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Maggie doesn’t like much solid food, but girls got taste.  She very much enjoys the ewe’s milk chevre I make.  I am presently noshing on some.  I figure the 1 mile diet goodness of it all outweighs the fact that I am scooping it out of the bowl with piece after piece from a box of Cadbury’s HEROS that my mother in law brought back from Scotland.

Ahem.

It’s been a long day.  I did a lot of things today.  And Maggie remains attached to me for almost the entire duration.  Her inability to be put down by me phase, which started at roughly 6 months, while getting better, is still essentially in full effect.  The only thing I haven’t done with Mags on me is use the WeedWhacker, and that’s only because I can’t get her to keep on ear protection.  Every other task around here from personal hygiene, to folding laundry, to carrying 5 gallon jugs of water out to the goats in ALL forms of weather, to tending the garden has been successfully carried out with her on my back, front or arm.  You gotta do what you gotta do and I want her to trust me as her parent.  She’s too little to get that when she cries for Mommy and I don’t answer, it’s not  because I have abandoned her like she thinks, it’s because I am REALLY TRULY VERY BUSY.

Today I packaged cheese for the market tomorrow with her on me.  She just wanted to follow the project through, as I MADE the cheese with her on me.  For those curious, we have gone with chunk and not tube, for ease of re-wrapping.  We tested it out.  The wrapping went beautifully.  Tomorrow we will be selling plain ewe’s milk chevre; herbed with tarragon and oregano; sprinkled with salt and chilis; mixed with vanilla and sugar; and slathered with chocolate shavings.  If you live in the Kincardine area, come to Conaught Park tomorrow before noon and buy our cheese, please!

Back on the kid tip.   One mommy blogger I read recently wrote “I do know that I don’t want a kid who will only want to be with me”, as her three month old is attached to her body.   And another more seasoned mommy blogger I read recently wrote “if your child only wants you—let me tell you something, don’t offer your story to someone who’s living the opposite scenario. I say this with kindness and the knowledge that you’re just trying to help, but no, you DON’T know how the other shoe feels. I’m sure it also sucks to have a child suction-cupped to your body all day long, a child who refuses Daddy’s loving embrace in favor of following you around sobbing to be picked up, but oh man, it’s just not the same.”

I know of that pain.  And let me say, it keeps my feelings about the Meeps Scarf that I wear in check.  Bob went through this phase where he wanted very little to do with me once Daddy came home.  And by “very little” I mean that he screamed bloody murder whenever I tried to do up his shoes, or read him a book or put him in his car seat.  Or anything involving him pretty much at all.  “DADDY DOOOO IT!” He would yell in my face.  Over and over and over again.   All the colicky months of nursing him while standing and rocking (and weeping from exhaustion) meant nothing.  In those, the LONGEST of moments, it felt like he hated my guts.  And I felt like I had wilted.

The day will come ALL TOO SOON when your child wants NOTHING to do with you.

So….The baby scarf phase.  It passes.  And gives way to other phases.  Like the DADDY DO IT phase, and the BOB DO IT phase.  Like the phase we’re presently in with Bob, when he acts all BOMBALOO and I have to excuse myself from public places while he thrashes every limb at once, spasms every muscle and emits fog horn type noises interspersed with shrieks.  That’s AFTER he’s shredded and smashed everything he could get his hands on in the 3.8 seconds it takes him to go from being a perfectly pleasant child to a…. less pleasant child.  And all this while trying simultaneously to protect the OTHER child in my arms from being bludgeoned.  Yup.

You take it all in stride because you know this one thing.  THEY HAVE TO SLEEP EVENTUALLY.  And then, despite how truly shattered you are, you get up to eat several thousand calories in chevre and chocolate and blog.