Daphne's Name Day

Today is Daphne's name day.

There are certain traditions that go along with this in Greece. We will be celebrating by eating some Greek food for dinner and by playing around.

Happy Name Day Daphne!

Ducks and Water

I have a veritable poultry production facility around here.

I still have 5 Cornish Cross Chicks under a heat lamp, though it may be overkill at this point. If I can get my coop ready today, I will move the heat lamp out there for all the chickens, and the ducks can stay inside without a heat lamp.

The problem with the ducks is that they make a huge mess with the water playing in it until it is all gone and then they thirst for the rest of the night until I get up to give them more water. A quart of water is more than enough to keep ducks happy for a night, but they just keep splashing and spilling it everywhere. I really think that it is going to be a much better situation when all the chickens are outside and the ducks are just acting as inside animals. They can spill their water all they want without disturbing my meat chickens.

On May 18th, I will butcher everything that is not a layer. I timed everything perfectly, actually, and that is a very good thing.

My flock will be reduced to my 7 laying hens with 9 chicks off to the butcher and 4 ducks. Peace will once again reign.

Julie is trying to convince me to do do another set of meat chicks, but I am not sure if I am ready for that.

Now I just need to get the doors on the chicken coop, and we will be in much better shape.

Milky Way

A friend of mine recommended that I head up to take a look at a goat yesterday.

After the trip, and a little bit of thinking, I finally went back up and got the goat. I am going to board her at my friends house in exchange for help with his own goats and other projects he has going around his farm. It seems to be he perfect arrangement.

Her name is Milky Way. She is a first year freshener. The lady she came from, breeds Nubians and hand raises them for show. I have never seen such a tame and tolerant goat, which makes me very happy. The goats at my friends house all have pretty tolerant temperaments also, and it is nice to not cause more havoc in the herd with a stubborn goat (stubborn goats are easy to find).

I have now milked Milky for two days in a row. She still has some kids on her, so I am getting a decent amount of milk considering that. I don't plan to push her too hard, especially considering that I am only milking her once a day right now.

Other than the fact that I am out of practice, things are going well. She is very patient for a goat that has never been milked before considering that I spent a good deal of time fumbling around getting back into the groove of it both times I milked her. It can only get better.

It is sure nice to have fresh goat milk in the house. I promised Jared some yogurt, and I will have enough milk to do that after I milk today.

I am a very happy girl.

The Pillow

I am thankful that every day Daphne is able to communicate more and more. She has such complex thoughts sometimes, and I see that it breaks her heart at times that I cannot duplicate what she is trying to say to me.

Recently, she has been very cranky. She has been sick with a cold/sore throat/cough, etc., it is the usual stuff that goes around this time of year. I hope it improves because it has been very rough on her, and we have had several screaming battles where she does not want to be put down but she does not want to be held and there is nothing she wants other than to throw herself on the floor and cry.

I am told, as a nursing mom, that this is my time to just comfort her and nurse her a lot, which I have been doing.

When I nurse her during the day, I always use a pillow. She knows when I go get a pillow and sit down that I am going to nurse her, and she makes a little, "Heh, Heh, Heh, Heh, mmmmm," noise.

Yesterday, I was sitting at my computer working, and she went over and got the pillow herself and walked it over to me while making the, "I want to nurse" noise.

Later, she actually managed to drag a pillow from the bedroom into the living room to give me a hint that I was forgetting someone.

The gesture is very cute, and I am glad that she has a way to tell me she wants to nurse.

Ben Hawkins

I got a phone call from my friend Christy yesterday afternoon. She let me know that a mutual friend (Rachel) and her husband (Ben) had been in a car accident and that Ben had actually passed away.

They had hit a patch of ice on the road and wrecked their car. They were fine, and when they got out of the car, another car came and hit the same patch of ice. The car headed straight for Rachel and Ben managed to get her out of the way before the car struck and hit him, killing him.

I am deeply saddened by this news. Rachel and I worked together practically full time for 2 years, and she is an amazing photographer and a very loving friend. Her husband was also a good friend who I saw often at get-togethers. I feel deeply for her because Ben was Rachel's whole world.

In the long run, the only way to honor someone who has been so tragically killed is to help ensure that his family make it through the tough times and to ensure that our own lives are being lived well.

