Due to Tia's babies being born, I haven't had a great deal of time to update poor Cacao's diary. Cacao is doing really, really well and has gained quite a bit of weight in the last week or two. When she is lying down relaxed, you can actually see her babies moving which is really wonderful. Whereas Tia was relying on us constantly throughout her pregnancy, Cacao is quite the opposite. She is happy just to get on and do her own thing so long as whenever we pass by her, we stop and cuddle her and have a chat with her then she is perfectly content. She is still eating quite a lot which we are pleased about. Even though she is carrying all this extra weight she has no problems getting up and down the stairs or moving around anywhere. Pregnancy seems to suit her now and she has certainly settled down quite a bit and is far less hormonal. She spends a lot of time grooming Ice which he is really loving although I am sure he still doesn't trust her 100%. It's going to be very interesting when she has her babies, particularly as we haven't actually yet got her a box even to have them in! Fortunately our wonderful friend Cathy has come to our rescue yet again, with a birthing box. I think it's better that we haven't been fussing over Cacao like we did with Tia because in the end I do believe it does more harm than good as was proven with Tia.

Cacao has now started to pile the weight on and I get the impression she is not happy about this at all. She's been extremely restless the last few days and doesn't know who she wants to be with. Her appetite has increased in a big way. She still has this habit of "crying" if she thinks no one is around and she has started following us from room to room. She's been venturing out into the cat run every now and then however the cold weather soon has her running back indoors to curl up on my desk. Her loving attitude is still exactly the same and when you pick her up she just snuggles into you and looks up at us with her beautiful eyes and talks softly to us. She seems to want a lot more of my attention than Tia does. I also feel that even though she isn't "overly big" yet, she struggles to find a comfortable position as quite often, she just sprawls out in the middle of the floor fully extended. It will be interesting to see how she will cope during the next 2-3 weeks when she starts to pile on the weight.

Fortunately Cacao's temperament has settled down and she is back to normal, very loving and affectionate. She is also very hungry! She's starting to increase her eating now and she has a very slight swelling of her abdomen. To be honest though, you would only notice it if you lived with her and knew her very well. Being such an incredibly long cat as well, I don't think she will be getting as large early on like Tia did. It's very unfortunate that we don't have as many photos of Cacao as we have of Tia, however, Cacao is so difficult to photograph due to her colours. Unless she's up against a very light background, she just blends into her surroundings. For every photo on this page, there's at least 7 others, none of which have turned out. She's very attention seeking at the moment with us humans, and she's also spending a lot of time curled up with the others in the house although she doesn't have any preference at the moment. Whereas before, she would only curl up with Tia, now she is happy to sleep with any of them. She moves around a lot more than Tia has been although, fortunately, she no longer tears through the house chasing the others. She also has a tendency now to just look up at us and talk or cry to get our attention. If we happen to be using the bathroom, all we ever hear is Cacao on the other side of the door making little crying noises because we didn't take her in with us!

We are now thrilled to announce that Cacao is definitely pregnant. She has started to pink up so we are over the moon. It does mean we'll be very busy as both her and Tia's litter will be born within 2 weeks of each other. Cacao has finally started to get back to her normal self. She no longer spends all her time sleeping as she did when she came back from stud. She plays "chase" with Amaretto again and is rather active. Unfortunately, her hormones have kicked in and she's being rather evil at the moment so we're hoping she will settle down a bit. Whereas Tia seems to have accepted her pregnancy state beautifully, Cacao isn't really sure what she thinks about it at all. She looks very well in herself as her coat is glossy and her eyes are very bright. We now have her on kitten food which she seems to enjoy quite a lot, although having said that, Cacao has always liked her meals.

We are happy to say that our darling Cacao has now been mated to a beautiful Havana boy. Hopefully we should have confirmation of her pregnancy by November 17th. As Cacao is a maiden queen, it will not be unusual if she hasn't taken this time round, however, she did all the right things during her honeymoon so we are very pleased. If the mating has been successful, then Cacao's babies will be due approximately December 29. Many thanks to Doreen and Keith Sillis for taking such good care of our girl and ensuring that the matings went smoothly. Thanks also to Donna (Cacao's breeder) of Chinasea Siamese & Orientals for helping me to locate the perfect boy for our girl. I will be expecting some lovely, naughty babies, who will be a mixture of self and tortie Orientals and there shall be more updates on this mating as time goes by.

The couple of days following her return from her honeymoon, Cacao did nothing but scream the place down. I remember getting just 2 hours sleep on the Monday evening when we picked her up. Since her return, Cacao has no interest in any of our other cats except for Tia. Cacao spends all her waking moments grooming Tia and all her sleeping moments curled up with Tia. I'm afraid our poor little Amaretto is feeling rather lonely as she can only rely on our boys for company at the moment.