Well the R's have now fully turned into little terrors. The noise they make when they are awake and running around is enough to make you think a war has just started. They now tear around the kitten room at full speed, not caring who they run into, or what damage they do. It's really very funny to watch them at play although I have to make sure that I am sitting on a chair out of the way because it's just not safe to be in the same room with them otherwise. They were all really happy to be given access to the hallway again today and have been making the most of their time awake exploring the upstairs. It's really funny when they go into the bathroom because some of them will hide behind the washing basket and when an unsuspecting litter mate walks in, they jump out and attack the poor victim. They seem to appreciate a much longer room that as it gives them even more scope to chase each other further than they ever have. Of course if makes it more difficult for me as you can guarantee that if I want to look at one baby in particular, I now have to search twice as long to find that baby. I've noticed that they aren't feeding off their mum quite so much now however this could well have something to do with the fact that Tia is now screaming her head off. She is back in full call again and I can only be grateful that she waited this long before starting. It should be a noisy few days. I'm pleased though that her calling isn't diverting her attention away from the babies as it did with her first litter. She does appear to have settled down a bit though with her over protectiveness and no longer follows the babies wherever they go.

This entry will no doubt be fairly short and won't make much sense as I've been up all night because Cacao was giving birth. So naturally I'm really tired. The R's are not happy with me at all because between 1130pm last night and 7am this morning, I kept going in and out of the kitten room to get more bedding, more paper towels etc. etc. and they truly couldn't understand why I didn't stop to pat them or feed them. Instead, all they saw was me rushing in there and then rushing out with my arms full of "things". They were finally given breakfast at 8am and I made sure that I spent some time talking to them and patting them all just to let them know that they are still my much loved babies. Diary entries are going to be difficult over the next couple of days so please bear with me as I am not going to have a lot of time on my hands but I will try to keep you updated every day. The R's have also turned into a lazy lot of babies now as well. For the past day or two, whenever it's feeding time, if the babies are lounging around on the sofa bed, they refuse to climb off to be fed and I have to lift each and every one of them off the sofa. Gino is now officially the worst when it comes to toe biting and I had to have serious words with him last night. He is just totally relentless and continues to make weighing very difficult. The only time he does it is when I'm standing still weighing the babies. The R's were not allowed out of the Kitten Room today as I don't want any tearing around or noise outside our bedroom door because I need Cacao to remain settled and calm. It's not really been a great day for the R's but everything should be back to normal by tomorrow I hope.

I'm pleased to say that Rolly made the normal weight gains last night so it's possibly the heat that was putting him off. I do have an announcement to make though, (and no, Cacao still hasn't given birth), Cathy and I were looking at the R's yesterday as it's really time that I decided on gender's once and for all. So I would like to announce that 5 of the R's are all girls and Danny is our one and only boy! Their sexes make no difference to me though to be honest. I'm only ever concerned about the sex if I'm planning on keeping a baby myself which I'm not doing this time around as I will be keeping a baby back from Tia's next litter :) I spent some time last night screwing up bits of paper into little balls to teach the R's how to play with them themselves and it didn't take long at all for them to catch on. Daisy caught on the quickest and it was fantastic to watch their little eyes light up once they realised if the batted the paper, it would roll across the floor. So half a notepad later, I left them to it and went to bed. Upon entering the kitten room this morning I noticed that only 3 of the paper balls were in sight so as usual was on my hands and knees looking under the ottoman, the sofa bed and trying to retrieve what I could. For the first time in their lives, the babies learnt today that there is more to the world than one room. I opened up the kitten room door so the babies now have access to the upstairs hallway and the bathroom. I've blocked the stairs off for the time being, even though we had no problems with babies and stairs with the last 2 litters, I am always paranoid that a baby will fall down the stairs and hurt him/herself. I'll give it a couple of days and then remove the barricade so the babies can learn what stairs are for. So far it's all going well and they've had a great time exploring. Their first few steps out of the kitten room were tentative but it didn't take them long at all to make the most of their new found freedom.

You will notice there are extra photos in today's entry. When I was in the kitten room last night, the R's were all playing and running around. The photos aren't particularly good but at least you can see the R's in action so to speak. It's not a long entry today as Cacao is due to give birth from today onwards so that's keeping me busy running up and down the stairs checking on her. I am going to have to have serious words with the R's at some point today because this "chewing of human's toes" simply can not go on any longer. When I weighed them last night, I had the same problem with babies biting my toes, and for those of you who aren't breeders are no doubt thinking "what harm can tiny little babies do with tiny teeth", well you would be very surprised how much it hurts when you're bitten by a 5 1/2 week old kitten. I'm going to have to get tough with them and explain that it's simply not the done thing to bite the hand (or toes in this case) that feeds you. Rolly didn't have a good weight gain at all last night so I'm keeping a close eye on him today and making sure he is eating properly. I'm not going to panic as it's not uncommon for a baby to have an "off weight gain" day here and there, however I will monitor him just to be on the safe side. I'm considering giving him Nutri Drops but will probably wait until I weigh him again tonight. I made the decision that as of Monday, the babies will be downstairs with me during the day. It has occurred to me that I am "doing it" slightly differently this time around as both Cacao & Tia's babies were downstairs during the day for periods as soon as they reached the Week 3 stage. Mind you, I actually had to go and look at Tia's last kitten diary as I couldn't remember what age they were. It will be interesting now to see if this affects the R's socialisation skills at all. When Tia's& Cacao's babies when to their new homes, they all settled in straight away, and while they were here, when new owners visited them, they were perfectly happy to be cuddled and stroked by strangers. I guess I will find out whether or not I've done the wrong thing by keeping them in the kitten room so long. Having said that, they have still had plenty of human contact while they've been there because not only am I in and out of there constantly, our daughter is in there on and off, and family friends have seen the babies as well as our daughter's friends so the R's are used to strangers at least. Anyway, time will tell but I think they will be okay.