In examination, I feel like we are doing the best we can in the Anderson household. Jared is doing so much better and is well enough to do anything he wants to do, which has not been the case in the past. I get the chance to be a stay-at-home-mom with Daphne, and I get to see her learn and grow, I cannot think of a more fulfilling life than that.

Ben and Rachel are in my thoughts, and I hope there is something I can do to help Rachel out in these tough times.

Potty Pooping

I am still working on the whole pooping in the potty concept with Daphne.

I feel kind of like it is an uphill battle, but that is how potty training is.

After my recent announcement about pooping in the potty, she promptly gave up and decided that she was no longer interested in doing it, and when I knew she was going to poop, I would put her up there and nothing would happen. Apparently, she doesn't like to be disturbed when she is pooping.

I was just about to give up until 2 days ago, when I caught her just at the right time, and I really did get a poop in the potty. I was excited.

Needless to say, yesterday was the same old routine with her deciding not to go when I put her on the potty.

I know she will not go to college in diapers. That is what I keep telling myself. The steps between here and there are not entirely clear.

HI

Daphne is working on the word, "Hi."

She will go up to the dog when he is paying attention to her, and he will make sure that he gets a good, "Hi"for paying her the attention she needs.

She will also wander in to the chicken in their bathtub and give them a hardy, "Hi."

She will also say, "Hi" on the phone when she can get a hold of it whether someone is there or not.

She discovered the stainless steel garbage cans today, and she found out that you could look in them and see two of yourself, which is better than only seeing one of yourself in the mirror. Each reflection got a, "Hi."

I love how defined the words are. She is cute.

More About Daphne

When I was making my annual book of Daphne during Christmas this year, I was looking for stories about her on the blog, and I didn't have as many as I would like.

My mom kept a journal from the moment she went into labor with me through the day that she died. I appreciate now 20 years later having the opportunity to look into what my life with her was like. I think that parents should hand down information about them. My method of keeping a journal and sharing that information is by keeping a journal of sorts online with Daphne's progress. The bonus to doing it this way rather than a little book kept under my bed with a lock on it is the fact that anyone who is interested gets to read what is going on.

I am doing Blog 365, and I am still on track. I have done 4 months now of posting every day. That means I am 1/3 done!

I have a new rule about blogging is that I plan to blog at least one thing every day about Daphne unless I really have nothing to say. All I can say, is who wouldn't have something to say?

Stay tuned.

Milking a Goat with a Baby

Today, I went up to get some goat milk. It was really muddy and Daphne had to sit on my back in the Ergo while I did it, so I ended up with my head on the side of the goat with Daphne level with the back of the goat trying to milk her.

It was a funny sight in real life if it is not a funny sight in your mind!

Many People in One House

Today we had two friends come over. Julie came over with her two kids and Robin and James came over with Satori.

Everyone was running around the house doing stuff, and we were all in the back room trying to sew. It was a blast. I want to host more parties like this.

I taught Robin to make a diaper, and I (sort of) helped Julie cut out enough diapers to finish the diapers we are making for a friend.

I am off to finish making some wipes for Jared and some for Daphne. After that, I need to make some kitchen strainers.

MaaaaMa

I have a short post today because I am tired after a long days work.

Today, Jared, Daphne and I were driving in the car, and I finally got my Ma-ma out of her. She says Ma-ma. I don't know if she has connected up the idea that that word refers to me, but I am happy that we are going into the ma-ma land because da-da gets so much attention.

Tag Team

The other day, Daphne and the dog had disappeared from the room, and the rest of the house was awful quiet. Those of you that have had kids know that this is a very, very bad sign, and it almost always means trouble.

After a few minutes enjoying the silence, I went to see what was amok.

Daphne had taken the dog into the back bathroom, and had opened up the shower so that he could go in and lick up the shower water from the shower I had just taken.

Talk about a team. Those two are going to get into a lot of trouble when they are older if you ask me.

The funny thing is that the dog has always had a preference for drinking the water from the bath tub or from the shower even when he has a bowl of perfectly good dog water around. Silly dog... Silly girl.

Open the Door

Daphne has got the knocing thing down. She will go up to a door and knock on it if you close it on her and she wants in.

