Albert loves to lie in the sun. There is plenty of space on the couch close to the window, on the floor, on the cat furniture…
But sometimes Albert wants all the 20 sqm of sunny spots for himself! Greedy Albert!
"Bad Miii! Go away from my sun! MY SUN!"
But, Miii is so cute! She deserves all the sunny spots in the world! Albert is still small and silly and has moments when he wants EVERYTHING for himself.
"Look at me! I am so cute!"
"Mom, you are almost as big as grandpa!"
Jossan, Albert and Leroy were resting on their favorite blanket last evening.
Jossan is much smaller than Leroy otherwise, but now her weight went from 2,9kg before the pregnancy to 4,1kg. There is about 10-13 days to go. I think that there may be six kittens this time, but I do not know for sure. Jossan’s weight gain was about the same as before, a bit lower, but that could do with a two days error in the estimated time of arrival.
So exciting! Yesterday I’ve ordered a new kitten house and cushions from Germany, made out of a new high quality material that has no loops so that the claws of small kittens can not get stuck in them, and it is also washable in 60 degrees. http://eng.katzen-deko.de/
I cannot wait for the kittens to arrive!
Jossan, Miii and Albert are resting in the sun. Albert is hardly visible, he fits the background so well.
There is 38 days left until the kittens arrive, if everything goes well. Jossan is going up in weight just fine, 430gr since the start of the pregnancy.
She was clumsy and quite active lately and played and rolled on the floor with the toys, and even fell once (10 days ago) from a shelf, but she still continued going up in weight really well and shows no signs of discomfort at all. We are going for a checkup and an ultrasound exam in 2 days (on Tuesday).
Did you know that in Norway they do not have only Norwegian Forest Cats, they also have beautiful Siamese!
Arwen (NO*Masked Bandits April in Paris)
Arwen (NO*Masked Bandits April in Paris), a beautiful blue point Siamese lady from Norway came to us over the weekend (she was here for about 30 hours) to visit Albert.
Both Albert and Arwen were inexperienced, but two important factors were just right:
1. Arwen is a very brave and at the same time gentle lady that did not let the voyage distress her too much and she did not totally despise the little almost 10 months old white Bebis who seemed to have a huge admiration for her. She was not too crazy about him, but she did not hate him.
"Jag tycker om dig!"..."Jeg liker deg ikke!" (photo by Janne Flusund)
Well, it could have been a better start, some would say. What about love at first site and all? But, for Albert that ‘not really hate’ was more than enough. So we come to the factor #2
2. Albert was very goal-driven since he was a kitten; while his siblings played and dragged toys around just to fall asleep exhausted next to their mommy, Albert killed toys paying a great attention to detail, for a long time, barking and growling at them like a little dog, not a cat; disintegrating them with precision and dedicataton you thought only Dexter had. He had the same approach with Arwen. Precision and dedication. Only, now it was about attraction, not killing.
Albert: "Precision and dedication"
Albert rolled like a girl, talked, sang, circled around the tough blue beauty, tried everything. She hissed a bit at him, showed a paw, ignored him, tried to stare him to death, but he just continued to sing… 6 hours later there was a familiar sound from their room you cannot mistake for anything else. An event!
Albert and Arwen continued dating during the night and the next day, completely exhausted towards the Sunday evening. Arwen and her matte had to fly back to Oslo, but it seemed that the love birds had the job done, so to say. Albert was so tired when Arwen left, he just lied on the couch and slept and slept… He played a bit with us this morning before we went to work and greeted us and played when we came home, but now he is sleeping again. He is back to being just a kitten, our all crazy 1st class stud of a great determination and not so bad skill (apparently). But now all he cares about is his toys and to cuddle with us. “Girls” - what is that? Give me my rats! Our little white guy is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde impersonated in a cat.
It's been a hard day's night...
