, we needed to set up the birthing box for Cacao as she's due from tomorrow onwards. So after all our hard work, Tia decided to move the kittens again, into Cacao's birthing box and they've been there since yesterday and she looks like she has no intentions of moving them again for some time yet. At this rate, Cacao will be having her kittens on our bed (as Tia did) and we may need to then put them in the clothing shelf with new bedding as she no longer has a box! The eyes are clearing a lot better now. When I did them this morning, it was easier to open them, less bathing was required and there was very little gunk in there so I'm really pleased. I will still be having the vet appointment tomorrow for them to be on the safe side and to try and get it totally cleared up. All 4 girls are gaining weight really well now and even our little Pru who was lagging behind the other 3 put on 20 grams in 24 hours so we are over the moon! The colours are coming through very quickly now and all 4 girls have colours on tails and ears. It will be really exciting watching the colours develop. The Charmed ones are moving around a lot more now and in another week and a half I think they will be scrambling around all over the place and it may be time to move them downstairs in the pen which will give them a lot more freedom and they start to become aware of other humans and household activities.

Another nice start to the day................not! I was awakened at 7am when my darling Tia put one of her babies on my pillow, right near my head. So with much groaning and cursing I got out of bed, replaced the baby back in her rightful home, had a word with Tia and tried to get back to sleep. Within 5 minutes, a different baby had appeared on my pillow courtesy of Tia so at that point I took the hint and got out of bed. I now dread my visits to the room as there's every possibility she will have moved them yet again. The girls are doing really well and the eye bathing is still going on at the moment. After speaking with other breeders I was assured by some of them that sticky eyes are not an uncommon problem and can sometimes take a while to clear up so we may be bathing eyes for quite some time yet. We do however have our girls booked in at the vets for Monday morning just to get our vet's opinion and no doubt some antibiotic treatment for them to clear it up asap.

For the time being, Tia is still happy with her new little home however she was extremely restless during the night and didn't appear to spend much time with her girls. When we weighed them today though, all 4 were continuing to put on weight so she obviously stayed with them long enough to feed them. We still have a problem with sticky eyes and are continuing to bathe the eyes and hopefully this will be cleared up very soon. Tia enjoyed some lovely prawns on a plate this morning as well as some turkey later in the afternoon so she is certainly eating well. The Charmed ones wriggle around quite a lot now and certainly get louder the older they get. They seem to be enjoying their new home out of the box but I definitely preferred it when they were in the box.

So much for a relaxing start to Christmas Day. All our plans went out the window as Tia decided that Christmas Day would be her "kitten moving" day. She finally decided that she didn't want them in the box any more. She picked up one of the girls, carried her to the other side of the room and then climbed into hubby's clothes shelves and plonked the kitten down in between some sweaters!! I then got out of bed and retrieved the kitten and put her back in the box. As soon as I had done this, Tia got another kitten and took her back to the shelves and put her in the sweaters, so again, I got out of bed and took the kitten back to the box. This went on for quite some time and then hubby and I decided we would put up the crate, put the box in the crate and we figured that as she would be locked in the crate there would be nowhere to move the kittens too. Naturally this stressed Tia out in a major way and she then walked round and round inside the pen with a kitten in her mouth, dangling her over the litter tray, the water bowl. We had to open the crate up in case she harmed the kitten accidentally so as soon as the crate was opened, she took the kitten straight into the clothing shelf again. At this point we decided to give up so we removed all the sweaters from the shelf, put the kitten bedding in there, put a curtain up in front to keep the light and cold out, put the heated pad in there and rearranged half the room again!! When we finally finished it was 9.30am and the kitten moving had started at 7am!! It was the worst start to a Christmas Day that we had ever had.

Let me start by saying that the kitten diary will probably not be updated now until the 27th so we would like to wish you all a very Happy and Safe Christmas. I will still be taking photos on a daily basis, however they won't be going on the site until we've had a couple of days break. The eye problem with our girls is already starting to improve so we shall continue bathing today and hopefully within the next day or 2 everything will be as it should. All girls are still eating well and the more we handle them, the more they seem to enjoy it. Tia is an absolute dream. She trusts me completely now with her babies and she no longer stresses or worries whenever I handle them. She watched me bathe their eyes yesterday and just looked up at me as if to say "thank you for helping them" and had such love in her eyes that it was just wonderful. She is being a dream mother and I couldn't ask for more from her.

Our Charmed ones are 1 week old today and hasn't it flown by! Well our 4 girls are doing extremely well, however........(if it's not one thing it's another), one of our girls has a "sticky" eye. In other words, one eye is open but the other isn't, usually meaning there is a build up of gunk which makes the eye sticky and unable to open. We will now be bathing the eye 3-4 times daily until we have removed any gunk and the eye is able to be open. All girls are putting on weight still, even our darling Pru but our Phoebe has remained the biggest girl out of all of them. We finally managed to get the last of the Christmas shopping done, thank goodness, so we can sit back and relax from here on in.