However, she has a slightly altered meaning for knocking than us adults do.

If she wants something to open, she knocks on it. This means that closed doors that no one is behind are equally eligible as kitchen cupboards. She does like to knock on the door when we are in the bathroom. It is cute.

MMMMom

Daphne is picking up more and more words each day, and so we have been trying to emphasize the ones that would be useful to her as well as the ones that she is picking up on naturally.

Dad, Hi, Flaff, Eye, Bye... all these words have made it on the list, but she refuses to say, "mom."

I just don't know what to think. I guess she will get it one day, but I am feeling sad that it is moving further and further down the list.

Garbage Driver

Daphne has taken up a new hobby that Jared and I think are absolutely hilarious.

She has taken up driving the garbage cans in the office.

The garbage cans have never been safe from her taking things out of them and eating them, so we always kept them relatively clean, but she has just recently discovered that they are wonderful to drive.

She puts the things in the garbage can she wants to take with her, and she pushes it around the house using it like a little walker to keep her steadily on track. I think it is just adorable.

Jared thinks it is so funny, and we almost always laugh when we see her doing it. Needless to say, what is in the garbage can isn't always garbage!

We got it on video, Thank God!

It's Raining, It's SNOWING

The weather is pretty mild over here in Western Oregon, and we don't get much snow. Sometimes it will snow once or twice during the winter, but it almost never sticks.

Yesterday, I woke up, and there was snow on the ground, it was awful weird. By the end of the day, we were sitting outside playing .

Today, it was nice and sunny, so I put the chicks outside in their run to plan, and 10 minutes later, they were being snowed on. As soon as I brought them back in, the sun came back out.

Needless to say, when I went and got them at 7 this evening, they were cold and huddled in the corner. I don't blame them, they were COLD. It is cold here.

I don't know where these global warming freaks are getting their data, but it certainly isn't coming from over here.

I was told that this is the latest that it has EVER snowed here in recorded history.

I think the groundhog needs to look for different employment because it has been 6 weeks, and I don't see any spring.

Kisses

Daphne has had over a billion kisses in her lifetime. I guarantee that that is on the low end. I am always kissing her on the neck and on the cheek and pretty much anywhere that you can kiss a baby.

Today, when I was kissing her, she puckered her lips up like a fish and makes a kissing noise.

I can't describe how cute it is. She will bend over toward the person she is trying to kiss, and she puckers her lips and makes the kissing sound.

It seriously melts my heart. The first and second time that she did it, I laughed so hard until I cried, and she insisted on doing it every time I asked for the rest of the afternoon.

I don't know why there are not more kids in the world. This is too much fun.

The Hi Hug

Every morning, Daphne and I wake up and we go in to wake her daddy up. She then climbs up on the bed, and she puts her head on her dad, and she says, "Hi." It is really adorable when she does this.

Now, when she meets other people that she knows well, she will walk up to them, and she will hug them and say, "Hi."

I personally think it is the best greeting in the world, and I am glad that I get several of them each day.

Eye

Daphne learned the word "eye" today. She was sitting playing with her dad, and he said eye while she was trying to rip his eye out, and she repeated him. Now, she uses the word constantly. She knows the proper physical object that goes with the word, because if you point to her eye, she will say, "Eye."

I like that she is improving like this. How much fun is she?

Relief

I have just discovered, to my great relief that my last semester of school is officially over!

I looked up my final grades, and that means that they are final.

I got two A's and a B. It is worse than I expected, but still better than nothing. My GPA is still 3.83, so I have a bit of wiggle room. At this point, I am just trying to complete the degree so that I can graduate. It will be so wonderful to have a college degree.

And now, on to the next semester. I am taking 14 credits this semester, which is crazy. I only have to take 12, but one of the classes is 6 credits long, so I had no choice but to take it. It is what is called the Capstone, and it is the last major class I need to take as a senior before I get to do "whatever" I want. After this semester, I only need 19 more credits of "whatever" to graduate. I was hoping to be done with school by Christmas, but that may be a long shot unless I do some magic tricks in the summer, which, I may pull off.

I am still trekking along. At least I know better at the beginning of this new term what I have left to complete. I feel closer and closer to the end every day now.