We keep our fingers crossed that Arwen stayed pregnant and that there will be some nice tempered beautiful Norwegian-Swedish Aceso Siamese in the near future! Arwen’s matte has a blogg here and her cattery name is Aceso. Also, check out this vidio of Arwen taken by her matte. Arwen is one smart cat!
Albert introduced a new thing to his repertoire recently.
We noticed that his rat toys (that in fact are IKEA children toys) were sometimes all wet when we would come back from job. Weird, we thought. Sometimes they were wet AND covered in sand from the litter box. Yuck! Jocke joked that Albert must be drowning the rats, then buries them.
The victims; Albert's all time high - three soaking wet rats in a day
One day I found the huge rat toy on the edge of one of the water bowls. “Was he too big to be drowned?”, we joked with the little white killer.
Too big to be drowned
And then today I caught him in flagrante! Albert IS indeed drowning the rats!!!
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Our cats love to participate in everything we do.
Usually they are pretty careful and just look at us doing things, being supportive, but sometimes they cannot resist the urge to get involved. They are so helpful, it is in their nature! Here is Albert, helping me with the curtains…
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We lived in an apartment earlier, which we arranged in a bit sterile, modern style, but this house requires different style and it takes some time to live in it and feel what suites the interior. It is fun to arrange things, and all the help makes it so much easier… hm. Or, does it? Well, this is how that window turned out, not so bad we think.
Last week we won the 1:st prize on Siameslinjens (our cat club) photo competition for our ‘Birdwatching’ picture! 42 photos were sent in, some of them very nice. I was so happy! It is one of those pictures I had to take very fast, in order to seize the moment when the cats were sitting so nicely in the window, equidistant, like little ornaments shaped as cats.
I had the light in the background, could not use the flash, did not have much time to focus, but it was a nice situation and a not so bad composition. The judge’s motivation for awarding the 1:st prize to this photo was “för sin utpräglade vardagssurrealism” (“for its striking surrealism of everyday life”).
We are very happy! 
Well, no. Last Friday, in our cat group was more like – Leroy takes it all.
This picture of Miii and Albert posing in front of the Christmas tree won the 3rd prize (shared) on the Siames i Fokus Christmas 2010 competition and our prize arrived in the mailbox two days ago! Three yummy furry mice toys! (Thank you Nilla!)
Albert apparently thought that he and Miii were the ones who deserved the prize the most, since they posed for the picture, and went eagerly for the mice, but Leroy thought that such an opinion was ridiculous. He tossed two of the mice under the sofa immediately and then started playing with the third one. Alone!
 Oh, that is a yummy mouse! |
 Albert, you may watch while I am playing with the mouse. |
 Look, the mouse is flying! I am flying! |
 Someone help!!! Grandpa Leroy is a big bully! Muaaaaaaa |
We are arranging one of the rooms as ‘the kitty room’, where we keep their furniture, clean towels, beds, some of our books etc.
In the future this is where we will have the kittens when they are small. Right now the litter boxes are also there, but we will place them in the cellar later.
We kept the wallpaper on one wall (put by the previous house owners). This was one of their children rooms, and there are butterflies on the wallpaper. We thought it looks cute in the kitty room.
We also bought a curtain with butterflies as well and yesterday we put that up. Ribbons were highly appreciated!
(För er som bor i Sverige – vi köpte gardinen här: hissgardin Audrey . Jag tror att det finns tyg och gardinlängder med samma mönster).
Albert and his siblings turned 8 months yesterday. They all are big and healthy and loved.
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Here is Albert, enjoying the new curtain!
We took Albert to an animal hospital today. Not our usual one, but to the one with a special equipment; we had to test Albert’s hearing. He is white, and all cats that have dominant white pigment, must not be deaf if they will be used in breeding.
White Siamese are different than other all-white cats; they are not deaf more often than non-white cats (that is – if parents are not carriers of red pigment). If you want to know more about white Siamese (Foreign Whites), you can read an interesting article here. Another interesting and informative post about Foreign Whites, in Swedish, can be found here.
