More kidding updates!

Last I wrote Sabine had kidded on Friday evening.

Saturday morning (while we were at the Bayou City Market) Rosa Blanco kidded with girl and boy twins.

Later on Saturday as I was cooking dinner Sara ran in with a coat full. She had gone to feed the pen of new alpines, none of whom were really due until next week and found that the one due March 1 had kidded early. Sadly one of the doelings died but the other, though early, seems stable. This little girl is named Bug Tussle, partly because she is cute as a bug, partly because it is a Texas town and we only do Texas names for animals born here on Swede Farm. Goats don't do well as preemies. That last week is really important, This little girl is half the size we would expect her to be at full term, weighing in at under 4 pounds. Her teeth, which should be visible were still not yet erupted and her little alpine ears lack the cartilage to stand upright. Thankfully her lungs are relatively clear and she is sucking well. So for now she is living in a rubbermaid tote on my bed and being fed every few hours. The vet had us add antibiotics prophalactically to the steroids that we had already given her to hasten lung maturity and so far so good. In fact she stood up for the first time this morning! So, while we aren't out of the woods yet, little Bug is looking pretty good, all things considered.



Bug Tussle and Rambling Rose, born just a few hours earlier but full term.

Sabine kidded

Well, we have three more goats due at any time. We had four but Sabine kidded this evening, a single huge buckling, a beautiful chocolate color.

Right now, at this very minute, we have nine baby goats lined up in bins in my living room. The kid pens are up and they are out there during the day but we haven't yet finished the shelters so we let them stay inside at night.

Chicken for dinner!

I sent Sara out to the chest freezer to get some chicken for dinner. She took the two little boys with her to "help".

They brought back chicken, alright!

Judah has dinner. Noah has the egg producer for breakfast.

Kidding updates

Well after having three does kid on Monday, we had a break on Tuesday and much of Wednesday. Wednesday evening (of course as soon as it got dark, with no lights in the pen!) Liendoe kidded a sweet (and flashy) doeling. Then Miss American PI had a single buckling. I was so unsure about going to bed as Rose was looking...close but not quite there. When we woke up at 5:30 she had one buckling out and the other buckling on the way out. Two HUGE boys! This makes 100% boys from Legend over the two years that he has been in use. ARGH! I SO wanted a doe kid from this breeding! I was looking just yesterday at the planned pedigree from the parents and letting my mind wander to the showring. The ultimate in not counting your chickens--err doelings--before they are hatched. Sigh. Oh well.

Guess what I saw yesterday?

Bluebonnets!

The hidden costs of dairying

There are costs of running a dairy that simply cannot be represented on a spreadsheet. It is easy to tabulate items such as feed, fences and yogurt flavorings. The physical toll is harder to compute. We all gear up for kidding season, we are prepared to go without sleep in order to attend births and bottle feed babies. This we anticipate and can prepare for. The rewards are great and we share them when we can, posting pictures on the blog and bringing babies to market. The hardest costs to shoulder are the emotional ones like we faced this morning.

Monday Sonnet had two doelings. We were SO excited, had been looking forward to this kidding ever since we bought Sonnet last April. One of the doelings was noticeably more weak and shaky when they were found. (We try to be at each birth but Sonnet pulled a fast one on us and we found them already on the ground.) She was chilled and didn't take to a bottle at all. We figured that she had a rougher start and would just need a little bit of help getting going. After 48 hours of tube or syringe feeding her and other such intensive hands-on care we had to recognize the truth, that she wasn't getting better or stronger but was instead getting worse. She was exhibiting signs not only of neurologic issues but also a strengthening pneumonia despite prophalactic antibiotics. It was evident that things were going downhill and obviously that there wasn't going to be the rally that we had expected.

So we put her down to end her suffering.

The rewards in this business are so many that sometimes it seems a joke that we get paid for such a fantastic job! To get to spend the mornings cuddling new babies and watching them bounce around like they have springs in their legs is just the best. To then get to go and hear positive response to our products is just icing on the cake and getting paid to do all of the above? Well...that is job satisfaction that I can't imagine being paralleled in any other profession.

To have to grapple with the evidence that despite getting up and syringe feeding every couple of hours around the clock that this sweet-faced baby in your lap isn't getting better is so hard. To have to cradle that kid in your arms as you walk out to put it down is worse. What kind of pay scale compensates for that?

