It's Pretty Exciting

Lena asked me a little bit ago what I was planning to blog about tonight, and I said, "oh, just eggs . . . nothing exciting." And she responded, "it actually is pretty exciting." And, I must admit, that she's kind of right.

Our chickens, the six 1-year-old hens who I found on Craigslist and picked up two weeks ago tomorrow, have finally, really, started laying eggs. Knowing nothing about how picky chickens can be, we expected to find eggs the morning after setting the girls up in their fancy new coop. The kids checked all day long, but found nothing. Same story on day 3, and day 4. On day 5, I began to feel a bit annoyed and did a little research to see what might be going on. It was then that I learned that any change in environment or status (i.e. the pecking order) can stress the hens out and cause them to quit laying for "some time." Some chicken experts cautioned that it could be weeks before we'd see any eggs, and some went even further and suggested that we could have actually stressed the chickens out so much that they would up and decide to moult a whole 6 months early (moulting is when the chickens gradually lose all of their feathers and grow new ones. They usually stop laying while this is happening, and the process can take a few months, but generally coincides with late fall/winter when the hens wouldn't be laying much anyway). That would have been a major bummer.

But, on day 9, we received a message of hope from our small flock: a single egg in the nest box, which the kids couldn't keep themselves from checking despite the improbability of finding anything. On day 10, we got two eggs, and we've gotten THREE eggs a day ever since then (I'm hoping that we'll get up to 4 or 5 a day pretty soon). We are suddenly rich in eggs, and it is pretty exciting.

Fresh Eggs!

Zeben showing off his crazy egg collecting skills:
two eggs in one hand!

Our chickens aren't the only birds in the yard laying eggs these days. In fact we're witness to a bustle of all sorts of bird activity. The other day we discovered this Robin's nest in one of the small trees in my mom's yard:

Why are Robin's eggs so very blue?

We are suddenly living in a land that is increasingly bursting with new life. It's the most exciting time of year, as far as I'm concerned. And I couldn't be happier about it.

All About Ezra

Over the past two weeks, I have had the pleasure of falling more and more in love with my sweet, sweet nephew, Ezra Star. Though I've known about his existence since the time when he was just a tiny zygote, I had no real concept of who he was before he arrived here two Wednesdays ago. My sister and I have been frequent phone talkers for several years (a habit that we're trying to break, now that we live 60 feet apart), and often when I'd hear Ezra babbling in the background during our conversations, my first thought would be, "oh right! My sister has a baby!" It just didn't feel real before I got to meet him face-to-face.

The fact that I get to go next door and love him up several times a day, every day, is like a million dreams come true. The only bummer is going over there for some Ezra loving only to find out that he's napping. But when he's awake, I'm usually greeted with the biggest, drooliest, gummy smile. Ezra takes my face in his soft, gentle hands, and gives the sweetest kisses. He truly is the happiest, most peaceful baby I've ever met.

On Sunday Ezra turned six months old, and I did a little photo shoot of him showing off his new sitting skills in the grass.

with his mama

with his big sister

with his cousin
(this picture makes me laugh because it shows how huge Ezra is)

I was hoping to go all out and infiltrate my sister's family with our half-birthday celebrating tradition, but I didn't get a chance to make gluten-free, casein-free (Ezra is allergic to gluten and casein, and even though he is still exclusively breastfed, these proteins can make their way into my sister's milk if she eats foods containing gluten or casein) cupcakes in honor of Ezra's first six months of life. I did, however, whip him up a little gift of a pear t-shirt (in size 12 months) in his best colors (blue to match his eyes, and orange to match his hair). And because you can't hold him without getting drooled on, a juicy pear seemed a fitting image.

Happy Half-Birthday, Ezra!
You add so much sweetness to my day. I love you.

Bed Lift

On Saturday, because it was so tremendously hot out, and because our bedroom is essentially in the attic, and because we only have ONE regular-sized window on the entire second floor of our house, Lena and I decided that it would be a great idea to give our bedroom a bit of a makeover. You know, so that we could be as sweaty and over-heated as possible. The main beneficiary of our sticky efforts was our family bed, which was scheduled for a pre-baby bed-lift.