We know that Albert is not deaf, but the test had to be done anyway.
Poor Albert, we had to let the veterinary sedate him and put all these needles it the little one to examine the response in his brain to the sound waves. Look at our poor kitten, he is sleeping. His eyes are not completely closed, and they put him special eye-drops to keep them moist since he cannot blink while sedated.
All these needles and drugs... Not fun! You know that I am not deaf, I only have selective hearing!
I did not walk all over Jocke's orchids because I did not hear his 'NO'. I just could not resist admiring them!
Well, his hearing IS excellent, even the machine said so, and now we have all the pappers if we are going to use him for breeding. He is our little furry baby, and he will not be stud for a long time (cats, especially male, are much happier and more relaxed when neutered. They think only about cuddling and playing, not about girls, girls, girls… maumaumau). But, it would be good for awfully slim numbers of white Siamese in Scandinavia if he had some white (or masked) offspring that could also contribute further to the Siamese and FW gene pool in Sweden.
BTW, there is no difference between masked offsprings of white Siamese and other masked siamese with ‘ordinary’ (non-white) Siamese parents. The white gene is dominant (if a cat is white, it can pass the white gene further, if it is not white, it cannot be a dominant white gene carrier and pass it further on its offspring).
Albert, almost 8 months old, is examined and healthy, and his hearing is fine (we have never had any doubts about that ). If an owner of a non-red color carrier Siamese lady is interested in meeting Albert in winter/spring 2011, you may mail us at info [at) lavoixcats.se so we can talk about it. We live in Stockholm, Sweden.
It is that time of the year when a beautiful flower called amaryllis blossoms. Amaryllis is not a flower that cats should chew on, since it can cause vomiting, diarrhea, depression, lack of appetite and other kind of nasty symptoms.
Although cats are not all crazy to chew on the things that are poisonous for them, our Albert is still very young and likes to chew on whatever. So, we lifted amaryllis high on the book shelf where it’s supposed to live until Jelena’s mother takes it with her (Jelena’s parents are visiting and her mom, a dog person who never owned a cat, only dogs, bought an amaryllis plant).
Albert saw the flower and of course it looked yummy and the little long cat tried to reach it:
 Look, there is something up there. I want it! |
 If I stretch just a little bit more... |
Oh, no, I am falling!
This is Albert’s first Christmas and he is delighted with all the ornaments! He likes to drag and carry them around, and chew on the branches.
I’ve tried real tree, plastic tree, hoping he will leave something alone, but, nope – he likes it all, nothing is safe and everything is tasty.
Every morning the poor Christmas tree is disintegrated and the ornaments lie all over the living room.
The worst was when he just discovered the beauty of everything that goes with Christmas. Now, two weeks later, Albert is a bit less creative with his constant rearrangements of our living space, but still not uncreative enough, to put it that way…
I am helping!
 Tasty! |
 How do you mean - I can't eat that? |
 Yes, I can! |
 Why are you here? That is mine! |
 You too! Go away! Mine! |
Crowded? No! There is always enough space to fit me! And - more glitter!
Here is a picture of the little towel-killer, Jocke is petting him. On Tuesday he and his siblings are turning 6 months!
We live with three generations of famous towel-killers.
“Mauuu mau mauuuu”, the first we hear the rebel yell from the bathroom, and then we find Albert proudly standing on the towel he wrestled down and killed for good.
Remember these two pictures (taken 2,5 and 1,5 years ago; Leroy and then Leroy and Jossan)? Well, now their little grandchild/child does the same.
Okay, here is the rest of the pretty cat Albert, lying in the sun two days ago.
Those sunny days are gone now; it is very cold and snowy in Sweden, no traces of sunshine during the day, it is dark and windy. But in our house it is warm and cosy!
