Why Sandy was Born on April 17.

On April 16, 1968, my mother and I were standing at the calendar counting the days until the due date of her sixth child.  It seemed to me, at age 13, that Mom had been pregnant for a year. Mother was so tired and I was tired of her being so tired.  We counted 6 weeks until the due date of May 25th.

Me and Sandy

All the girls in the family had been wishing for another girl. This would make 5 girls. But remember back then you didn't get an ultra sound and know the baby's gender before it was born.  So we wished until the last minute. We wanted her to be named Samantha Annette Murphy after the witch on the TV show Bewitched. We could call her Sam.  Mom and Dad didn't seem to like that name.

Anyway, when Mom and I counted that she still had 6 weeks, I said, "No, you are going to have her tonight."  Mom said, "No.  We wouldn't want that to happen.  Babies born that early don't survive."
I said, "Oh yes. She is coming tonight and she will be okay."   

It was a school night so I had to go to bed early.  Later that night, Mom went into labor.  She wanted to wake me up before she went to the hospital. But she always put school first, so she left us all asleep.  Her 6th child, born in the early hours of April 17th, turned out to be a very health girl.  She and the doctor had obviously miscalculated. Mom and Dad named her Sandra Elaine.

I was determined to go see the new baby at the hospital. Back then to get on the maternity ward one had to be 15 years old.  Dad and I decided it would be okay if I appeared to be 15.  At 13, my parents did not let me wear makeup.  But to appear 15, they let me wear Mother's makeup.  I got all dress up and thought I looked at least 15, maybe older.  I did get to go see the new baby through the window of the nursery. But the next day when Dad went to the hospital, the nurse told him that his little girl was not allowed on the maternity ward.  I really was very deflated that she could tell that I was not 15.

I carried Sandy everywhere.  Mostly we went to church.  Even if Mother didn't go, I still took Sandy.  Once I over heard an elderly lady say, "That girl is too young to have a baby."  But I loved babies and especially my baby sister.

So Happy Birthday, Sandy.  Hope you like April 17 as your birthday instead of May 25th.  I just couldn't wait that long.

Waiting for a Contract

The School Board members kept checking their emails today for information about the Superintendent's contract.  I must have checked 5 times.  His contract extension was first on the agenda at the work session on March 8th.  But Vision 2020 was also and the boardroom was packed with citizens of our parish. When we came to the contract agenda item there was no information to discuss.  That's not too strange.  Anytime something is going to be controversial we don't get the information to read carefully and discuss.  So when we came to the voting meeting on March 22nd the contract was no longer on the agenda.  There had been an intense public outcry about Vision 2020 and the bad shape our budget is in--like $20 million in the red.  The board room was packed again.

This is very bad timing to discuss the Superintendent's contract in any favorable manner.  Does he want an increase in salary? When he has recommended that we freeze all other employees salaries, including the little increment that teachers' get for another year of experience? Employees have not gotten a raise in the 3 years he has been here. What extra benefits does he want?

The extension of his contract was put on the work session agenda again, April 5th, with no information.  Today at 5:30 pm all board members got an e-mail for the Superintendent saying to get in touch with our attorney for information about his contract.  We have been told that we must vote for or against his contract extension at our next board meeting which is this coming Tuesday, April 19th. 

I'm just wondering if others see this as a very bad sign.  I see another haste makes waste situation.  He has put it off until it is too late for us to read it carefully, ask questions and truly think about it.  When I am backed into a corner like this, I always say NO--HELL NO.  I don't play these games.

Write a comment PLEASE.  I know the funny, interesting, and cool comments will not work this time.

Okay I am a compulsive skeptic.

Baby sister, Sandy

My darling husband is after me quite often because I seem to never accept what I am told.  Don't know how or why I am that way.  I just am. I'll ask 4 people for their opinion about something and then do what I wanted to before I asked.  Don will say, "Don't ask me if you're not going to go with what I tell you."  My sister, Sandy once said she asks for opinions so she knows what she will have to deal with when she does what she wants to do anyway.  I don't think that is my case.  I will even take opposite views from myself for a couple of hours or days just to see how that side feels.

