It's been a really tough week for Sambuca in the respect that we've been waiting for Tia to give birth and the Herbs were vaccinated which meant a lot of room changing for the kittens etc. and most of my time during the last week was spent alternating between our bedroom where Tia Maria was and making sure the Herbs still received plenty of love and attention. This meant that poor Sambuca got very little attention, certainly not as much as she should have done considering this is her first pregnancy. She has now become extremely demanding and is rather funny with Graham because every time he tries to eat breakfast or lunch at his desk, Sami is over there like a shot, just patiently sitting and waiting because she knows that dad will always leave some of his food for her when he's finished. I'm amazed that she isn't the size of a horse with everything she is being fed at the moment! I now have to keep Sambuca away from the Herbs because they are all feeding from her! Her milk has obviously come through and she can't be feeding anyone. She was very upset about being separated from them and did an awful lot of crying and I really do feel sorry for her. I did tell her to just hang in there because very soon, she'll have babies all of her own to mother. I do hope that this next week passes very quickly for her. If all goes well we are hoping to move Sambuca and her babies into the kitten room with Tia Maria and her babies and both litters can be raised together which is always really nice. There will be approximately 7-8 days difference between the 2 litters which isn't a great deal at all :)

I really do not know how Sambuca has managed to remain pregnant with the antics that she and Drambuie have been up to! Of an evening lately we've had to put Drambuie in the kitten room (for those of you who don't know, Drambuie is Sambuca's sister) and as Buie was in there, we had to put Sami with her as both girls are inseparable and love each other to bits. The reason for putting Buie in there in the first place is that she destroys the house of a night because she has too much time on her paws and needs to be mated to darn well give her some maturity. For the last few weeks this arrangement has been fine however when I went into the kitten room first thing one morning to let the girls out, I was shocked at the devastation in there. At some point during the night, and I don't know how we slept through it, the girls had knocked down an entire shelf and all of it's contents. It's a very high shelf and I couldn't believe the mess. My first thought at the time though was for poor Sambuca because if the shelf had fallen on her, the harm could be been horrific to her and the babies. I am presuming that both girls managed to get out of the way as they were both perfectly fine. After that though, Sami has not been back in the kitten room. Drambuie is in there on her own of an evening whilst Sambuca is downstairs because we really can't take any risks with Sami at all. Apart from that one incident, everything has been fairly normal with Sami. She's spending a lot of her day times outside in the cat run and I think she's really enjoying the sunshine we've had lately. I've noticed that the bond between Sami and her mum, Cacao, has also grown even stronger than it was previously which I didn't think was possible. At a rough guess, Sambuca has been moaning to her mum about the changes going on in her body and Cacao has been reassuring her and explaining all about the birds and the bees :) Her appetite is still quite large and she's eating kitten biscuits like there's no tomorrow and it's starting to show. Sami has also started to sleep a bit more during the day now however when she is awake, she is still as active as ever.

Poor Sambuca is starting to gain quite a bit of weight now and she eats non stop. She is very calm and relaxed though which is wonderful. She truly is her mother's daughter :) At this point in time, Sambuca thinks she is a kitten again and spends a lot of time playing with the Herb's and with their toys. She is also eating all of the left over kitten food! Each time I feed the Herbs, I now have to put Sambuca out of the room because she sticks her head in their plate, pushes them out of the way and just eats! Unfortunately, the photos aren't wonderful due a problem with the digital camera which I won't go into as it's a long story. I really can't believe how very clingy she is at the moment. She wants to be with me non stop and is constantly sitting/sleeping on my lap. If I walk around the house, she will follow me wherever I go. Her size isn't stopping her doing all the normal daily activities as she still jumps around and plays like normal and she also spends some time in the cat run every single day. It's actually very difficult to think of anything new to tell you all really. Mainly because there aren't that many changes from week to week.

Sambuca is accepting her pregnant state extremely well which does surprise me a little. This is obviously her own mother's instincts coming out in her. For a few days during the last week she was constantly coming up to me for cuddles or to sleep on my lap when normally she prefers to sleep with her sister, Drambuie, and she's was very clingy. This however didn't last long and she's then went back to the extremes where she doesn't want anyone in the house to touch her at all! She wouldn't sit on anyone's lap for cuddles, and she preferred her sister again to us. Then a few days later, she changed again and was all over me like a rash. Her appetite has increased only very slightly and her abdomen is now starting to get just that little bit larger and to us, it's very obvious that she is pregnant. I think she will look rather funny when she's about 8 weeks pregnant because Sambuca has the typical, svelte, Oriental figure and for the life of me, I can't imagine her with a huge stomach. The poor girl had a little morning sickness during the last week which is not uncommon at all as most of our girls get this but fortunately it seems to be over now thank goodness. She still doesn't like our Herbs at all, although she does appear to be fascinated by them because whenever she is downstairs she spends a lot of time in the back room in the same vicinity as them. Let's just hope that she treats her own babies a lot better than she does our current babies :)

Well this one was rather a shock to the system as we really didn't have any plans to mate Sambuca until her show career was over, however it wasn't to be. I got a bit of a surprise when I was looking at her to discover some bright pink nipples. It did cross my mind that perhaps they changed because she was due to come into call and her nipples are slightly different if she's calling, however the bottom two nipples are incredibly bright pink. During the last 2 days in January, we did have Ice in the house as we were doing a few things to the stud house and as that's the only time he's been near Sami, we were lucky enough to be able to pinpoint when the mating must have taken place. During the 2 days he was inside, he was with Sambuca and Drambuie, neither of whom were calling at the time, but obviously we were wrong. Although when Ice went back out into the stud house, Sami did start calling however the call didn't last particularly long. In the last couple of days, Sami has become much more affectionate. Normally, she can be aloof at times as she things she's too good for everyone else yet lately she's been coming up to me for cuddles and chats which is really lovely. As this is Sami's first mating, we will be monitoring her quite closely but hopefully all will be well. Her mum, Cacao, was the best breeding girl we've had and we are hoping that Sambuca (and Drambuie) will take after their mum in this respect. We are hoping that in this litter she will produce some lovely Oriental Blacks and Blues who look similar to mum. If everything goes according to plan, this litter will be due approximately April 4, 2005

Footnote: It was brought to my attention by my friend Kim, just how special this litter will be as this will be our first Schimmel bred litter from a Schimmel bred queen. For some reason, this didn't occur to me until Kim mentioned it.