We are 11 weeks old now!

The Trotters have met a couple of our female adults today because during the day today, the door to the kitten room has been open, but rather than bring the babies downstairs, we have a few of our adult girls upstairs mixing with the Trotters as it's a gentle way of breaking them into society so to speak. The Trotters have not seemed phased at all by the girls upstairs and within an hour of being with them, they were in the girls' bed, rolling around, while the girls sat next to the bed and looked on in amusement at these little terrors. I did actually want to bring them downstairs totally today but as we have to go out for a while to the tip and also to get some food in, (yes, we still haven't done any food shopping for Christmas), I didn't want them downstairs with everyone else unless I was here to supervise. Time is getting away from us though so I have made tomorrow the "cut off" date for the babies' integration, although if we aren't out for too long today (it's currently 1215 and we've not left yet!), then they could come downstairs for an hour or so late this afternoon. I've not put them back in Graham's room at all since the "incident" between Frangelico and Toussaint, because I really do not want to have any possibilities at all of stress or upset to Toussaint or her children.

Please note: I have not taken any photos yet but when we return from shopping, I will take some and add them to the entries, however I wanted to at least get the entries online now because I really do not know how long we will be, so check back this afternoon for photo additions to today's kitten diaries.

Just like the Gamblers' diary entry, this is rather short with no photos but I will endeavour to make up for this tomorrow. Our Trotters are at that stage now where nothing in the kitten room is sacred at all any more. Even though they are downstairs during the day, of an evening they still sleep in their own kitten room and when I went in there this morning to collect the babies, I saw Rodney up on the windowsill knocking all the stuffed toys off there, Racquel was lying in bed while the toys were landing on her head, Trigger was on one of the shelves in the wooden unit that is still holding some of our linen because the house isn't quite organised yet, and Del Boy had found a cat bed up on top of the work surface and he was up on there rolling around, trying to knock everything off the work surface that he could find. On a good note though, no one has been in the book case for at least 3 days so my books have remained safe :) They really are at that stage where they should be mixing with the rest of the household so I will look at introducing them to everyone tomorrow. Although to be honest, it will probably be a case of dumping them downstairs here in the large cat bed and leaving them to it. I know that our own adults and other babies are not going to be upset with intruders coming in, although they are not going to know what hit them once Rodney starts growling at them which is what he will inevitably do. It will be interesting to see just how long it takes before the Trotters realise that they suddenly have a whole new load of fun playmates, rather than enemies.

Late yesterday afternoon the Trotters found a new friend. I went into Graham's room on my way out to the garage to collect the washing from the dryer, glanced over at the Trotters who were all sound asleep on the chair, and suddenly realised that we had an extra Trotter! Having a nap on the chair with them, was no other than Blackjack, who had obviously snuck into the room when one of us had been going in and out. It made no difference to him at all that he didn't know these babies, as far as he was concerned, they were new sleep pals to cuddle with. Unfortunately, the Trotters woke up not long after that and realise that there was an intruder in their midst and had no qualms at all about telling Blackjack that he was not one of the gang so he was rescued by our daughter who put him back out here with the rest of his family. There have been no side effects at all from the vaccines which is marvellous news and it's as if they had never been done because the Trotters are acting perfectly normally.................well as normal as any Schimmel baby can be :) When I look at them, it's not difficult at all to believe that they are already 10 weeks of age, especially as they are particularly large in comparison to a lot of the other litters that we breed. The next step in our Trotters' lives will be to move them into the back part here with me and the rest of the cat family so that they can start their last steps of integration. I was thinking though, that prior to doing this, what I may well do instead is move the Gamblers back into Graham's room with the Trotters first because this way, the Gamblers won't suddenly feel intimidated by lots of adults and babies, whereas the Gamblers are fearless and love to play so it probably wouldn't take long at all for them to get the Trotters to accept them as start to mingle. And for today's drama.....................at around 12:30 were were all in Graham's room, I was looking for my shoes as we were about to head off to the vets to pay them for yesterday's vaccinations, and all of a sudden we heard an awful squeal and then the beginning of an altercation between Toussaint and Frangelico under Graham's desk. We managed to get Jelly out and back on Graham's chair, while I got Toussaint and nearly had a coronary as I saw blood pouring from her. Everywhere she walked, she was leaving a trail of blood so I knew instantly who had come off 2nd best. I got her on the chair, screamed at Mo to get me a soft towel which she did, and I started wiping Toussaint's stomach of all the blood and at this stage it was difficult to tell how much damage had been done but I was fearing the worst as she appeared to be covered in blood. I then told Mo to get me some warm water and the cotton pads so I could bathe Toussaint's stomach and as I did that, I noticed that there was no wound on her stomach at all, however, one of her nipples was bleeding. I continued to clean her up and the bleeding stopped. What we are presuming is that Jelly didn't actually do any damage to Toussaint, and quite possibly, she was lying on the floor feeding some of her Trotters, when Jelly has wandered too close to her, the babies have got a fright and one of them has bitten her mum's nipple in fright. Toussaint would then have turned on Jelly as she would have been the nearest to her that wasn't one of her own children. I can tell you that at the time, it really gave me a huge fright, well all of us actually. The bathing stopped the bleeding though and 2 minutes later, Toussaint was rolling around on the chair, purring away like mad and having the time of her life.