Gettin' Down On The Farm

Every third weekend my Aaron helps with farm chores At my family's Dairy Farm. After church on Sundays my parents, my husband, my children and I typically go for lunch. On the Sunday that they are choring, the girls and I head for home for them to nap and me to nap get some things done at home. Yesterday, I was feeling lazy less than ambitious so I took the girls back to Nana & Papa's for their naps.

After seeing Ariel's reaction to several different things over the course of the week, I decided it was time to get her introduced to the farm...dogs, cats, calves, cows, 4-wheelers, skid loaders and tractors. SO...after their naps, I dressed them up in their "farm" clothes and took them outside.

Our first course of action was a quick 4-wheeler ride. When I say quick, I mean QUICK! Ariel was scared to death. She kept screaming that she wanted to "Go back to Grandma's house" while at the same time her 16 month old sister was giggling and having a great time. Daddy had had a rough day, so we thought we'd go "help" him.

In order to give my sister-in-law a little alone time with baby Trevor, I grabbed my nephew Taylor, 4, and took him to the barn with us. What a circus. Aside from Ariel crying and clinging to me and Taylor stomping through the, er, mud and Belle trying to chew on everything, I think it went fairly well. They even went and stood in the parlor with Grandma and Grandpa for awhile. Taylor actually lives on the farm, so he spends a LOT of time in the barn. Ariel and Belle are city girls. They're not much for being dirty. Well...Belle doesn't care, but Ariel is a clean kinda girl. So, when she stumbled and put her hand down to catch herself, you can only imagine what she got all over herself. Sobbing followed.

We were all having a pretty good time until the call came in that there were cows out at the "other farm". At this point, I've got 3 dirty kids 4 and under, my brother is at Menard's, my parents are milking and Aaron is the only one available. Bless my sister-in-law Jenn. She calls me and tells me that if I need to help Aaron that she'll give all 3 dirty ones a bath. What a saint. My brother ended up coming home just as I was about to go help Aaron chase heifers so I didn't end up having to help, but when I got to the house, I had 2 clean kiddos.

A little more went on and we ended up ordering pizza for the 6 of us over 4. Simple chores ended up keeping us out until after 10 and it was 11:30 by the time we got home. As I put Ariel in her bed, she looked up at me and said, "Mommy, when can I play with the cows again?"