I have one silly example where I was shamed into not questioning what I was told.  The neighbor's cat across the street had 4 kittens.  I wanted the white one.  I've never had a white cat, so this was it.  She told me it was a female cat.  When I was a kid I was around cats and kittens a lot, so I could tell the gender of a kitten.  But it had been at least 30 years since I had been involved with kittens so I brought "her" home and name her Cloud.  As she got older I notice some parts below her tail that I didn't believe should be there.  I mentioned this to Don and he said, "There you go again.  Never believing what anyone tells you.  She told you it was a girl, so just believe her."  It didn't change my confusion but I let it go.

He didn't even stay white.

Well, I took my little Cloud to the vet to have her spayed.  Sure enough, Dr. Ritter called me and said, "I can't spade Cloud because Cloud is a male. I didn't tell him I knew it.  I just told him to make Cloud less male.  But I can promise Don and anyone else, I will check out what you tell me.  Just because you say it, doesn't make it so.

My Grandmother's Rose Bush

The cutting I took from my grandmother's rosebush is blooming now.  It is at this time every year I think of her.  She is likely the reason I have chickens in my backyard.  I used to love to help her gather the eggs, because her chickens laid eggs all over the place; even under her house.  It was at least 3 feet off the ground, so I could stoop and go get them.  4/9/2012

When I was growing up, my family lived on the same dirt road as my father's mother. I remember as a small child walking to Grandma Murphy's house and picking a bouquet of wild flowers along the way.  This was a ritual that I engaged in several times a week.  Grandma Murphy always smiled and received the handful of flowering weeds as though they were long stem roses.  She had the familiar vase right within reach.

Grandma's appearance disguised the amount of strength she had. Her very petite, thin body would make one think she was frail.  But this opinion could only be held by one who had no knowledge of her past or present life.  Being widowed at about thirty-eight years old, Grandma had to raise 12 children by herself.  Her youngest child, Aunt Cordie, was only six months old when her husband, my grandfather, died. My father was one of her 8 rowdy sons.  Even as a child, I could imagine what a challenge that must have been. I had heard stories about how she had picked cotton to support her family.  They always had a huge garden and raised chickens.  She was a devout Christian and walked five miles with her children to attend Loche Arbor Baptist Church every Sunday.  It probably made more of an impression on me that Grandma never talked about doing these things and having difficult times.  She was always focused on the task at hand. 

After her children were grown, she still raised a large garden and had a yard full of chickens.  I would often find her out working in her garden or toting buckets of water to it; since it was quite a distance from her house.

I used to crawl under her house and gather the eggs for her.  I still smile when I remember her solution to chicken snakes getting her eggs.  She put plastic eggs in the hens' nests.  She said that the snakes would swallow the real and plastic eggs whole. Then climb up on a tree limb and fall to the ground to break them. But the plastic egg would not break, so it could not be digested and the snake would die. 

As a small child I was highly amused by this story and envisioned a lumpy snake climbing a tree and jumping off a limb to break the eggs.

My grandma died in 1983, a year after I moved to Shreveport.  Ten years had passed, I don't recall even thinking about her during this time. She seemed like a very distant part of my life, both in miles and years.  I was going through a very bad time in my life. My marriage of 15 years was ending.  I was very depressed. I didn't know how I was going to get my life back on track.  It amazed me that the answer came in a dream I had about my grandmother.

