Schimmel Siamese & Oriental Cats are Oriental cat breeders based in Oxford, UK. We sometimes have Oriental and Siamese kittens for sale. We also have 2 Oriental Stud Cats and online kitten diaries.

We've changed the "sleeping" arrangements yet again just very slightly because poor Iced T was having some difficulty. When everyone finished eating, and had finished running around, they would all go back to the bed area, climb up into the soft cat bed and settle down to sleep, all except Iced T. For some reason, she would continue to run around the room, screaming her head off (she is very, very loud), because she had no idea where the other babies all went to and she couldn't figure out why she was the only one left running around. Each time this happened, I would pick her up and put her in the bed with everyone else where she would then be perfectly content because she "found" her litter mates. Having watched this last night and again this morning, I think the reason for the problem is that she didn't seem to grasp the concept of climbing up into the bed which I didn't think was that high because everyone else managed it, yet she didn't know what to do. At lunch time, when I fed the babies, I then replaced their bed area with a new vet bed, and then put a soft white bed on top of the vet bed and it suited Iced T just fine and she had no difficult following everyone else back to bed when it was time. The bed in the photos below is the one that Iced T was having difficulty with that I've now removed. Out of curiosity, did not one other person reading this diary, noticed that I had put the wrong details on the top of each page? Instead of saying Tia Mari's 4th kitten diary, I had 3rd kitten diary, as well as the wrong months! It's taken me 3 weeks to notice!

As stated in our other current kitten diary entries, apologies for not getting this entry online today and also for no photos. We had to go out very unexpectedly and I wasn't able to get the diary done. Cute T is the first of our babies to realise that the water bowl is for drinking from and not standing in! I saw him yesterday evening drinking from the bowl just like the big kittens do and I am so very proud of him. They are really funny when they are learning to drink because the first 10 minutes are spent licking the top rim of the bowl where some moisture is. They then progress from there to sticking their head in the water because they can't grasp the concept that the liquid is so close to their face. After doing this 2 or 3 times and spluttering, it then dawns on them what their little tongues are for and you can quite literally see the light bulb turn on inside their heads when they realise how this drinking lark works. Mr T gave me a lovely present this morning. She was running around the room, prior to me putting the food plate down and I picked her up and went to put her in front of the plate. Within 2 seconds, I realised that at some point during the night, she had rolled over some poo that was in the bed, it was stuck to her fur like glue and I had just put my hands on it as well. It took 10 minutes of bathing to get the majority of it off her fur and even now there is a slight discolouration.

Just like the Chocolate Bars, I can now safely say what sexes and colours our babies are............at long last!

Baby's Name	Colour	Sex
Mr T	Blue Point	Female
Cute T	Blue Tabby Point	Male
Iced T	Seal Point	Female

It is entirely possible now that Mr T will be remaining with us as well as Iced T. It's not an overly long entry today, well not even long at all actually as I have quite a lot to get through today and just working out the babies colours and sexes alone took me quite a while. I'm still concerned about all the babies weights at this stage, particularly as Amaretto ignores them most of the time now and isn't really interested in feeding them at all so they are wholly dependant on me for meals.

Mr T is trouble, there is no other way too describe him. He is incredibly active, the first of the leg climbers, and runs about like a madman when he's awake. Cute T and Iced T now both eat straight from the plate when it's put down in front of them, although Iced T still insists on standing on the plate, in the mixture and actually has little growls at other babies if they put their head to near to where she is eating. She needs a bath after virtually every meal! When they are out of the box now which is much more often, Mr T and Cute T bounce about all over the room, and I am amazed at how quickly these tiny little babies can actually move. When Iced T is awake, she is more interested in food than playing.

Iced T now weighs 207 grams which is absolutely brilliant and she's coming along so well. She eats from my fingers and also straight from the plate, albeit in a very inelegant fashion! This morning, I even caught her trying to play with Twix so she's really doing well which is so very surprising. I think that Cute T is going to be as laid back as her mother was because she's absolutely no trouble at all. Just happy to enjoy life and get on with it, she's extremely placid (at the moment) and nothing ever bothers her. Which reminds me that I really need to look at their sexes again and see what the situation is as I've not looked for ages actually and of course it's entirely possible that Cute T will end up being a boy. Mr T is already an extremely demanding young man and he thinks I am his mum because when he is awake, he is not that interested now in going to Amaretto, instead, he climbs out of the box, climbs up my legs and keeps walking all over my feet until I pick him up and put him on my lap. He is now at the stage where he is more interested in what food I have to offer as opposed to what his mum is offering which I guess isn't a bad thing. There's not much in the way of photos as I'm not on the pc a great deal today, however it's easy to spot Iced T in the photos because of the dried food stuck to her face!