As Lena gets increasingly pregnant, getting up off of our floor-level bed was becoming increasingly difficult (this is a difficulty that I am rather familiar with myself, since I continued to heave my pregnant-with-nearly-15-pounds-of-baby body up off of the floor several times a night until Luke and Jaz were born). And looking ahead to the birth and the post-partum period, we realized that having the bed up off of the floor might actually be a great idea (in case Lena chooses to labor on/around the bed, and for safety reasons once the baby is here).

We own two bed frames, one is full-sized and has a head board and everything. This is the bed that we bought just before we began TTC the first time. Even though we knew we wanted to cosleep with our future baby, Lena insisted that a full-sized bed was big enough. She worried that a bigger bed would result in less spooning. Ha! By the time I was 3 months pregnant with the twins (a mere four months after we bought our double bed), we were ready for our king-sized mattress since all of my extra pillows required more space. We put the seemingly enormous new mattress directly on the floor since we couldn't afford to buy another bed frame, and the full-size mattress and frame went into the basement (until we lent it to our dear friends, Katie and Aaron, who then went on to conceive their twins in the very same--"cursed," according to Aaron--bed). It wasn't until Luke and Jaz were 18 months old that we sprung for a simple king-sized frame and moved our bed off of the floor (where it remained until Zeben started rolling).

The floor is a great place for a Family Bed, namely because there's no worry about anyone falling off of it. Another benefit is that you can fill your entire room with wall-to-wall bed and eliminate any cracks between the mattresses, as we have done.

What the bed looked like before Saturday

The only down-side to this set-up (aside from being difficult to get out of if your pregnant) is that it's hard to separate off an area for a newborn baby to sleep safely in. Lena and I are not particularly concerned about the safety of co-sleeping (indeed we believe that it is quite safe), but the idea of our 3 rambunctious older children sharing bed space with a vulnerable newborn doesn't sound like the best plan. When Zeben was born, we had our king and full-sized mattresses up on frames right next to each other, and I slept on the smaller bed with the baby while Lena slept on the big bed with Luke and Jaz. And this is the exact same set-up that we're planning to use with baby Leo. Lena and the baby will sleep on the full-sized bed, and I will sleep with Zeben and Jaz (and occassionally Lukas, who mostly sleeps through the night in his own bed these days) on the king-sized bed. We will put up a barrier between the two beds. After a few months, once Leo starts to roll, we'll go back to our old room-full-of-bed set-up and take the barrier down. But for now, this is what our Family Bed looks like (unmade and everything, very true to life):


We're not completely thrilled with it; the crack between the two beds is unfortunate (especially since I end up there frequently), and there's some concern over the location of the window (especially since we might not last the summer without an air conditioner this year). We've decided to give it a week and then re-evalute if we think this is the ideal nest for our new babe. But if we decide to change things up again, we definitely won't pick a 90° day to do it. Ever again.

A Taste

For the past few days, we here in New England have been getting a taste of Summer. It's been 90° and sunny, and perhaps not as humid as it will actually be in actual summer, but without any leaves on the trees to shade us, it has felt plenty hot enough. The kids spent a good percentage of the weekend running through the sprinkler, and we all got a bit sunburned (despite sunblock and sun-proof clothing). We also managed to plant some of the raised beds that my mom put in last year (but went unused aside from a volunteer patch of pumpkins, and some zinnias), with lettuce and broccoli, brussels sprouts, and peas.

If there's anything I find more appealing than a pregnant woman,
it's a pregnant woman in carhartt overalls. Swoon.

gardening at 31 weeks

The chickens finally laid their first egg (though if 6 "laying" hens + 9 days = 1 egg, I am not sure this is something to really celebrate . . . (apparently the stress of a move can cause an egg strike, and indeed that seems to be what's happening)), and Luke, Jaz and Araela have now named them all (Charlie the Rooster, Snowflake, Vulture, Adeline, Stripey, Bikey and Pipey). Catching and holding the hens is a favorite activity (which I find somewhat surprising given that I myself have zero interest in cuddling up with a chicken). We are getting eight baby chicks in a couple of weeks, and then six 4-month-old pullets (about to start laying) a week after the chicks arrive. It is going to be chicken central here soon.

Jaz holding "Stripey"
(or is it "Bikey?" or perhaps "Pipey?")

