baybeasts

It’s been a funny old year. It’s the year in which we got our dream - our family, our two boys. And we couldn’t love them more. But it has been such a humbling year too. We didn’t have the births we hoped for, and we are not the parents we thought we would be. We were never going to wrap (we did), give a dummy (we’ve tried but Loey refuses it), use disposables (Huey needs them for his nappy rash), give drugs (we’re giving panadol to Loey to get a few precious hours sleep, and oral antibiotics to poor three week old Huey for the hideous nappy rash). We knew this year would be hard, but failed to realise just how hard that would feel.

The latest disappointment is the loss of the chickens. It was such a great idea - we were going to pre-load the cost of eggs by buying the coop and the chooks, and save ourselves heaps of money. What we didn’t expect was to fall in love with them so deeply - fussing around in their glossy black dresses, they bring our backyard to life. And Loey loves them - he will sit quietly for ten to fifteen minutes just watching them.

But a friendly neighbour yesterday told us that some not-so friendly neighbours are planning on complaining to the council about our chickens. It is true, they do greet the dawn in a very enthusiastic manner. And they do attract rats (though we were going to deal with that). And we aren’t strictly following the by-laws - they are a bit close to other people’s houses. So we think that the only thing to do is to wave goodbye - we do not have the energy to have a showdown with the neighbours. Luckily, very good friends of ours who live nearby have chickens already and can also accommodate ours - we will have visiting rights and the occasional batch of eggs. But we are devastated nonetheless.

We just have to hang onto the knowledge that we won’t be here forever - there will be other chickens, in other houses. And in the meantime I think I want to get a couple of rabbits or guineapigs for Loey to watch…

(Huey post in draft, coming soon)