Parenting goes on: New Babies Coming

I grew up on a dairy farm so naturally vegetables were always a staple and enjoyed by all. The regulars: green beans, tomatoes, corn, green onions, potatoes, and peas were grown in our large family garden and canned or frozen by my mother. Much of the late summer days focused on harvesting the produce and readying us for the long winter ahead. It was wonderful to smell and taste fresh corn on a Saturday night in January when you felt like you would never see anything green again.

Eggs were plentiful on the farm as well. As I prepare to receive my four new babies (chicks) at the end of February, I am remembering fondly the days of collecting eggs from the hen house on the farm. I was fairly young, I don’t remember having the chickens around once I was perhaps 9 or so, but age and memories can be misleading and we don’t have pictures to help us out on much of our farm days. Getting chased down and pecked by a rowdy rooster is my most memorable moment in the chicken yard. Blue patent leather high heels aren’t conducive to running away from anything.

I have wanted chickens for a long time now. What will my new babies bring? I am kind of excited but also kind of scared. Will I have the attention to attend to them as I would have years ago. What should we name them? Should I call them by my four kid’s names so I don’t get them mixed up. One of our kids said that we should call them by political names or by dictators that ruled during the World War II period. I am afraid the pecking order mixed in with history might just be too much to handle.

Perhaps we should just handle it kind of like we did as parents. We didn’t lament a lot over anything in particular when we found out we were having a baby. We were excited, but not out of control type crazy. We learned as we went, sometimes experimenting and sometimes by elimination of what didn’t work. We consulted when we needed to and learned that your first baby is your experiment and you learn to apologize as they mature into adults for any scarring angst and hopefully laugh about it. We will be fine with our new babies. I told the kids that we are registering at Tractor Supply.