A few days ago Albert’s little jaw looked like this:
Now it looks like this (notice, the milk teeth are gone and the new permanent ones are coming out nicely!)
Albert is a bit over 5 months old and right now he has both milk teeth that did not fall out yet and the bright big permanent ones coming out. Look at our little shark!
His sister Ada started losing her milk teeth recently, but our little boy is in a bit of discomfort, nothing is coming out yet, everything just doubles. He started chewing on and biting his toys a bit harder and more often.
Just like us, cats develop both milk teeth, and adult teeth. A kitten’s baby teeth start to appear when it’s about three-four weeks old, and ready to chew soft foods. When the process is complete, the kitten has twenty-six tiny, sharp teeth.
Between 4-9 months of age, a kitten’s baby teeth begin to fall out, as new stronger permanent teeth push them out and replace them. Teething can be painful, and the kitten’s gums may be red and sore for a while.
A close up:
By the time it’s eight or nine months old, that young cat will be a proud owner of thirty bright, sharp adult teeth. Sometimes if the old milk teeth did not fall out yet and the kitten has sore gums it is a good idea to have the veterinary pull the milk teeth out and make the whole teething process easier.
The moving company truck is coming in 8 hours. We still have so much to pack and also, we have to disassemble some pretty big pieces of furniture. We have 2 more weeks to move, but then we have to do it ourselves, by car. We are trying to pack as much as we can now.
The cats are helping, of course!
Miii is checking if everything is closed properly.
‘You are not leaving without me!’
Leroy is tired, he has been helping us all day. Albert and Jossan are taking a nap as well:
I am tired and just now I wish I were one of my cats…
Back to packing!
After every box we pack we have to make sure that no cat somehow jumped in and tried to hide. Cats like boxes. Albert is smaller and a bit hard to notice. Here, we documented how at one occasion Jossan helped us find him and, also, tried to pull him out of the box he managed to break into!
“I see you!” (Jossan managed to locate Albert)
“Mau mau mauuu” (“Get out!”)
“Mrauauauauuauuu” (“I am getting him out! Look, matte!”)
And then I took Albert out of the box which we closed again and put under another box that he cannot break into (or so we believe…).
Albert is 20 weeks old now and loves to fetch.
Our apartment is a mess, because we started to pack recently. We are moving next week. It will be so good to live in a house!
It is getting cold in Stockholm and we lighted a fire for the first time this autumn last week. Albert never saw a fire before and he was completely hypnotized by the view. And – the warmth! The sounds!
Later when the fireplace cooled down he jumped over the protection and put his head into the chimney. He looks like panda now. I managed to clean his body, but not around the eyes.
But this is how it looked when there was fire!
Last week we tested Leroy’s blood values, urea and creatinine, and everything was fine. We checked him once earlier, before he was paired with Hannah. We also tested Josssan before she was paired. I thought to test the cats every few years, because one can detect problems with kidneys well before the symptoms show. If the issues are detected early, a change in cat’s diet can prevent illness and a possible kidney failure. Siamese are not more predisposed to urinary tract diseases than the other cat races are, but I feel that if there is something one can do so that they can live long and healthy lives, I want to do it. And that includes occasional tests.
Albert weighs 1870 gr today. I am very glad we kept him, he is so loving and sweet. Also, Siamese who love groups can be two and two now. Still, most of the time they spend all together. When they sleep it can be a bit different. Maven, Miii and Leroy can sleep close to each other. And Jossan and Albert somewhere else, curled together. Still, most of the time all are in bed with us, and one or both of us humans often wakes up freezing, since the blanket is gone, and the little thieves are lying all curled up in the stolen goods.
Albert is very curious, and in temper he is both active and serene. Very secure kitten. He likes to sit and watch how we work (we are moving to a house soon, and are very busy with everything that goes with it). Here is a picture of him I took two days ago:
White kitten + fireplace = …
Ooooh, Albert, it took us half an hour to clean you.
