Rodney eats now! He has decided that perhaps this whole food business isn't as bad as he originally thought although he rarely eats when I am in the room. As soon as I leave the room, if I sneak open the door a few minutes later, I find him at the food plate, along with his brothers and sister, happily munching away. There is also another big change in the eating department and that is our sweet Trigger. He is (to the best of my knowledge) the first of our Trotters to eat the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits. After I had fed everyone their breakfast this morning, I then went back upstairs to make a start on all the litter trays and when I entered the kitten room, Trigger was crunching away on the kitten biscuits which I am really pleased about. The more real food the babies eat, the less taxing it is on Toussaint because they don't want as much milk from mum. So far though, she is coping extremely well considering this is her first litter.

The Trotters were all thrilled about their breakfast this morning, mainly because they were fed scrambled eggs which they have not had before. There's actually no reason why I've not fed it to them until now, but in the last week and half that they've been showing an interest in food, the meals have comprised mainly for cooked chicken, cooked fish, and mince and I'd just not gotten around to trying them on scrambled eggs. I was really pleased with how well they all took to it, not that they will have it more than once every two days because I'm never really quite sure when too much egg would do them more harm than good. I keep meaning to get around to asking someone but just haven't done so yet. Del Boy and Trigger definitely have the best appetites out of the 4 Trotters. Racquel is happy to eat the majority of the time, but sometimes the need for play far outweighs her need for food so while they are eating, she is running around trying to find mischief. Rodney on the other hand, is different. He eats when and if he wants to. If he doesn't want to eat, then he won't, he relies on mum's milk. This has certainly not affected his weight though as all 4 Trotters are still doing just fine. I still have not managed to get any photos for today's entry but I will definitely have some in tomorrow's entry.

It's been a real struggle to get any form of kitten diary online this weekend as it's just been one thing after another and I have not had a spare moment.

Toussaint's children are just doing so incredibly well, as is Toussaint. I do think the time has come to bring the babies downstairs though so that they can begin the next step of their socialisation so this is my main aim for this week. I am sure that some of you are thinking "how hard can it be to bring babies downstairs" but honestly, you have no idea. it's not just a case of moving the babies, it's also all of their play equipment, litter tray, bowls, as well as scrubbing floors etc. where other babies have been. As a result, the "move" has to be done on a day when I have very little on and have the time to make the move as less stressful as possible.

There is no entry for today as it is our daughter's birthday so I have not really been on the computer.

This morning it occurred to me that I have shared any recent "weights" with you for the Trotters so I trundled back upstairs to grab their weight chart so I can show you what each of them weigh at the moment. Actually, if I'm being honest, I'm not really sure what to put in today's entry and figured that the bit about the weights would surely take up at least one sentence :) Seriously though, I'm very happy with their weights for this age, and they are still being monitored daily. The thing about babies once they reach weaning stage, and become more active, is that until they are all eating properly from the meals I prepare for them, their gains may not be as good. This is due to the fact that they are much more active now and when they are this active, mum's milk is not really enough to keep them sustained and to match their energy levels. One of the reasons that I know they are much more active now is because they are making such a huge mess in the kitten room! It's fairly obvious that they have now started climbing in the book shelves because a couple of books were found on the floor this morning. I have also spotted them trying to climb up the unit that currently houses some linen (no we still are not sorted with the house move yet!) and in fact, I caught Racquel sitting on one of our bath towels today which was on the floor instead of being on the unit. It's fairly safe to say that in true, Oriental (and Red series) fashion, these babies are going to be mischievous. Mind you, I only have to put up with naughty ways for 13-15 weeks, it's their poor families who will have a life time of it :)

Day 36 - November 16, 2006

There's no photos in any of the entries today due to lack of time, yet again.

It would appear that our darling Trotters are actually making a liar out of me with regards to them not being overly keen in eating just yet. After I gave Toussaint her breakfast this morning, I left the room to go downstairs to get a rubbish bag to take back up so I could sort out the litter trays. When I went back into the room to do the tray, I was amazed to see 4 Trotters all gathered around mummy's plate, happily tucking into breakfast! Obviously, now that they are yet another week older, they have decided it is time to start doing all the things that mummy does. What this means now is that I will have to make sure each meal is serve has equal amounts of cooked chicken or fish mixed in with the commercial kitten foods (Hi Life/Natures Menu) because Siamese can be prone to upset tummies so rather than take any chances by suddenly changing their diet from mum's milk to commercial kitten foods, it will be toned down with the bland freshly cooked foods. I can say, rather happily :) that there was not a single nugget on the floor at all this morning so I am very proud of our little babies.

Day 35 - November 15, 2006

I can not believe that already our Trotters are 5 weeks of age and this really did sneak up on me. I was not prepared for it at all and as a result, I have just rushed upstairs, fed Toussaint, and opened up the door to their room so that during the day, they can explore the the upstairs landing, and even venture down the stairs should they choose to. Litter training is progressing quite well all of a sudden because when I took breakfast into Toussaint (and to whichever Trotters felt like eating), I then went to change the litter tray and discovered 2 lovely little kitten nuggets inside the tray, and one slightly bigger kitten nugget just on the floor in the front of the tray. Obviously, some poor little person hasn't quite got the hang of it yet but is getting there :) It's actually quite scary when I compare things like litter training now to what I used to be like and the differences are phenomenal. It took me a heck of a lot of litters before I realised that the babies are actually more than capable of training themselves with regards to using litter trays and the less interference from me, and less "help" (I used to pick the babies up 50 times a day and put them in the trays when they reached the 3 week of age mark) that I gave, the less accidents we actually have. None of our Trotters are showing any interest at all yet in the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits, but it is still very early days and there is no rush.