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11:32:00 PM EST
Feeling Happy
Hearing Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven
Favorite entries from early 2004
"Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg."
All three girls are curled up sleeping in our family bed. (Mandy fell asleep while I was reading the Stephen King book "Cujo" to her. I read 27 pages out loud while nursing Shelby to sleep.) Mandy has always talked in her sleep and I heard her mumbling. She said--sound asleep--
"Time for the sunbeams to go somewhere else. The Sun is all over now."
What poetry, why, even in her sleep she is creative.
As we were driving down a narrow, windy county road we saw a small billy goat walking down the road. He kept scampering in and out of the road, shaking his horns at the trucks and cars passing by. Mandy and I simulataneously asked Dave to stop the van and pull over. We were afraid the little billy goat would get hit by a car. (He was wearing a collar, so I --correctly--surmised he both had a home and was not supposed to be out in the middle of a road.) Mandy and I ran back down the road (dodging UPS trucks and wildeyed tourists who were lost...) The billy did not run from me, so I grabbed him by the collar and attempted to lead him towards the log cabin/Irish Pub (located somewhat incongrueously in the middle of the Tennesee mountains!!). He had no intention of going with me and stiffened himself, butting me menancingly with his rather sharp little horns. At this point I picked him up. Mandy grabbed his hindquarters and I had the front (pointy) end of him. He kept enthusiastically digging his curved little black horns into my bosom. I retaliated by checking to see if he was a boy goat or a girl goat, and gave his "bits and pieces" a sharp yank. We reached a truce then--no horns in the breasts and no more yanking of Sensitive Bits. He did smell ripe and goaty, but Mandy and I both agreed it was not an unpleasant smell. We alternated leading/dragging him and carrying him. When we were carrrying him he would stiffen his legs and he reminded us of carrying our male greyhound.
We had quite a ways to go. Dave,Shelby and Tabby were at the Pub when we finally got into the yard. (It was about six city blocks, it felt like.) The woman who worked/lived at the Pub was from Florida and said that the goat's name was Jack. His mate had been "tornup and killed" two weeks ago. Since then, Jack had been wandering loose. I pointed out that he was almost squashed by a large Brown truck. She said she would tie him up. The front of the log cabin's porch was covered with goat droppings. Hmmm. And people think hillbillies are messy and odd. At least WE know goats need to be confined on busy roads! Jack kept rearing and butting her. He was a cute wee fellow.I would have liked to bring him home with me.Mandy and I smelled like him for several hours.
The house reeks. David found a skeleton under the old shed, and Tabby promptly confiscated it. Both of my older daughters have a fascination with bones (probably because their parents also like bones.) Tabby is boiling them on the stove to boil off the gristle and other smelly cartilage still clinging to the bones. She wants to add to our collection of skulls and bones in the basement.
We have a great many large cow bones that we found when Mandy was only seven. We were looking for a farm to purchase. We found most of a cow skeleton at a remote farm in Bracken county. I still remeber that sunny steep hillside and Mandy running around gathering cow bones that we bleached white. Mandy was exhulting in the car that we were RICH in bones. When we got home she scribbled on many of the bones trying to form her own obscure classification system. At the time I was frustrated with her, but now---almost ten years later--I see that I should not have been. I am much more relaxed as a mother now, more willing to let things go. What did I think was so important about keeping the bones marker free? I can't remember why I thought it was important then, but I can still see the sadness in her face as I scolded her. There are so many things that I would undo about my parenting if I could. The poor oldest child gets the brunt of the experimenting.
Mandy had a great time going grocery shopping with her father the other night. She thrives whenever we mange to get her to spend some time alone with either one of us.While we were putting the groceries away, she said that she has a perfect life. Her dad told her that not many people can say that, especially not many teens. I know that I wasn't very happy as a teen. This time of my life--early forties--is by far the best my life has ever been.
Mandy seems to be thinking about her happiness a great deal. Last week all of "us womenfolk" in the house were out for lunch at the Morning Star Cafe, a charming little corner coffee shop down in the East Row Historic District. Mandy asked me why I was happy. I told her that I tend to find a lot of pleasure in little things. Plus, my greatest dreams have come true--beautiful vibrant children and a good husband. Mandy beamed and said that she doesn't know why she is happy, she just is.
Not to say that she doesn't have her negative moments. But then., don't we all?
Tonight Tabitha surprised me with her insights into nursing. Since she nursed well beyond the norm in this country--and even up to the high end of the normal span of nursing worldwide--she has clear, vivid memories of our nursing. Tabby said thoughtfully that my moods altered the taste of the milk! She felt sad when the milk did not let down fast enough or when Iran out of milk, as though I was mad at her or withholding milk on purpose.(She was a marathon nurser, nursing for literally hours if I allowed her.) She said that some foods changed the taste of the milk, but not as much as my moods. This conversation was all brought about as she watched the antics of Shelby nursing. Tabitha mentioned that the funny position Shelby was in enabled Shelby to see what was going on in the kitchen while ensuring that she was still getting a good letdown! I think Tabitha could write an article about nursing from the child's point of view since most babies are weaned before they can talk and extended nursing is not the norm in our culture. I told her she was probably a world expert on the child's point of view on the nursing experience, and she agreed adamantly that she is.:-) What a character she is. Years ago I asked her what she thought of as we snuggled and nursed, and she said, "That you love me."
Tabitha came running downstairs with a bedraggled, wet pigeon wrapped in a towel. DooDoo had somehow fluttered his way into the toilet bowl and then couldn't escape. He was shivering violently, his poor beak clattering. We wrapped him in another towel, placed him against Tabitha's skin and put a hot water bottle under him. After a short while, he was warm and relaxed, and cuddled up against her as she worked on her Girl Scout Ceramics badge. Hmmm, pigeons and rats in the toilet, raccoons falling through our ceiling, and squirrels living in our dryer. Our family takes sharing the Earth to new heights.
Tonight Tabitha curled up next to me in bed, using my butt as a pillow. She sighed and said, "Your big soft butt makes a good pillow."
Then she said, "That rash on your face is back."
I said, "I know. I hate it." (It is a small rash on the corner of my mouth, about the size of a dime. It comes and goes. I have a steroid cream for it).
Tabby says, in her unique comforting style, "At least it only looks horrible some of the time. It's better than if it was a big red BURN scar."
This is the same child who cuddled up and said, "You know, one good thing about your face being fat is your wrinkles don't show as much."
She also told me, hugging me around the waist, "I hope when I grow up I have a big fat butt like yours."
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The adventures never end at your house do they???? I need to ask my daughter if she remembers nursing she was nearly 3 when quit. ~rose
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While I like a nice, randy man, no way would I grab an unknown goat by the bits and pieces. Ick. The goat had a collar - none of you had a belt to make into a leash? At least Jack is safe for another few hours, though.
xoxo -
I loved this. judi
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I get a rash like that. It is itchy. I found when I put steriod cream on it stayed longer. I started using Bebedryl gel on it and it would clear up fast.
3/26/05 2:56 PM
As for leading goats, we have leashes in the van at all times (as well as dog treats and a first aide kit and something to keep injured beasties in), but he would not move! Since he was a mini goat--about seventy pounds--I just picked him up.
As for animal bits-n-pieces, well, I've grabbed much worse than that goat's bits!