The goats are now allowed out of their enclosure when we're in the yard, and don't seem to stray far from us. They are incredibly sweet. No signs of impending labor yet, but it could be sometime in the next week or so for Chive.

We leave leashes on the goats just in case we have to catch them quickly.

The cousins continue to fall more and more in love. Not that they don't still have the occasional squabble, of course. Zeben and Araela are the closest in age (there are 25 months between the twins and Araela, 20 months between Araela and Zeben, and 25 months between Zeben and Ezra), and witnessing them trying to negotiate through conflicts can be absolutely hilarious (one of Araela's favorite words). Zeben is, understandably, infatuated with his older cousin, while Araela is, understandably, frequently frustrated with Zeben's lack of communication skills. He has a habit of claiming nearly everything as "mine," and Araela finds this infuriating, especially when he's referring to something that's actually hers. Yesterday they were struggling over one of Araela's baby dolls (the boy doll who we sent her after Zeb was born, and who she named "Zeben"), and while Zeb did eventually hand it over, he did so only with the stipulation, "you can borrow it as long as you're not mean about it." And Araela was like, "but it's MINE!" Jes and I had a good laugh while our children stood beside us in tears.

Tired kids on the way to the grocery store . . .
I think these two look like they could be siblings
(which is surprising since my sister and I look nothing alike).

Even though Summer is not my favorite season, I am tolerating our mini-heat wave quite well. That said, I am thrilled to hear that Spring is expected to return later this week, with leaves on the trees and blossoming flowers and everything. And I am planning to hop back on my blogging bandwagon (somehow I got bounced off during the boys' mini-vacation last week) with a post a day for the rest of this week. So, stay tuned . . .

"I Can Hear Him Kicking"

30 weeks

"I can hear him kicking," Zeb said this evening, as we lay around on the couch waiting for dinner to burn itself on the neglected grill.

"What does it sound like?" I asked.

"Sounds like Leelo. My baby brother."

Very Full

sleeping on the couch

A month ago, before we decided to move forward with the "let's have a farm NOW!" plan, and before we brought home the goats and chickens, and before my sister and her adorable children moved in next door, I would say that our life definitely felt full. And now, now that we are living the new life with the farm animals and the extended family and all of the things that already made our life feel full, I would say that our life feels very full. It's a good kind of feeling. This very full life. There's no room for anything beyond living in the moment, attending to current needs and thinking only an hour or two ahead into the future.

The transition has been smooth, but not without consequence. Zeben is napping again. Farm boy is all tuckered out after spending every morning in the fresh air. And I am back to drinking coffee, after successfully quitting a couple of months ago. And of course there is less time for some things. Like computers and bathtubs and vacuums. But it all feels just fine.

The kids are doing wonderfully with the change, and I find myself dreading having to send them back to school tomorrow, after a lovely weekend at home. I love the flow of our days together, now that they're focused around caring for the animals and working on the land. Today Jaz stacked a cord of wood and Luke spent the same amount of time making a house for a wooly bear caterpillar he found, and both jobs seemed equally important and fulfilling to each boy. The idea of homeschooling becomes more and more appealing as our life continues to fill.

teaching the goats to walk on leads

herding the free-ranging chickens

checking for eggs

telling the goats sweet nothings

making the baby laugh

getting another load of wood

demonstrating goat brushing technique

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, and as much as I have been thoroughly enjoying the sun of the last few days (with new freckles to prove it!), I am a bit relieved to have an excuse for an inside day. Maybe I'll restore our house to a somewhat livable state once again, and maybe I'll make something that takes more than 15 minutes of preparation for dinner, and maybe I'll finally start working on the quilt for baby Leo. In between checking the chicken coop for eggs, visiting with Chive and Petah, and holding my sweet nephew, of course.

New Neighbors

Last night I drove to the airport to pick up my older sister, Jes, and her two kids, Araela and Ezra, who had flown in from Oregon. But, even though it felt just like it did the last time I went to pick them up at the airport (with the addition of the fact that I was meeting Ezra for the first time ever!), it's actually a very different story this time. My brother-in-law, Chris, wasn't at the airport because he's driving across the country in a U-Haul with all of my sister's family's belongings. This time, they're not just coming for a visit; they're moving here!