I was not conscious of what a role model of strength and courage Grandma had been to me, until I made one of those visits with her, as I often did as a child.  But now I was dreaming.  She and I were walking through her yard and she was showing me all her rosebushes.  As I held the blossoms and inhaled their fragrance, she told me their names and where she had gotten them.  One rosebush dominated the others.  It was a huge bush in her backyard.  No other bush had the heavily perfumed purple roses it had.  As I walked through the yard with Grandma, I felt strength and confidence growing inside of me.  I realized that because I was her grandchild, I had inherited much of her strength and resilience.  That there was no adversity that I could not overcome.  I awoke the next morning in a whole different frame of mind; ready to move on with my life.  Through this dream Grandma Murphy had bequeathed her strength and courage to me.

Several months after that dream, I was visiting my brother, Frank, who at the time, was living on our old home place.  In a vase on his dining table was a bouquet of fragrant purple roses.  A chill went down my spine and I asked him where he had gotten the roses.  Sure enough, they had come from Grandma's yard.

I responded to this discovery by asking Frank to get a shovel and take me to the bush so we could dig it up.  It was challenging just wading through the thicket that now engulfed what had once been a well-tended yard.  The rosebush was huge.  After struggling with the thorns and underbrush, I had to be content with 6 pieces from the roots that looked like sticks.

I planted them in my yard in Shreveport.  Several years later, when I married Don and we moved to a different house, I tried to transplant that rosebush.  But it died.  I returned to Grandma's rosebush and dug up some more roots. It is one of those very fragrant old roses that only blooms once a year.  In spring I watch and wait for it to bloom.  This is the15th year the bush has been in this yard.  When it blooms, I inhale its strong fragrance and allow my grandma's strength to be reborn in me.

Be A Perfect Person In Just Three Days

I used the book Be A Perfect Person in Just Three Days in my 4th grade classroom for several years.   After the Christmas break, I would show up with a stalk of broccoli hanging from yarn around my neck.  I told my class that I had found the most amazing book ever.  For my New Year's Resolution I was going to follow this book. That I was in the process of becoming a perfect person.  And today was my first day!  I would read the book to them to the point where one has to wear broccoli around their neck.  The author warns that you can not read beyond this point.  The next day, at least half the students in the class would show up with the stinky vegetable around their necks.  The rest of the school looked at us like we were crazy. But the author warns that you can not tell anyone why you are wearing the broccoli or it will not work. We worked on achieving perfection all week.  Needless to say no one was successful.  I took it as a lesson on overcoming failure. lol 

So this Thursday, my Welcome speech is inspired by this book.

My Welcome speech to be given at the Most Improved Students Award program hosted by the Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

 I was elected to represent the citizens of district 4 on the Caddo Parish School Board.  The School Board has 12 members, each representing a part of Caddo Parish.

I am so please to welcome all the students who are receiving the Perfect Student award for your individual schools.

Jackie (Moderator) interrupts:  These students are here for THE MOST IMPROVED STUDENT AWARD.  NOT PERFECT Students.

Oh thank goodness.  Now I don’t feel so out of place.  It was really stressing me out to talk to perfect people.  So these are the students who do better each day than they did the day before.  All of you have worked hard to be better today than you were yesterday, and you will be better tomorrow than you are today.

You are my kind of people.

I have been trying to follow this book I found, Be A Perfect Person in Just 3 Days  for years.

 The first day is not too difficult.  All you have to do is wear a stalk of broccoli around your neck for 24 hours.  Do you know how that would make a person perfect?  Well I can tell you that at the end of the day you smell bad.  I don’t believe perfect people smell bad. Anyway, when I followed this book to try to become a perfect person; I always make it through the 1^st day.  This book makes you wear broccoli because perfect people have courage.  I had to be a brave teacher to go to my 4^th grade class and teach all day with a silly stalk of stinky broccoli around my neck.

  I have never made it through the 3^rd day.  It’s just hard. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.  If you want to try to become perfect, you will just have to read this book.

But the author seems to know a lot about us non-perfect people. And I think he actually likes us.  I’ll read just the part I always have read, since I haven’t been successful yet at becoming a perfect person. See you read one page if you become a perfect person and different pages if you don’t make it.

