....with 3 kids, who babysits and does the animal chores and house care when hubby gets offered a double at his pay job. (Oh, and this is NOT a typical day---- I hope)
Change alarm clock twice before getting up.
Shower, dry hair (or it will freeze off outside), tell boys they can get up
Pull out breakfast leftovers, get boys set up to eat and check email and facebook.
Get the girl fed, get everyone dressed in appropriate clothing, get coats on
Load up the van, start to pull out, back up the van, get out and feed the chickens and goats... they *could* wait until I got home...but sometimes you just never know what the afternoon after a big morning will hold.
Drive away, stop at bank to withdraw money, realize van window is frozen shut (drivers side door is broken and doesn't open), pull around bank, park, walk up to bank to realized the lobby is closed, crawl back thru passenger side to drive to drive thru.....which is also closed and was not noticed to be closed the FIRST time I drove past the window when frozen van window was noticed.
Got back in car not worrying about the withdrawal. It was going to be grocery money and I wasn't going grocery shopping today anyway.
Drive to Walgreens to pick up about 6 things. Only found 3.
Drive to take my kids to Gym which they LOVE!!!! As I pulled into the paylot I realized the OTHER reason why I needed to get money from the bank! Stink.
Took kids into gym, was met by babysitting father and handed off baby in stroller.
Got boys to their class, waited until they were settled, then the two youngest and I went for a walk to another building that had an ATM, pulled out money so I could get my van out of parking jail, walked back to gym. Then got my oldest off to his free (included with gym) swim lesson and prayed that he would get through the locker room just fine. This was his first time ever in any kind of public bathroom without mom! He already had trunks on, we changed his shirt in the lobby cause he wanted to and he came out the other side with the other boys holding his backpack and still wearing his shoes which was the only thing he had to "change" I guess we will try again next week. lol
Watched him swim, broke the news to my 3 yr old that he could not swim, broke the news to 3 yr old that we "couldn't go home now" either cause big brother had to finish his lesson, fed a baby, consoled MY baby that I still loved her and that I knew she was completely missing her nap time, met son on the other side of the locker room fully clothed (I think his instructor helped him).
Walked 4 kids to the van (my girl is sitting on the handle of the stroller dangling her feet on the baby as I push), got the baby out of HER car seat and into MY carseat, hooked the boys into their seats so they would leave each other alone (forced isolation is great sometimes), then spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get the stroller to collapse, realized that even collapsed it still barely fits into my 15 yr old mini-van....but it was a blessing so I will cram it in (by slamming the door on it) whenever they let me use it. Drove away with my baby trying to touch THE baby as THE baby just wants to go to sleep. By the way, I have never heard such a high pitched cry before ever!
Stopped by a $1 burger joint as I hypocritically buy us "food" because it's easy and I needed to not deal with hungry kids or food at home. Drove home.
Spent the afternoon as referee of my two boys who could make the other cry by merely LOOKING at the other. WOW, were they tired and labile! Yowsa. I wrote off any thought of accomplishing ANYTHING, even email until the baby had left with mom. Cared for children, warned baby's mom that there was a drift trying to take over my driveway and how to get around it.
Passed off baby, consoled mother, was thankful she was headed to a book club that knew her that could console her. I am just not a touchy feely kind of girl. I am a pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get over yourself and deal with it kind of girl. This probably explains why I often don't have all that many girlfriends.
More refereeing. Again, determined that only the bare minimum was going to get done tonight and by that I meant keeping the boys from killing each other until bedtime. Decided that I would wait for when MY Girl went to bed and then the boys and I could go outside, get wood and I would start to shovel some of that drift away.
Got pizza that I prepared YESTERDAY into the oven, put my girl to bed, pulled the pizza out, cut it up and served it to my boys, put gloves on and hat on and grabbed the bucket of scraps for the chickens. Fed the goats, realized there was a LOT of noise on the goat side of the barn, slowly my senses kicked into gear and I realized some of those bleating sounds were really high pitched..... OH MY GOODNESS.....WE HAD TRIPLETS!!!!!
Did an assessment of the kids. Scanned my memory for all the talks and experiences I had received in the past several years of what to do if birth happened when hubby was not around. Saw they were dry. Saw that mom was nuzzling them and licking them on ocassion. Saw that one was walking around as if he/she had been alive for years, one was a goat statue... of which later I saw a stretch and yawn and I realized it was napping while standing up. The third had back leg issues. It was not able to get it's back legs to stand up straight. They actually look as if the joint was in the wrong place and they bent forward (hyperextended) instead of bending backwards). The mom was still caring for it by licking it from time to time and it was able to move some.
I gave the goats a bit of extra food cause that mama was HUNGRY! And I stood there trying to see if they would nurse. That first meal is often the deciding factor of if a goat makes it through the first night or not. Mom kept staring at me like "go away, I only nurse in private." Daddy goat kept head butting the stall between him and me like "GO AWAY." I wracked my brain. I *thought* the only other thing I could work on was shutting the barn door which had been propped open by snow and now ice.
My brain then scanned all my options for advice at this point in time. I was NOT going to wake up my hubby who I had just said goodnight to 2 hours before. My neighbors who have goat experience are on vacation..... in fact MY hubby is doing THEIR chores part of this week! I just wanted to talk it out with another farmer who knew goats. Yet, we live in Cow land....who did I know who knows goats...........AH YES, my Father-In-Law!!!
Called up my father in law who at first thought something was wrong since I was calling and not his son. I explained that my hubby was sleeping at work after a double and that I had 3 baby goats outside!!! We talked through all of my observations and low and behold he and I were on the same page! YAY
I then left the boys to beat each other up, oh wait I meant to say PLAY WITH EACH OTHER while I went out to get that barn door chipped loose to get the goats some more warmth. The Billy surprisingly did not rear up ONCE (this is new) but insisted upon walking in and out and in and out and in and out as I chopped at and swept away ice and snow and hay from the swinging area of the door. BUT.... he was nice! I can handle that. His back only comes up to my lower ribs! Oh, and that's when all 4 feet are ON the ground! In the past he has shown that he can be quite protective around those little kids too and he was nice as pie to me today! Although a STINKY pie at that.
I shut the door, tried to see some nursing. Each time those babes were about to nurse that mean Billy would go pester that mama. LEAVE HER ALONE, SHE JUST HAD 3 KIDS!!! I figured likely it was my presence, so I left praying all goes well tonight. I halfway expect to lose that crippled one, but mama is a very good vetran mommy so who knows what the morning will hold.
I went back out after the boys were put to bed. I took out more water and by the time I got the door open both of our does were standing. The kids were kind of close to where mom was but 2 of the 3 were now standing. The Billy was in a corner by himself. This was good. Now I will pray that mama is able to care for all 3 tonight.
I then lugged in firewood for tonight and much of tomorrow and reheated pizza to eat as I typed about my day.
At 9pm the phone rang and it was hubby's work place. I thought hubby was awake. I was excited. This means I don't have to set an alarm and wake up to tell him this means I can tell him THEN go to bed. NOPE. It was his staffing office asking him if he wanted the night off. bwahahaaahaaa. I told her he was sleeping on the campus in a call room, probably not, but tomorrow night he likely will want the night off.
I get to call the farmer at work at 10:45 pm to see what he says about the whole situation. I could have called him right away but he has a hard time relaxing at work and sleeping in that call room..... so he can just wait.
I think I dun did good... I think I did. We shall see how harsh mother nature is in the morning.
For now, I am going to bed with my alarm set for 10:45.