The difficult economy forced my sister's family to make a pretty drastic life change--a change that they likely wouldn't have chosen otherwise, because they left behind an amazing community in Oregon--and move in with my mom for the next year. The same mom who lives next door to us! Which means that my sister and her kids (and soon her husband, too) are our new neighbors!

I must admit that I'm rather thrilled about the whole thing, even though I do wish that Jes and Chris hadn't been forced to say good-bye to so many of their beloved friends. I know that it would be incredibly difficult for me to leave our community behind, and while I'm sure that Jes and Chris will be able to find a new community here, I do feel for them. Even as I'm jumping up and down for joy.

After not seeing each other for 9 months,
it took all of 10 seconds for Jaz and Araela to reconnect.

The best part of the whole deal is that the kids are long-distance cousins no longer! It is so wonderful to see them playing together and enjoying each other so thoroughly. Araela (who recently turned four, despite the fact that she's the same size as my six-year-olds) is a big time animal lover, and she is definitely going to be my righthand goatwoman. Ezra is perhaps the smiliest baby I've ever met (and definitely the biggest!), and I'm so glad that I'm not going to miss out on his babyhood. Instead I get to love him up every day!

Araela loving on Chive and Petah

Today I took Araela along on the bike when I went to do the school pick-up, and Bakfietsy Rose truly became a "bicycle built for five" for the first time. It worked great! I honestly didn't even notice the extra 45 lbs. What fun! I normally do get a fair amount of attention while biking the kids through downtown, but the four kids on board definitely increased that. Jes and Chris are both planning to set up their longtail bikes to accomodate two kids, and I can't wait to have some biking company.

Rice cakes for all!

It seems we're starting a bit of a family compound farm here. Tomorrow, we get chickens! And Uncle Chris has big plans for a HUGE vegetable garden. All that's missing is my little sister, Fiona, and her husband Jon . . . Come on guys, join the fun!

Twinspiration

Yesterday we journeyed what felt like a great distance (but was really only 100 miles or so) to join in the celebration of our sweet nephew (and cousin), Tucker, on his first birthday. As we drove, with all three kids happily restrained and watching a movie on the dvd player in the third row, Lena and I marveled over all that has transpired in the year since Tucker's birth. I remember feeling so excited for Lena to finally get to witness a normal and natural childbirth by supporting her twin sister through labor (in a way that she had never been able to support me since I had two scheduled c-sections). And I hoped that maybe, just maybe, the experience would inspire her to have a change of heart in regards to her feelings about her own reproductive abilities.

When Lena arrived home after the birth, high on adrenaline and bursting with life energy, I made her tell me every little detail about the labor and the birth and tiny baby Tucker and the new mama, Addie. And then, I asked her, carefully, "so, now do you want to have a baby? Now that you've seen how amazing it can be?" And without hesitating, Lena responded that no, she most certainly did not EVER want to have to go through what her amazing sister had just gone through. She hadn't wanted to get pregnant before, and she definitely didn't want to get pregnant now. Feeling somewhat defeated, and a little disappointed, though not entirely surprised, I gave up on the dream of having a pregnant wife and chose to focus my attention on thinking about our brand new nephew.

a green peas first birthday t-shirt for Tucker

It was less than two months later when Lena first mentioned that she might be interested in having a baby after all. And while Lena now insists that there was no conscious connection between her twin sister giving birth and her decision to get pregnant (after years of adamant opposition to the idea), she can't deny that it does seem a bit suspicious. We talked about this on our drive yesterday, since it was just a little bit comical, knowing all that came before, to be traveling to Tucker's first birthday with Lena's bulging belly in tow.

Not being a twin myself, I of course can't really know what it feels like to have a twin sibling. But being the mother of twins, and married to a twin, I do think I have a pretty good idea about how one twin's experiences can influence the other twin. About 10 minutes into our drive yesterday, Lukas shouted out from the back seat, "Mom, Mama! I just lost my tooth!" We'd known that the tooth was loose, but he hadn't been talking about it much at all, so Luke's announcement came as a total surprise (Lena was so startled that she decided--forgetting she was 6 months pregnant--to unbuckle her seat belt and hurriedly clamber to the back of the minivan, as if Lukas had instead just exclaimed that he was about to be sick). I pulled over as soon as I could, and Lena returned to her seat, winded, with the tooth in hand.