            Read the following from the book Be A Perfect Person in Just Three Days.

                                                CONGRATULATIONS!

                                                YOU’RE NOT PERFECT!

It’s ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway.  But then, everybody is ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people.

You know what perfect is?  Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake.  Perfect is never doing anything wrong-which means never doing anything at all.  Perfect is boring!

So you’re not perfect!  Wonderful!  Have fun! Eat things that give you bad breath! Trip over your own shoelaces! Laugh! Let somebody else laugh at you!

Perfect people never do any of those things.  All they do is sit around and sip weak tea and think about how perfect they are.

Phooey!  Who needs them?

You can drink pickle juice and imitate gorillas and do silly dances and sing stupid songs and wear funny hats and be as imperfect as you please and still be a GOOD  person.  Good people are hard to find nowadays.  And they are a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week.

So on behalf of the Caddo Parish School Board, I want to say we love our Most Improved Students. You are just who we want all our students to be.  Better today than you were yesterday.  And even better tomorrow that you are today.

                                                A Great Big Congratulations!!!     

      

Saturday at My Mini Urban Farm

Cloud chills out.

Because I spent last weekend planting azaleas and etc, until I nearly passed out, this weekend all the animals need clean housing.  I started with my cat, Cloud's litter box.  If nothing else gets clean this will.  It is in my house.

Next the rabbits, Oreo's and Butterscotch's cage.  It is a large aquarium that my grandson's turtle once lived in before he set her free in a near by pond.  It is much more difficult to clean since it is not a standard cage or hutch.  But I thought the bunnies would be more comfortable in the house.  I have to use a step stool to reach in and a shovel from a sand bucket.  I put the bunnies in the bathtub while I did this.  So then I have to clean the bathtub.  Oreo actually escaped and ran down the hall.  But I captured him before Cloud decided he might offer some amusement.  Cloud really wouldn't hurt him, as anyone can see in his picture. But I'm not 100% sure of that. He is a huge cat.

Home of Big Foot, Omelet, Little Ace

Easy to clean tray

Big Foot supervising.

2 girls contribute

Next the two chicken condos.  I read on some website that chicken houses should be cleaned at least once a year.  No way!  Two weeks was too long for these.  I do not want to know that I have backyard chickens by the smell.  Besides these are so easy.  Each one has a tray that slides out from the bottom where all the future garden fertilizer accumulates. These little houses are so cleverly designed.  I ordered them from the website www.mypetchicken.com.  That's where I also bought 3 of the chicks when they were one day old.  They box as few as 3 chicks and put them in the mail.  The post office called when they arrived in Shreveport and I picked them up.  I don't believe the people in the mail room had ever had a box of peeping chicks there before.  They were very amused. I washed out the trays and added fresh wood chips.  Then I cleaned out the egg boxes.  The older house has a removable box for the hens to lay their eggs.  I scoop out the old chips and hay and put in new chips and hay.

Inspectors arriving

Gypsy says, "Okay."

Just as I finished the chicken houses, Inspectors showed up.  No these inspectors are not FDA certified. But they were very thorough. They even chatted with the senior resident, Cracker. Finally, Inspector Gypsy gave me a hoof-up.

Dottie Belle Chats with Cracker

Now our house!!!

Now we, the inspectors and I, are ready to clean out the goatgloo.  Yes, it is a dog igloo, but I don't tell that to the goats.  I do have plans for Don to build Gypsy and Dottie Belle a real goat house.  I just hope he has the same plans.  For now the goats are living in the dog yard with Diva and Megabyte. Of course Diva and Megabyte sleep in the house.  They just play with the goats during the day.  Much to my surprise and relief, the dogs get along with the kids.  They had to get things straight the first day I introduced them.  Gypsy, the extrovert, went right up to Megabyte and headbutted him.  Megabyte stood in shock.  Then Gypsy headbutted Diva. Oh NO!  I thought Diva was going to eat Gypsy.  I stepped in and calmed Diva.  But Gypsy won't mess with Diva again. Gypsy didn't know that Diva is a real DIVA.

