Always watching and learning.
This is a bit of throw back...all the way to last week (mid April 2018). I had been doing the chores for my parents for less than a week when we got pelted with ice and snow. The thought of bundling the littles up in their snow suites, mitts, and hats had me dreading the 7:30 am chores. Before even leaving my house at around 6:30 I was less than impressed with the foreboding task at hand. We set out; after scraping the ice from the truck windows, installing the two car seats and triple checking that I had everything for the kids. Luckily my folks are down the road (I can hear the donkey bray when the wind blows the right way) so the disgusting roads were bearable, in four wheel drive. I fixed the kids up with a banana each while I prepared the milk for the orphan lot, filled the pail with warm water for the pigs, ducks, chickens and goose, and then proceeded to the ring for a full blown two against one wrestling match, they put up a good fight but in the end I prevaled and we were all out the door fully dressed and bracing ourselves against the blustery winter wind.
I'm usually an optimistic person, and like to always find the positive in every situation, but so far that morning all I could think of was "Thanks Mum and Dad. I hope you're enjoying the plus 20 degree C. weather in the Bavarian Alps." We made it down to the barnyard, after fighting with the 5 pet lambs at the gate, hustling the two children through and keeping the dog out.
I sat on the bottom step of the feed shed bottle feeding the lambs and watched as my 2 yr old son went about flipping the wooden feed troughs without prompting, just knowing it had to be done. My 1 yr old daughter, still fresh on her legs, stumbled around amongst the other lambs, before setting her sights on one of the barn cats. I quickly lightened in my mood, my negativity was swept away with the gail force winds and my scowl was forced into a smile. I couldn't for the life of me remember why I'd been dreading this, and been so grumpy for the first hours of my morning, short with my children, and not helping my wrinkles any with a frown that I'm still trying to work out of my forehead.
I was fast regaining my optimistic powers, and started to feel lighter. It dawned on me that had I had the choice to go outside and get the day going that morning, I would have chose to stay at home. I would have chose the apparent path of least resistance, but ultimately, plunged into a day of bored toddlers, which if you know toddlers is never NEVER a good thing. As we carried on our morning routine of feeding the pigs, horses and donkey, releasing the ewes into the side field and letting the ducks and chickens out, I silently apologised to my parents for the negative vibes I was directing at them and instead thanked them for the opportunity they had given me and my children. I kicked myself in the arse for making the first part of the morning miserable for everyone, and let go the last of the grumps. We eventually made it back inside around 9 am, I washed the lambs bottles while the kettle boiled and the fresh eggs, my son collected poached. We settled in for the morning watching the spring snowfall from my parents ridiculously comfy kitchen couch, appreciating it all just a little bit more. Life was good.