My attempt at taking a "lost tooth" picture of Lukas;
he didn't quite get the "smile with your mouth open" instruction.

Luke was calm and happy--maybe a little proud, but not gloating at all. Jasper, however, instantly became a mess. Within 30 seconds of Luke loosing his tooth, Jaz was in tears. It wasn't fair. Never mind that Jasper has had a missing tooth for nearly a year (he had one of his front teeth pulled last summer), he and Lukas are the same age, and they are supposed to loose their teeth at the same time.

I pointed out that they didn't get their teeth at the same time; I told Jaz that he got to be the first one of them, as babies, to grow a tooth, a whole month before Lukas did.

"Well, then that means that I should have been the first one to LOSE a tooth!" Jaz growled in response. "I've had my teeth for longer!"

"It doesn't work like that," I said. "Everyone loses teeth at different times. But everyone gets to lose the same number of teeth in the end."

"But it's just not fair! Everyone's going to be talking about how Lukas lost a tooth and they're going to give him a poem at school, and it's not fair AT ALL!"

While Jasper ranted and raved about the injustice of deciduous teeth, poor Luke just sat there silently. I would have loved to be able to celebrate this milestone with him somehow, but it just didn't seem possible with Jaz being so upset. Instead we had to totally downplay the whole thing in order to survive the remainder of the car ride with Jasper in such a sorry state. Unfortunately, Jasper's foul mood persevered for the rest of the day and, come to think of it, the weekend as a whole. It's so hard to believe that something like the loss of a tooth could upset the balance in Luke and Jaz's twinship so dramatically. After many months of relatively smooth sailing, they fought all day today.

At times like this I can find myself feeling so angry about the fact that Luke and Jaz had to be born as twins. About all that was robbed from them (and us) when they began growing inside me simultaneously. The level of competition between them is so extreme. It must be exhausting for them. It's certainly exhausting for me. But I also know that competition isn't always a bad thing. That for every unbalanced day of struggle, there's another day full of love and support. That sometimes the competition between them can inspire them to be better people.

Tonight a weepy Luke told me, dejectedly, that he's changed his mind and he doesn't want to have kids anymore when he grows up.

"It would be so crazy. There would be too much fighting all the time."

As I pulled him into my lap and helped him process through his rough weekend of sibling rivalry, I wasn't actually thinking about the many conflicts we negotiated our way through in the past two days at all. Instead I was thinking, secretly to myself, "I bet that after Jaz has his first baby, THEN Lukas will decide that he wants to have kids after all."

Our New Life

I think that our family has experienced more than its fair share of "major life changes" in the last 6 years (given that we've lived in five different homes during that time), and at this point we really can take most major changes in stride. Within a couple weeks of each life shift, we fall into the new rhythm, and it starts to feel like things are the way they've always been. Today was an assortment of semi-awkward firsts: first time re-filling the goats' water buckets, first time going to the Farmer's Exchange for grain, first time figuring out how to get 100 pounds of grain from the car to the barn, first time walking the goats around on leads in the pasture, first time trying to drill a screw through hardwood (to hang the hay rack; I didn't know you're supposed to drill a hole first). But I'm sure that by the end of the month, it will feel like we've been doing these kinds of things forever.

Yesterday morning, the first day of our current New Life, started out a bit dicey. Lena had been up in the night with the dreaded stomach bug (I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I am incredibly paranoid about contracting any sickness that involves vomit, and I go way out of my way to avoid this possibility. My paranoia stems from our traumatic introduction to this genre of illnesses, which occurred when we all got Rotavirus in 2004), and I'd been up in the night worrying about how I would manage going to get the goats all by myself. Luckily, Lena woke up feeling much improved, and was still able to go along with me to the goat farm (located about an hour from our house). Unluckily, I woke up feeling rather queasy myself.