They kiss and make-up.

Back to cleaning the goatgloo.  I raked out the old hay.  Got the hose and washed the igloo out.   Then I let it dry in the sun for a couple of hours and replaced the hay.

Tonight all the critters in this urban farm have clean sleeping quarters.
                                                         Now I need to clean my house.

 

 

Cooking Flounder on the Grill

I was experimenting last night with some flounder fillets I had bought and other items I had in the refrigerator.  I loved it.  More importantly, my husband loved it.  It's fairly healthy. 

I buy spinach, carrots and other veggies wanting to make a salad.  But Don will skip the salad.  I can not get him to eat a salad no matter how I dress it up.  So I try to put carrots and spinach in every main dish.  It works!!

I grilled asparagus, brushed in butter, right beside the fish.  Not on the foil.  

           Flounder on the Grill

Ingredients

   

• 2 pounds of Flounder fillets
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons chopped green onions
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• a dozen or so baby carrots, cut lengthwise in half
• fresh spinach, enough to cover the fish twice

Directions

1. Coat a piece of heavy-duty foil (about 14 in. x 14 in.) with nonstick cooking spray. Place fillets on foil; brush with lemon juice. Cover fish with carrots. Cover carrots with 2 layers of spinach
2. Crimp foil, forming edges. Place foil flat on the grill (do not seal). Grill, covered, over medium-hot heat for 4 minutes. 
3. Combine Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise, onions and salt; spoon over fillets. Grill 3-4 minutes longer or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Sometimes I'm Just Not in the Mother of the Year Category

Paxton & Courtney at their home.

 Last week my son, Paxton and his wife, Courtney, moved into their first home.  They are only 25 years old and have both achieved master's degrees, good jobs and now a nice home.  Paxton is my youngest and only son.  My girls have also gotten college degrees, great spouses and nice homes. As a mother, I like to think I have done a good job with them whether it was genetic or nurturing--a mighty fine accomplishment and thank God too.

Don, Paxton, and Me

All 3 of my children called me last weekend for landscaping or gardening advise.  As in my Spring Fever blog, you know I set a killer example for that.  Anyway, Paxton mentioned that he bought a lawn mower.  Paxton and I go way back with lawn mowers.  While my kids were growing up, I usually mowed the lawn.  Paxton began helping me mow when he was only 3 years old.  I pushed at the top (normal position) and he was between me and the mower pushing on the crossbar.  He would do that the entire time.

Me, Bridget, Jacquie and Paxton

When he got old enough to mow by himself, we paid him to do the mowing.  He was the best person I have ever hired.  He shot for perfection.  One day while he was mowing the yard at the shop we had, I heard a loud pop.  I ran outside and found Paxton on the ground holding his leg.  He was in great pain.  I looked where he said it hurt. There was only a very small puncture wound on the front of his leg. It looked like a mark a bee sting would make.  But there was no swelling, just a tiny drop of blood. He said he thought he should go to the doctor.  But if there is no blood and guts, then all is well. I rubbed the spot and asked if he could stand up.  He hopped around for a minute and said he would finish the job.  We decided the mower must have thrown something out the back and it hit his leg. No real injury.

A couple of times during the next few days Paxton said his leg hurt, so I would rub it. But I didn't see anything that could make it hurt.

About 3 months later, he was doing a forward roll into a classroom and hit his leg on a chair.  Suddenly, a rather large knot popped up on the back of his calf on that same leg.  Paxton went straight to the office and gave me a call.  "My leg has a huge knot on it and you can't just rub it.  I want to go to the doctor now." he said.