I apologize for such a depressing topic, but when we started this blog, it was with the intent to share a window into our lives for all those who ask what it is like to live our lives. So there you have it...the window into today doesn't have the best view.

What a way to wake up!

When we woke up to Sonnet's surprise yesterday the kids were brought to me while I was still in bed, snuggled up to nursing/sleeping Seth.

After the babies had their navels dipped in iodine and their shots of selenium and vitamin E they were snuggled in next to Seth. I never thought I'd be sharing pictures of my bed...

Record breaking day!

Sonnet started the day off with a bang, by surprising us with two doelings when we got up this morning.

A few hours later, Neches gave us a beautiful single doe.

A few hours after that, Pedernales gave two big boys.

Sam Bass sure worked efficiently once he figured out what he was doing!

Before today two does kidding in a day was our record. Never three.

Update again

Treasure kidded today...a single big buck!

We are still waiting on Sonnet who looks very close.

The chicken coop was by and large finished today and kid pens put up, thanks to the labor of our honorary dairy farmers.

Good day all the way around.

Kidding update

The alpines are stealing the show right now!

Princess--one buck
Beauty--twin bucks
Nyasa--one HUGE doe
Pheonix--one doe, one buck

Some of us are staying home from church today because we have several that look close, most notably Sonnet. I swear, her udder is getting bigger by the hour!

Who, me?

This is Cinnamon caught sunning herself during one of our many trips out to the doe pen. We are out there frequently these days, urging, cajoling and bribing the girls to hurry up and do their stuff so we can have more babies and y'all can have more milk...

Big Red is dead

In August of 2007 we got a phone call from a friend of ours. Seems he was trying to list a piece of property as part of an estate. The property (which came to be known as "the Jungle") was home to three acres of overgrown tropical landscaping, koi ponds and animals...

there were afghan hounds (which were placed with afghan hound rescue)

there were emus (which we were offered and wisely turned down--they were subsequently featured on an episode of "Animal Cops Houston" on the animal planet)

and in a small cage, there were chickens.

We ended up with the chickens. There were about seven hens, both bantams and full sized hens and there was one lone rooster, to all appearances a Rhode Island Red. We brought the chickens home, and not having a place prepared for them, they were turned loose to free range. Big Red behaved himself, never acted aggressively towards us or the children so we enjoyed the crowing and didn't think much more about it until a few months later when out from under a bush there popped a batch of fluffballs. Big Red was a daddy! Then there was another batch. And another. And yet another. Big Red sure got around!

In no time at all our chicken numbers went from about a dozen to about five dozen! I know that there are chicken lovers out there, but my affection for chicken, to be honest, hasn't ever strayed much from the fried variety, so it was a bit disconcerting to suddenly be overrun. One thing was for certain, they were beautiful, we had chickens of every imaginable color and shape and size. I know that those who know chickens could tell me that types represented but I remain clueless. We would sit on the deck and watch the chickens do their stuff, scratch in the dirt, run for snacks, hen peck. Through it all Big Red watched over his increasing flock. He was always there to protect his harem and his offspring.

Over the past few months Big Red got slower and slower and did not venture quite as far as he used to. We pretty much knew that he was acting like a geriatric bird, and weren't too surprised. We had no idea how old he really was, but still it was fun to watch him sun himself and be ready to come running if needed.

Emma found him this morning in the bushes by the garage. He lived a full and prolific life and that is just what we knew of him on our farm. He will be remembered...if for no other reason than because I don't think we could eradicate his genetic imprint on our flock if we wanted to. He was a poultry patriarch and a gentleman and he will be missed.

Pictures soon?

Well, the time has come to concede defeat. The camera will not be found without taking a dramatic, irrevocable step.

We are going to have to buy--and use--a new camera.

We have tried threats. They failed.

We have tried rewards (cynically known as bribes). Unexpectedly, they too failed.

We have tried just waiting patiently. It failed.

It is time to use a new camera. It will not be sufficient to simply buy a camera, if that were the case the decision would be easy, simply buy, come home, find the old one and return the unopened new camera. No, the old one will remain hidden just long enough for us to buy, open , and use the new camera enough times to preclude returning it.

I guess the old camera was lonely and wanted a mate.

Too bad they won't reproduce once we have a pair.