We dropped the kids off at school and then swung by a small grocery store for some extra ginger Ginger Beer (my "get out of pukey bug free!" card), which I then proceeded to chain-drink on our way to the farm. I was still feeling pretty yucky at the time of our arrival, but as soon as we walked into the goat barn, and met the 50 (!) Nubian goats living there, I mostly forgot about my nausea. We spoke with the farmer at length and he introduced us to the goats he had previously picked out for us. "Chive" is about 17 months old, and "Petah" is about 11 months old. Both does are pregnant and Chive is due sometime in the next few weeks (around May 1st). The farmer was a little less sure about Petah's due date, it could be anytime from the end of May through to the beginning of July.

Jaz and Chive

We drove the goats home in the back of the minivan, and they did very well indeed. They laid down and were calm and quiet. We made one stop, to pick up Zeben at Nursery School. He was thrilled to find "lambs!" waiting for him in the car. Once the goats started sniffing him (about 5 seconds after I put him in his car seat), Zeb was feeling slightly less enthused. He decided he'd rather, "go in Mama's car!" (we'd left it there at drop-off time in anticipation of this scenario). But then, as soon as I started driving away without him, Zeben changed his mind again (the definition of life with Zeben these days) and decided that he did want to drive with his "lambs" afterall.

"But I don't want them to lick me," he said, as I buckled him into his seat.
"Don't worry, they won't lick you," I assured him, "goats don't really lick."
"Oh. Only dogs lick?"
"Well dogs are certainly the lickiest."
Zeben sighed and pondered this for a minute or so as I started driving. Then he smiled and announced, excitedly, "goats don't have tongues!"
And for the purpose of our drive home, that was a perfectly fine conclusion.

All in all, the drive was quite uneventful, especially considering the alternate scenarios that had been running through my mind (just think about what could happen with two 100+ pound hooved animals unrestrained in your vehicle). One goat did pee in the car, in the one 12" square that was protected by neither tarp nor towel, but a little bac-out took care of that later. Once the goats were happily settled into their new home, I proceeded to start feeling pukey again. I spent the rest of the day alternating between laying around, sipping ginger beer, and getting to know Chive and Petah.

The goat barn, just before sunset on Day 1

This morning, we all woke up feeling perfectly healthy once again (phew!), and Luke and Jaz bounded out of bed at 7:00 a.m. to go check on the goats, leaving the rest of us to lay around, blissfully in the covers and enjoy one of the more peaceful wake-ups of the past several years.

Hello, New Life! I think I love you!

Welcome Goats!

Petah (pronounced Pete-uh) and Chive ("Chai" for short)

We are all Totally Smitten.

The Goat Dream

Being a small-time goat farmer/homesteader has been a life-long dream of mine (and one that Lena has always been excited about as well). I can't explain it beyond saying that I simply enjoy the company of goats. On my sixteenth birthday, my parents gifted me with two baby pygmy goats, and to this day I think that they were probably the best gift I've ever received (which explains why I'm always wishing I could gift my children with live animals on their birthdays). At the time, I was largely living in the city where I grew up, but my parents had recently purchased an old one-room schoolhouse on 11 acres in Vermont, planning to use it as a vacation home. The house came with a small barn, and while my parents originally talked about tearing it down, I eventually badgered them into letting me clean it out (quite a job) and fill it with animals. During the school year, we'd board the animals with friends and neighbors in Vermont and then fall easily back into farming life whenever June rolled around. When it came time for me to go to college, I had to choose between going to the one school that had said I could bring my goats with me (!!!), or selling the herd. I decided to sell the herd (since, as has been mentioned before, my main reason for going to college at all was to find a wife, not to be a goat farmer).

what I've been reading lately

But I have never stopped missing my goaties. Often when we're having a rough day with the (human) kids, I'll find myself sighing, wistfully, "if only we had some goats . . . " You know, because goats are much more tolerant of whiney children than human mothers are. And because sometimes I think a lot of our struggles with said whiney children come from them feeling a lack of purpose. It's only in relatively recent human history that children have had so much downtime and so few jobs (or chores). This is why I've said that in order for us to homeschool (or unschool), we'd need to be living on a farm.

our cute little barn
(the first roof that we actually OWN)

A few weeks ago we decided that NOW is the time to start living the goat dream. My mom owns 3 acres next door that are zoned residential/agricultural, and I finally convinced her (once again) that adding some goats to the mix really would be a wonderful idea (actually, I don't think that she'd say it's a wonderful idea, but she said "yes," regardless). Lena and I bought a little prefabricated barn last week, and we are picking up two pregnant Nubian does from a local goat cheese farm this Thursday (that would be the day after tomorrow!).

the response to, "are you excited about the goats?"