 

Me and Paxton

Sometimes I thought Paxton actually liked going to the doctor.  I believe one should be dying before one goes to see a doctor. When I picked him up I looked at the strange knot on the back of his leg.  Of course, I did gently rub it.  But I agreed he should go to the doctor.  The doctor examined it and said it was likely a calcium deposit so there would be nothing to do.  But he took an x-ray just to make sure.  When the doctor came back with the x-ray, he looked stunned. He had also shared it with the other doctors in the office. There was a 2 inch wire going horizontal in the muscle of Paxton's leg.  Now the mystery of what had hit his leg when he was mowing had been solved.  That little mark was where the wire was shot into his leg by the mower. I felt like the most neglectful Mother in the world.  The doctor said, "Well, he didn't die from tetanus so a shot isn't necessary now.  I'll refer you to a surgeon, who will likely remove it." 

I really felt bad because Paxton had told me several times that his leg hurt.  But I would just rub where he said it hurt and give him an aspirin.

Hopefully, when he is mowing now he remembers to wear safety glass and shin guards.  Full body armor might be advisable.

Happy Birthday Diva Gretchen

My Schnauzer, Diva Gretchen turned 13 today.  I got her for Mother's Day in 1998.  That was the year I retired from teaching. Don and I drove to a breeder in Marshall, Texas and picked out my puppy.   I had never thought about getting a Schnauzer.  I seem to be more attracted to hairy little dogs like the Bichon Friche that had just died.  But I had read a lot about how Schnauzers like attention and are very out going, so I wanted to try that breed.  We had anticipated that this tiny puppy would sleep in a crate in the laundry room right next to our master bedroom.  So we fed her and put her to bed.  Just about the time we were in bed, this howling came from the laundry room. We could not believe such a loud howl could come from such a tiny puppy.  That's how she got her name Diva.  We thought she sounded like an opera singer.  The next night we moved her crate into our room.  When she was potty trained, she slept in the bed next to me.

Diva and Jacquie

Since I had already announced my retirement, I brought Diva to school in her crate everyday.  I was teaching Creative Writing to kindergarten through 3rd grade, so a lot of our writings were about pets and such. Diva made a great prop.  It also made her a very good dog to children.

When she was about 2 years old, I decided I wanted to breed her.  She had 8 beautiful puppies, but in about 24 hours they started dying one by one.  I finally took the last 2 to the vet.  He said he didn't see anything wrong with them, but I need to go back home and bring the mother.  I never did know why the 6 died.

It was very interesting watching Diva train her 2 puppies, one male and one female.  Since their crate was upstairs in our bedroom and the water and food bowls were down stairs, they had to go up and down the stairs a good bit.  Diva helped the female puppy up the stairs, but she left the little male. He would just sit on the bottom step and howl.  Schnauzers are good at howling.  When she got to the top of the stairs, Diva would turn around and bark at the male puppy until he would got enough courage to very carefully take one step at a time.  This was the way they always went up and down the stairs.  My husband believes she was just making the male puppy strong and brave.  I sold the female to my oncologist and kept Max.  At 6 weeks old he was already biting to get his way. It was obvious no one would buy him.  He never did get to be a good dog like Diva.  Finally, one day he and Diva escaped from the shop to run after the FedEx man and Max got run over.  My son-in-law said he believed Diva may have pushed Max into the car's path.

Diva Lilly and Max

It all worked out for the best since Max had already bitten at my first grandchild. Because this litter of puppies went so badly, Diva never had any more puppies. 

But today Diva has been a great member of our family for 13 years.  Happy Birthday DIVA and may you sing for many more years!

Diva & Zoie

This Ain't Jersey Shores

The idea of putting my goats on leashes and walking them did not just come to me one day.  I actually have experience walking farm animals. I grew up in the country  We grew the vegetables we ate and raised a lot of the meat we ate.  My mother milked a cow twice a day for many years.  We didn't grow up drinking cokes and such.  We always drank milk with every meal and water when we were thirsty.