Honorary Dairy Farmers

The very best thing about going to the farmer's markets are the people. We have the BEST customers! The chance to take our product to market and see people's responses when they taste the milk (and chocolate milk!) has been incredibly rewarding. The chance to personally share what we do is the biggest part of why we are in no hurry to see our milk at the local grocery store. It doesn't seem as if delivering a case of milk could compare with seeing people's opinions about goat milk change right before your very eyes!

Part of explaining what we do is making the offer to any interested customer to come out to the dairy. We want to be totally transparent in what we do. We invite people to come and see the health of the animals, the milk room, the processing room. We want people to be 100% comfortable with the milk that they buy, whether it is pasteurized or raw. One couple came out and did see what we are doing. They walked the property with us and listened as we waxed poetic about goat milk in general and our dreams for the dairy in specific. They met the goats...and chickens, turkeys, guineas, rabbits, horses, dogs. They decided that they wanted to get involved in a tangible way, so they made another trip out to the farm today, not to buy but to work! They rolled up their sleeves and raked out a dormant chicken coop, helped sink posts for a new and improved chicken Shangri-La, pounded fence posts and helped start the new kid pens that I was stressing about in my post from Feb. 4. Wow. And double wow. They are no longer "customers", they have become honorary dairy farmers and better yet, friends.

It's started!

Of the fifteen does due to kid this month, the first one has done it! A sweet little first timer who barely looked pregnant had a single buckling this evening. Way to go, Princess! She sure snuck that one in on us, she was not even CLOSE to being in my list of first five to go, maybe not even first ten! She hardly looked bred, all we had to indicate that she was was a positive blood test. Her little udder remains just that--little, she hardly uddered up at all like they usually do before kidding. I am glad that I had that thought just before going to sleep to have some of the girls go out and check the does that are due to make sure all were tucked in and not pushing or anything!

Well, momma doe has been checked and cleaned up, baby has gotten his navel and feet dipped, his shot of selenium and his tummy filled with colostrum. I am off to bed...for the second time tonight!

Kuddoes to Katie!

Yesterday morning at the cheery hour of 4:45 I got a call from a midwifery client. Baby day! I packed my birth "stuff" and headed out the door with scarcely a thought to what would happen while I was gone. I didn't need to be concerned, you see, Katie was at home.

Katie is our oldest daughter. She is 20, now, and while there are those who tease her if she is counting down the days until she can drink, the truth is that for her, the big milestone happened a few years back, when she could vote. She is busy, being our farm manager as well as managing her own small herd of show-quality nubians. She also has her own business, making and selling goat milk soaps, lotions and soy candles.

She is just generally a busy kind of person. And other than my husband, about the only person in the world that I can walk out the door and leave my children with without a moments notice.

I was right. During the day when I was gone she tended to a handful of sick toddlers, did copious amounts of laundry, prepared lunch for the family plus for the young man from our church who was there volunteering manual labor for the dairy, fixed lunch for our neighbors who are down with the flu, ran errands finding supplies for the guys who were working and generally kept everyone clothed, fed and happy. I missed her at the birth (she is also a fantastic midwifery assistant and labor support person extraordinaire) but it was so comforting to be able to focus on the needs of the laboring mom without having a minutes doubt that all was going well at home.

There is little I can say to express how this feels except that to have a daughter like Kate is truly a blessing beyond description.

More upcoming kidding info...

So I sat down with the calendar and wrote out all of the does coming due in February along with the window of time that they are likely to kid.

2/5-2/13 Nyasa, Treasure, Beauty, Princess, Pheonix. All first time moms, all alpines.

2/11-2/26 Liendoe, Missie, Magnolia (all three Nubians, first timers), Sonnet, Neches, Pedernales (all three LaManchas, experienced moms).

2/13-21 Sabine, second time mom, a LaMancha and Rosa Blanco, first timer also a LaMancha.

2/15 Texas Rose. Second timer, LaMancha.

2/21 Cinnamon. Experienced Alpine.

So, although I think it quite unlikely that any of the alpine "babies" were successfully bred the very first day that they were with their guy, you never know, so I guess we are now officially on baby watch.

Yay!

It is upon us...

You know how rollercoasters go? You click. click. click. click. your way up that first big hill, seems as if it will never reach the top. All the while it seems higher and higher than you imagined it would be and you are seriously rethinking the sanity that drove you to get in and be strapped down in the first place. Then all of a sudden you realize that you are coming to the crest of the hill and you find yourself looking down the most intense drop.