Luke and Jaz are very excited, and, just as I predicted, they are most excited about their long list of barn chores. Lukas likes me to repeat it over and over and over again. And then think up more jobs. And then make up a few more. The job he's most looking forward to? "Playing with the goats a lot, to make sure that they're all friendly."

This afternoon Luke and Jaz (and Zeb, sort-of) got to do their very first barn chore: they filled the goats' stall with straw. And they had a great time doing it.

Zeben's Zebra couldn't resist taking a break from
the work to hop in the straw.

I must admit that I do feel like maybe we're crazy to be welcoming goats into our lives at this exact moment in time (you know, just before we welcome our fourth human baby). It's not like I ever end the day feeling as though, "if only I had a few more commitments and a few more ways to use up my time . . . " I'm not exactly sure how I'll manage to add milking and goat care into our already busy daily schedule. But I'm sure I'll find a way. It does feel really good to be letting this part of our dream turn into reality, after years of being stuck on the back burner. The list of "things we wish we were doing with our lives" is getting shorter and shorter as the list of "things we are doing" grows longer. And I can't wait to get my farmer hands back.

Bare feet, Bubbles and Barbecue

On Thursday I took all three kids to University Health Services for their annual well visits. These check-ups are required for the kids' schools, otherwise I would absolutely choose to skip the yearly morning-of-torture. And when I say "torture," I'm not referring to anything that the kids have to go through. The pediatrician who we've seen there for the last two years likes to contradict everything I say with out-dated information (re: foreskins, car seat safety and toilet training), and treats me like I'm an idiot because our children are not vaccinated. I understand that she has strong beliefs about the importance of vaccination, and that she may feel like it's her job to try to convince me to follow the standard protocol. But lying to me about the danger and prevalence of certain "vaccine preventable diseases," presuming, I suppose, that I haven't done hours upon hours worth of research on the topic, is not the way to change my mind. It only serves to weaken her argument and make me angry.

When our two hours of obligation were over (with all 3 kids deemed "healthy," despite the fact that I don't retract their foreskins in the bath every night, or ever), I decided that we all deserved a reward. We headed over to one of the local toy shops in search of something that we could play with outside. Luke and Jaz tried to get me to see the chemistry sets as suitable "outside toys," but we ended up coming home with a bubble wand designed to make GIANT bubbles.

We made up a batch of bubble solution straight away (recipe: 12 cups water, 1 cup liquid dish soap, 1 cup cornstarch, 2 tbs. baking powder), and spent the rest of the sunny afternoon becoming bubble masters.

I did most of the bubble-making, but Jaz got pretty good at it as well.

Luke and Zeb focused on improving their bubble-popping skills.

Luke and Zeb, poised at the ready with their bubble-popping sticks

I was reminded once again of how my vision of any given activity does not always match up with the kids' plans. I like to blow bubbles and watch in wonder as they drift through the air, waiting to see how long it takes for them to burst, how high they can go, what shapes they shift into as they move. The kids like to destroy bubbles just about as soon as they are formed (if they had their way, they'd actually be destroying them when they were still only half-blown!). So we had to do some compromising so that everyone's bubble needs were being met.

"1, 2, 3 . . . Charge!"

Luke and Jaz kept talking about how it was so wonderful and amazing that I was playing with them, and I was like, "I play with you all the time!" But apparently doing projects together, reading books together, and going for bike rides together does not count in the same way that blowing bubbles together does.

When 5:00 rolled around, it was still so lovely outside that we decided to eat at the picnic table. For the first time this season, we used the grill to cook up some barbecue chicken. Combined with potato salad and (previously frozen) corn, it was like eating a preview of summer for supper.

We sat on my mom's porch,
basking in the sun while crew boats paddled by on the river behind us.

Everyone loved the food
(an occurance nearly as rare as a measles outbreak).

After dinner, there was enough time for a bit more bubble-blowing
and running around barefoot before bath time.

Looking very pleased indeed

Eventually, the sun set,
signaling the end of another long, eventful and soap-filled day.