I hope that you had a good weekend! It looks like I accidentally took an extra day off, though. I will try to remember which days humans take off. Sometimes it's aweful hard for a busy Mom to keep track.

My weekend turned out pretty great! First, I got to meet my newly-retired Grandma on Saturday! That was neat!

And then! On Sunday, Mom built me a huge cage with her bare hands! In fact, she still complains that her hands hurt and she is all scratched up from fighting the 1/2-inch wire mesh, but - Teehee - she had to do something! You see, on Saturday Mom had spent most of the day with my Grandma, so I didn't get to see Mom or Dad very much. And I've told you before what it's like being stuck with nine young babes. Sometimes a Mom just needs a break!

So! After Mom and Dad went to bed, I chewed a hole in the top of my screen that Mom had carefully glued to a frame specially fit to cover 10-gallon aquariums. Dad caught me, though. Drats. A note to you other Ratties out there, don't run over your humans while they are sleeping! They wake up!

So! Let me give you a grand tour of my new, beautiful cage!

This is it! The plastic bin helps keep the CareFRESH cage litter in my cage so I don't make a huge mess of Mom's house. Plus, that is also what I walk on (there is no wire on the floor). Wire on the bottoms of Ratty cages is a bad thing, it makes us have "Bumblefoot." The babes are in that rather large box that I am sitting on. Above me is my hammock, and the ladder that I'm looking at goes to a little shelf.

The best part about wire cages is that us Rats like to climb! Here I am climbing up to my hammock. I don't actually use my hammock yet, though. Daddy was standing back there, and I really like him a lot... so I wanted to get as close as I could to see what he was doing.

In case you ever come over to visit, this is how you use the ladder. My soon-to-be cagemate, Ash, never uses the ladder. She just climbs all over anywhere she wants to go! How unlady-like! Mom said she is glad my babes will be learning how to be a Rat in a cage like this, so they will be familiar with climbing. I never really took to climbing, since I was in an aquarium in the pet shop - and then here at home - basically my whole life. Until now!

Well! That's about it for my cage - for now, at least! Mom wants to get into a pet store and get me some ropes to climb and other things, like bird bathing dishes for larger birds. Filled with some CareFRESH, they'd make great little nest-pockets on the sides of the cage. And even if I never use them, she wants the babes to be accustomed to them.

My goodness! Five pictures already, and I haven't even gotten to the babes' new pictures yet! I hope this makes up for the long weekend!

Here's what you've been waiting for! New Pictures of the babes!

As you can see, they have started getting in their fur - they are covered with the very softest of peach fuz - and their little ears have become independent of their heads. See the little white one on the far left? His ear is now a distinctively different part of his head, visible by the contrast of his dark-colored sibling.

Here's Daddy holding a couple of the little loves in his hand. They have grown to the width of a human's finger. Their eye slits have developed. They're starting to do little Ratty things, such as: Scratch themselves (or try to), wash their faces (or try to), and walk (or try to). Mom and Dad were just amazed when they saw the babes attempting these otherwise adult-Ratty activities.

Another view of the sweethearts in Daddy's palm. From this angle, you can see the sheen of the fur on the little white babe. Daddy didn't want to let go of this one... he held the babe and petted and gave kisses before he would return him back to the box in which Mom had placed them all (so they wouldn't scramble off any edge and fall!)

Whew! Talk about playing catch-up! I will see you tomorrow, I have some hungry babies to feed!

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