On Being A Mother

 As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be a mother. 

I wanted someone to love me and I wanted someone to love. 

I wanted to get married, have babies and raise them. I wanted to teach other children and love them.

 The few photos I have of me as a child I had a baby doll in my arms

or I was caring for my little sister.  I learned how to be a mother from my daddy, my aunts, and my grandmother.

One thing I will never regret is taking part in raising my little sister, having and raising my own four children and taking part in caring for so many other children along the way. 

The one thing I never knew, was how hard it would be to let them go. 

I never understood how hard it would be to say goodbye to my children as they started their own lives and didn't have time to call their Mom. 

I didn't know how hard it would be to be a mother. 

I didn't know how difficult it would be to make decisions for them or for myself that would make them angry at me or that might hurt them temporarily. 

I didn't know how painful it would be to me to see them hurt. 

I didn't know. Had I known, I wouldn't have changed anything. 

Ive loved being a caretaker, a mother and a sister. 

A Mothers Love doesn't discriminate

 Remember that cute little yellow Duckling? Here it is! I had no idea Ducks grow so fast! 

I purchased a duck and 6 chicks at the same time. We laughed at the fact that Dexter would grow up thinking he/she is a chicken.  We also didn't know if Dexter was a boy or a girl and still don't. I'm inclined to believe its a female as Dexter has strong maternal instincts. Dexter thinks these chicks are her babies.  Above you will see that I took Dexter out of the run for a swim in the kiddie pool. She just jumped out and waddled over to the run trying to get close to those babies and didn't like that they were inside and she is outside.

 I later purchased two more ducklings. One is with these chicks that you see in the run. The other is inside the coop with the two Polish Top Hat chicks. The black duck (Batman) has a deformed leg due to a vitamin deficiency and has a difficult time walking around. For now Ill keep it with the little ones.

Its quite the job taking care of all these animals these days.  Every morning I have to let the hens out to free range, let the chicks and two ducks into the run, make sure they all have plenty of water (since ducks drink about a gallon a day) and I move the Top hats fromthe tiny brooder in the coop to the larger brooder in the coop with Batman. I make sure they all have food and water and then go on to work. In the afternoons I come home and let the ducks swim and before dark I have to move all the chickens back to their original places. It will be nice when they can all be together! 

Some days I love these creatures with all I have in me and other days, I want to get rid of all the animals and my belongings and just be alone! I guess that's life!