Well, that is what it feels like right how. Kidding season is upon us and we are coming to that crest in panic! Almost five months ago we sorted the girls into groups and put them with their respective bucks. Four months ago we drew blood and sent it to the lab, waiting anxiously to see who was bred. Fifteen of the nineteen were and we settled in to grow babies. Two months ago we dried the girls off, so that their nutrients would go to babies and not to milk. About a month ago they went from nice and sleek and solid to rounder and rounder so that they barely can get up and down (boy do I remember those days all too well!). Even so, time dragged, seemingly more-so every time we had to console a would-be customer with "in February the does will kid. We will have milk then. In February."

Well we have rounded that hill and the drop looks huge! Fifteen does due in the next three weeks. Let's see, that should be at least 30 kids...and we don't even have the kid pens ready! Fifteen more does on the milkstand, half of them first fresheners and we don't even have the milking machine ready! Fifteen potential middle of the night kiddings and I am not caught up on my sleep yet, *I* am not ready!

Is now when I am supposed to hold on for dear life and scream or just put my hands up in the air and enjoy the tumultuous ride? I can't decide. Anyway, if we could find the camera I could show you the enormous widths some of the girls have grown to but I can't. I should go buy a new camera but you know as soon as I do it will reappear. Ah well.

Ruby, one last time

For those who have been following the saga of Ruby it came to an end this morning. When she reached a point where she could no longer lift up her head we knew it was time to let her go. She was a beautiful and affectionate girl and we are glad to have owned her, even if for just a few short months. She was sweet...and hungry to the end, her last minutes were happy, eating the yaupon and beet pulp that she loved with abandon as Sara held them to her mouth.

Not fun, but an important part of animal stewardship.

Please pray for Sara, she is rather upset and feeling at loose ends having dedicated much of the last few weeks to caring for Ruby, putting her in a sling several times a day, hand feeding her, making sure she stayed well hydrated, etc. I am really proud of her, she is growing into a lovely and strong young woman.

A day in the life...

Since in our blog description we mention raising eleven children, running a dairy, delivering babies, I thought that at some point it might be appropriate to journal a day at Swede Farm to show what this endeavor can look like. I actually expect that this is something that we will do periodically as every day is different around here!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

4:30 Kate (oldest daughter) is up, trying her best to rustle everyone out of bed. Tim doesn't do morning well so he is still in bed. Ironic...the man is a school bus driver and dairy farmer and doesn't "do" mornings graciously. I guess God's idea of a joke...more likely God's plan for sanctification! I am actually still in bed as well but I have an excuse...I am nursing a baby. This is actually early for chores but we have church this morning.

5:15 Morning chores--mainly milking and other goat tasks at this point. Tim, and daughters #4 and 5 are on this.

6:00 The "middle" kids, those aged from 8-10 now up and doing their chores, feeding dogs, piglets, bunnies and the like. I am up, showering and praying the hot water doesn't run out before I get that kink worked out of my neck. Kate is trying to keep things running, starts getting toddlers up. And Liberty. Libby, 6 years old is the ULTIMATE night owl. Left to her own devices she will sleep until almost 10 and bebop around until well after midnight.

7:00 We wanted to be leaving now for church but that obviously isn't going to happen. Tim is on the computer checking his emails while we finish up getting toddlers ready and the baby goats get their bottles.

8:00 we finally leave, towing a flat-bed trailer that we will use to haul wood home from church. Our church lost a long length of fence during Hurricane Ike and they have offered that wood to us. We have a livestock trailer but this flat-bed is borrowed and it has a tricky hitch. It takes longer than expected to get it secure but at least we are off!

8:10 The borrowed trailer comes loose from the back of the van! Wow, is that a wake-up call! Almost immediately three vehicles stop with offers to help. I love living in the country, everyone is a neighbor and everyone is friendly. At least that has been our experience and if it isn't so elsewhere I pity you. One of which is the son-in-law of the breeder that we got our very first goats from, they live less than a mile from us. Andre and Tim together get the trailer secure this time and we are off again. I think we need to make some cookies for Andre, Amy and their clan.

8:20 On the road again.

9:30 We arrive at church for Sunday School. Not everyone will be staying, some of us need breakfast more than others. The ones who are staying (Kate, Timothy Jr, Liberty) get out and the rest of us head over to Central Market for breakfast!

