I am 11 weeks old now!

Thames continues to delight on a daily basis. There is just one small problem I have with Thames and that is regarding the hoover. Even now at this age, he still insists on trying to "beat up" the hoover every time I'm trying to clean up the mess the babies make. The problem is however, that he does this while I hoover upstairs, then when I am downstairs, he does it down here as well. I was trying to hoover the scratch post downstairs and all of a sudden a little Tabby paw popped out of the box and whacked the hoover as I was doing one of the shelves. It was Thames of course :) I often wonder what it must be like to have cats who are scared of the hoover? I imagine that you could get the job done an awful lot quicker.

Sorry guys, there are no photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries and the entries are the same for our older litters, and our Chefs/Ray J's diaries are the same. It has been an exhausting day as I had to be at the vets at 9am with some of our ladies who were booked in to be spayed. When I came back from the vets I had to move the babies around and thoroughly clean both kitten rooms and the upstairs part of the home. I started the cleaning at around 10am (much later than normal due to the vet appointment) and I didn't actually finish the cleaning until around 1430. I also have to go back to the vets to pick up our girls and settle them in the upstairs room to recover from their ordeal.

Our Water Baby, Detectives, and Nuts have been evicted from the kitten room now and fortunately, they don't seem to mind at all. The timing turned out quite well in the respect that the babies have started sleeping downstairs with our adult cat family, and those who sleep upstairs only sleep in the bunk beds in the hallway so in fact, no one really making much use of the main kitten room anyway. Of course I could have done without the mess the babies created overnight. They had yet again stolen one of the toilet paper rolls, a full one one I might add, and the entire roll was strewn throughout the main kitten room. Totally shredded and the mess was just horrendous. So I went into the room, hoover in one hand, black bag in the other, various scrubbing equipment and left them room 1 1/2 hours later by which time the babies were all downstairs apart from Pistachio who was sleeping in the top bunk. I am really thrilled with how well the babies have just fit into family life. So far, none of them have shown any interest in trying to get back into "their" room which is a good thing as it is now occupied :)

Like the rest of our babies, you wouldn't know Thames was vaccinated yesterday, he has been a hooligan ever since coming back from the vets, even continuing to leap out from places and spring at me when I am least suspecting it. I must say though I am getting better when it comes to Thames and his little games because I'm starting to be more alert as I go up and down the stairs and in and out of the rooms and I do keep an eye out for his vantage points that he usually springs from. Although when I was doing my hair this morning I do not know what possessed him to suddenly leap up at my legs, and cling on, giving me a hug, before dropping to the floor, where he then proceeded to jump up again and hang off the inside of my dressing gown. Is it any wonder that it takes me so darn long to get things done with babies like Thames in the home.

As you know, today was vaccination day, and we received some devastating news. 8 out of our 9 children are perfectly fine and had their vaccinations. I really do not know what to say. When our babies have their vaccinations, our vet Jo, is extremely thorough, she checks, eyes, ears, takes temperatures, feels abdomen, and listens to heartbeats. Jo does this for every single baby. I can now confirm that our darling Sherlock will be remaining here in the Schimmel home as one of our "loveable loafers". Jo has given Sherlock 2 years at the very most. She has a heart murmur, quite a significant one, and Jo feels that she will die of heart failure before she turns 2 years of age. This news has just totally rocked me to the very core. This is the very first time we have ever experienced a heart murmur, large or small, and I am just at a total loss. Jo and I had a chat about it, she explained everything to me and she feels we have been extremely unlucky....................yet again. She asked did we still want to vaccinate Sherlock, which of course we did, so Sherlock was done along with her brothers and sisters. She was so very good bless her. This does explain why, when both she and Morse were hand fed and struggled from birth, why Morse picked up yet Sherlock didn't. Every other baby has perfectly normal hearts, they all passed their vet check with flying colours. Even now, I can't quite take this in, but I am not going to automatically assume our little girl has a definite death sentence. I refuse to. She will, as I said, be spayed, she will have a wonderful home here with us, and she will stay here until God decides he wants her more than me.

The only baby who created a fuss as the needle went in was Morse. He screamed at Jo and I as the needle went in. Everyone else was just so beautifully behaved. During the next 48 hours are the scary times as our babies will be closely monitored for any adverse reactions to their vaccinations.

CONFIRMED LEAVING DATE: Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Our babies are being vaccinated tomorrow, this means that they will be ready to leave home any time from October 29th onwards. So this is only actually 4 days later than the original planned date so hopefully that won't put any of our kitten families out too much. You will notice that I totally skipped yesterday's diary entry. We did have a kitten family visiting, then we had friends over in the afternoon so it was a lovely day and so I had a "day off" from the diaries.

At 10 weeks of age, Thames has decided he is a "big boy" now. When I went upstairs a short while ago to take some rather dreadful photos of the babies, Thames was the only child who was missing. I wasn't concerned as there is nowhere he can go other than in the home. I then noticed a baby in the scratch centre downstairs, and went to have a closer look and here was Thames, curled up inside, and cuddled up to Sage. It was so lovely. I did take some photos but not one of them turned out! Having said that, I do like today's photos of him curled up with Tia Lusso. These ones were actually taken late on Friday afternoon so it's just as well I took those, or there would be no photos of Thames at all for today. I am pleased with his 10 week progress and he is progressing beautifully. Hopefully tomorrow's vaccination will not be too much of a shock for him :)