Well Iced T is still with us and doing well. She's even trying to feed off Amaretto, not always successfully as she does get pushed out of the way a bit, particularly by her brother, Mr T who is the largest of all the babies. She now weighs 191 grams which is only 22 grams behind Buttons who is the smallest of Amaretto's babies. The next surprise of the day for you all is that it would appear that Iced T is female and not male. I wasn't amazed by this fact because last week I had a feeling that she was actually a boy and was just holding off a bit longer until I could be certain before saying anything. Then with everything that happened, it didn't really matter. Today I actually managed to get photos of The T's on their own. It was not easy though that's for sure. While I was taking photos of the T's, the Chocolate Bars were screaming at me because they felt like they were missing out on something special. Then of course the T's were not happy because I had taken them out of the box so I'm not very popular with the little ones today. I want to share with you something that Marcelle sent me in an email as it brought tears to my eyes, and what she wrote truly touched my heart, and I found it so easy to picture what she said to me. For those who don't know who Marcelle is, she is a wonderful, wonderful lady and she is the owner of Bailey, from Tia Maria and Ice's 1st litter together. Marcelle said to me: "I have been thinking about Iced-T all day and had a little picture pop into my head. He arrived at rainbow bridge and Tia was there to meet him, she had a chat with him and told him that she had a special mission for him. She told him that her mummy missed her dreadfully and as much as she wanted to go back, she was very much needed at the bridge. She wanted her Mummy to be strong and to see that everything was worth while and that there was a point to it all and therefore he needed to go back. She gave him a kiss on the head and sent him on his way."

This entry is what I posted earlier this morning on my message board, word for word.

I really do not know where to even start with this one. It's so unbelievable and had me in shock for most of yesterday. Little Iced T, passed away as I'd said, and when he was gone (or so I thought), I had wrapped him up and put him in the carrier to bury him the next day. I didn't want to leave his body in the box with everyone where he would be trampled on by the other babies. I had covered the carrier as well because I couldn't bear to look at him as losing him upset me so much. Yesterday as you know, Graham very kindly picked up Tia's ashes for me, which was so hard for him to do but I couldn't have done it. After a while, I knew that I had to bury baby and when I picked up the carrier, there was a squeak. He was actually still alive, but very barely, very cold, very stiff, but he definitely made the smallest of murmurs, now when I had put him in the carrier in the early hours of the morning when I thought he was dead, he wasn't breathing, didn't move, when I picked him up, there was no response. I was in total shock, almost dropped the carrier, got Graham to come over. I took him out while Graham heated me up some milk and got the nutri drops. His mouth was incredibly stiff, and there wasn't a great deal of response from him but we got the tiniest bit of milk down him and the Nutri Drops and then lay him in the kitten box on the heated pad to try and warm him as he was so cold. Amaretto put her arms around him and groomed him all over. We then fed him very small amounts every hour and a half and by 5pm, he was able to drink from the syringe on his own, and he was moving around a bit more. By 10pm, he was trying to feed from Amaretto too and he had gained weight. Once I realised he was in fact still alive and had the smallest of chances, I was just in total shock, still am actually, and then most of yesterday was spent doing what we could for him and there has been an improvement. He's still hanging in there and I just do not believe this has happened. I couldn't have said anything about it yesterday afternoon because I didn't quite believe it myself and how on earth would I have explained this? I'm calmer about it today and am going to continue with him, I do not know what will happen but still, I think I am just stunned. I do not know how he is alive still or why but he is still with us. I will take a photo of him today to show you. If he does make it and grows up with everyone else, he is going to live here forever.

And here is my little miracle. Much stronger than yesterday, he can stand up now on his own feet and even today has been eating AD from my fingers. Yesterday he weighed just 159 grams, today he weighs 180 grams. He looks rather filthy as I took this just after I had fed him but isn't he the most precious thing in the world? What has happened with him has brought about such a change for me in the way I have been feeling. I feel so much stronger now and more able to deal with life.