9:45 We get to CM, still towing the trailer. Sara and Linnea and Emma scatter to get food for everyone which is nice but leaves me with the three little boys, Noah, 4, Judah, 2 and Seth who is almost 10 months. How did I EVER manage when littles were all I had?! Tim has settled in to drink coffee and read the Wall Street Journal but he does come and offer to take a few off my hands within a few minutes. I grab the dairy supplies we will need for the upcoming week...organic strawberries and vanilla bean paste and agave nectar for yogurt and the ground chocolate that goes into the chocolate milk. I barely have time to sit down and eat before we are up and out the door again.

10:45 We arrive at church. We settle in, greet people and try to calm ourselves for worship. When we lived in Houston we were members at Southwest Presbyterian in Bellaire, TX, really in the heart of Houston. When we moved we were unable to make a break, feeling that as long as we could do the drive it was worth it to not break fellowship. So we drive the 55 miles in to church each week. We have been unable to do much more than Sunday mornings but that is alright, better than nothing! I sometimes think that our church isn't quite sure what to make of us...we have the largest family by FAR, almost double what anyone else has, everyone else mainly lives in their deed restricted communities and has the typical 9-5 grind. We sometimes have to drag an animal to church, a tiny bottle baby goat or once a rabbit. I think that is what we are there for, to entertain and keep people wondering.

Wonderful, wonderful wonderful church service. The preaching was fantastic and communion is always a much needed infusion of purpose and strength. Half of the youngers fell asleep...we had so many sprawled in the seats that it almost looked like we were back in our charasmatic days.

12:30 Monthly fellowship lunch at church. Yummy food and hey, I don't have to cook it! (We cheated and bought food at Central Market for this month's meal) Tim and Nathan, one of the young men of the church loaded wood in the back of the trailer.

1:30 We are on our way home. We have to stop and buy some milk for baby goats. While our goat kids sometimes are left to nurse their mothers this is the exception rather than the rule so we buy regular grocery store milk for them. This time of year I feel like we single-handedly support the cow dairy industry ourselves. Each baby goat will drink up to 60 ounces of milk a day, or almost half a gallon so we really have to stock up each time we go! Before we get to the store we get a call from a milk customer, can they come and get some milk as they will be going by the house and another call from a friend with a litter of sick puppies. She knows that we maintain a fairly well stocked medicine cabinet and she thinks the pups are dangerously dehydrated so she wants to bring some pups over for fluids. We stop and buy milk and stop at Tractor Supply to buy the larger syringes that I know I will need to give the pups their fluids.

On the way home the two girls in Europe call. They just finished visiting a goat dairy in Switzerland and they are pumped about all that they saw. I don't think we will be able to replicate the "ancient stone barn" for our kid shelter, but we may be able to incorporate some of their ideas when they get home. After all, the dairy has been in operation for three generations now, so I suspect that they may have worked out some of the details that still bedevil us.

2:40 arrive at home, see our friends truck but no sign of our friends. We look on the deck, not there. We look in the dairy, not there either, so we resort to calling. Finally we hear them coming, they had walked down to the pond and gone exploring. They exclaim over the wooded parts of the property on the South side of the pond that they had never seen before. It really is beautiful back there and while we use the browse for the goats, we try to keep that section as it is, because it has proven to be a needed sanctuary for people to be able to sit by the wooded pond, or in the clearing back further in the woods. We tend to the puppies, three of them. They are looking rather limp, it is really sad. There is nothing to do but supportive care while we wait and pray that the medications do their job. Part of the supportive care that we will do will entail these fluids but they are really really limp which is worrisome. One is noticeably more dehydrated than the others. We warm the lactated ringers and inject in under the skin until it no longer immediately absorbed, which is a sign of dehydration. By the time we are done the worse pup is looking a little more alert and chipper. They are still very sick but hopefully this will help. She takes more lactated ringers and syringes with her and heads home with the pups. The milk customer comes and goes during this time and I didn't even get to see her, thankfully Tim was able to help her but still, I hate not getting to chat with customers!