Back row:  Lenora, Debbie and Me

For some reason my parents came up with the idea that our Jersey cow, Baby, needed to be walked in the yard, where we had great St. Augustine grass.  I really suspect that it was not so much of a need for the cow as it was a way for our parents to keep 3 adolescent daughters busy. So along with my sisters, Debbie and Lenora,  we had the chore of leading Baby on a rope in the yard. You can imagine this was not something we wanted to do. As a way to keep our turns equal, Mother came up with the idea of playing one of her country music albums on the stereo. We each had to walk the cow until one side of the album finished.  When Mother flipped the record over, your turn was up and the other sister had to take the rope. The windows were open, because we had no air conditioning, so while we walked the cow, we could hear each song and know when the last song played that the turn was up.
Oh Lord, I remember those Buck Owens and George Jones songs.
I never did like country music after I got away from home.

Baby with that Crazy Expression

One day during my turn to walk Baby, she suddenly stopped grazing and snapped her head up. I was staring into the face of a cow that had a crazy expression.  Before I knew it, she took off running around the house to the backyard.  Of course I had no prayer of keeping a grip on the rope.  At 80 pounds, I had no control over a crazed 900 pound cow.  But I ran right behind her screaming for help, because I didn't want to know the consequences of loosing our milk cow.  She ran straight to the pump house.  With her mouth she turned the faucet on and proceeded to drink the water flowing from the spout.  It was an amazing thing to observe. No one had ever seen her do that before.  Who would have thought she knew about it? Well, she didn't turn the faucet off when she had had enough. But I did grab the rope and she returned to grazing on the St. Augustine grass until Buck Owens finished singing  I've got a Tiger by the Tail.

A typical Jersey cow. Ours had horns that the rope was wrapped around.

So perhaps, I too, have just come up with a way of keeping my grandchildren busy and out of trouble.  They say at some point in our lives we turn into our parents. 
Beware Debbie and Lenora.  You're next.

Critters on Leashes

Friend of Friend with Dottie Belle

Friend Christopher with Gypsy

Chase with Butter Scotch 

aka Blade

Friday, I actually did it.  I bought two bright pink harnesses and leashes for my kids, Dottie Belle and Gypsy.  One evening, when I was helping my friend, Jo, walk an Alaskan Husky she was sitting, as well as, her 2 dachshunds; I commented that I am planning on teaching my goats to walk on a leash. I'm not sure she believed me, but she does now.  We even joked about walking them in Betty Virginia Park and that we would call them designer dogs or doats.

As soon as I got home from Pet Smart, my yard filled with grandsons and their friends.  First, we harnessed up Dottie Belle and Gypsy and gave them a test walk around the yard. Then Chase wanted to walk his bunny, Blade, whom I call Butter Scotch.  A bunny named Blade sounds like a horror film character. So he went inside and got the bunny leash and the bunny.

Everything seemed to be going well, so I went to help Don plant all those azaleas. The boys soon got bored walking the 3 animals on leashes in the yard.  Instead, they unleashed them and chased them.  I looked up and Gypsy was crying as loud as she could and running a top speed toward me.  Poor little goat, she was running for her life.  Enough of that, I put the goats away.  Too many boys and things are going to go a different direction from what I intended.

Paxton

All this trying to work out leashes and boys, brought back the memory of when my son, Paxton, was 3 years old. He was constantly running away in stores.  I'd usually find him hiding in a rack of clothes. Losing a 3 year old is one of the most terrifying feelings in the world. So I bought a leash for him.  It had Velcro that fit his wrist and a loop for me to hold.  Well, that only worked for a few minutes.  Soon he was lying down in the floor screaming for me to take it off. We talked and talked and I begged and bribed.  Finally, we came to an agreement.  I would wear the leash on my wrist and he would hold it.  This compromise did work beautifully, because he understood that if he ever let go, he would have to wear it. But I was very much aware that this was just the beginning of The Battle of Who's In Control.