(to be continued)

4:00 We draw up the pre-kidding shots that we need to give the goats that are due to kid this month. They are things like tetanus shots, selenium, etc. While we are giving the shots I notice that some of the does definitely need their feet trimmed but lo and behold the hoof trimmers have gone missing. I do not understand this...the goats feet are only trimmed in the milk room up on the milk stands. The hoof trimmers are kept in a tackle box in that room. There is never any reason for them to leave that room yet they are missing. Huh? I guess I know where I will be going tomorrow...BACK to Tractor Supply for trimmers!

5:30 Finally get the big fat preggo does back in their pen just in time to get the milkers out and in the holding pen to be milked. Thankfully Sara and Linnea can handle this one on their own so I leave them to start milking and head back to the house. I sit and nurse Seth and direct dinner preparations from the rocking chair while the toddlers create mayhem around me. I do not understand where the energy comes from. Those boys do their utmost each and every day to remind me that I am NOT a young mom anymore. A neighbor and fellow local food producer drives up and Tim hops in his truck...they are going into Bellaire to the last session of our church's Bible Conference. I am only a wee bit jealous but I cannot leave Kate to have to deal with the chaos that today seems by herself.

7:00 Chores are all done (except for the late night bottle for the baby goats.) We are eating dinner when Sara comes in, she has been late coming in from her chores. She is visibly upset. Sara has been caring for Ruby ever since Ruby went down several weeks ago. Ruby has gone downhill drastically just this afternoon. Whereas she was alert but unable to stand, now she cannot even really raise her head. She is otherwise fine, eating and drinking with gusto but totally weak and limp. Decision time. We will have to deal with this when Tim comes home. Thankfully Ruby doesn't seem to be in any significant pain.

7:30 Dinner done, we clean up. Seth is still settled in for a marathon nursing session.

8:00 I lack the momentum to get anyone headed towards bed so we sit and stare at the television for a while. Food Network, everyone's favorite. Engagement cake challenge followed by Iron Chef America, chocolate and coconut. Yum. Odd. Interesting. I call Tim to see how long until he gets home and tell him about Ruby. He asks if he needs to rush home. I don't think so, I do not think it will make a difference.

9:00 Enough is enough...Judah is already asleep sitting next to me in the chair, so we move the toddlers and youngers towards bed. Time for the baby goats to get their last bottle so they do as well as the first of the series of tetanus and clostridium vaccines that they will get. We watch for shock (always done after administering medications or vaccines) and they run and jump like crazy things around the living room. One took a flying leap from the couch only my lap from 4 feet away, barely missing Seth sleeping in my arms. This little doe, Millie looks to be a clown and T*R*O*U*B*L*E. Life with her is going to be fun, I can see that now!

9:40 All but the older three at home are in bed, so I have them get me a cup of hot chocolate. Usually I prefer tea but we just got some of the chocolate that we use for chocolate milk, Guittard, yummy, so I have some of that. Just as I breathe in deeply of the rich chocolate a toddler reappears and throws themselves at he, tipping my cup and pouring it down the inside of my shirt. Thankfully it isn't hot, lukewarm in fact, so I guess it wouldn't have been as enjoyable as I anticipated!

10:15 Tim gets home and goes out to check on Ruby. We decide to wait until tomorrow to make any decisions although we all know what the only decision is. Sara asks if she can sleep with Ruby. During the evening Sara sat with Ruby and Ruby would doze off and in her sleep move a bit away from Sara. When she awoke she would look for Sara and lay her head in Sara's lap. We say yes, she can sleep with Ruby but only with a sibling. Linnea is done, toast, not interested, her day is OVER and she doesn't care for the adventure of spending the night in the livestock trailer. (I don't blame her, really.) We wake up Emma and she and Sara go outside.

10:30 I check my email, email two midwifery clients to confirm appointments for the coming week. I work on my grocery list for the month's menus as I intend to shop Monday. I chat with Tim...

11:00 Sara comes inside and reminds me that today is the deadline to enter rabbits in the show at the Houston Livestock Show. We will not be bringing goats this year due to logistics but a rabbit we can probably do. Man, the online entries are NOT intuitive or easy to understand. First we couldn't log on due to some issue with our "credentials" so we have to start a new account, then at the end it should have been $20 for the entry and it was $5 plus a $40 late fee? We have to do it to meet the deadline but I guess we will be calling them in the morning.

12:00 Bed. Just as we turn off the lights Judah comes crying into our room. Tim welcomes him into his side of the bed and settles in to read, I think it is the WSJ. I nurse (again) and doze off.

And this is a day of REST?!