No sleep on the farm

You might imagine that the days are hectic here on the farm.

Let me tell you ... they are. Some days I can hardly keep my head above water; or at least above the laundry, gardening, cookin’ and cleanin’. Not to mention the mothering. With my brood, there is a whole lot of mothering to be done each day.

Today we woke up at the crack of dawn, Brutus (the rooster) was crowing in all his glory. However, Frannie here wasn’t really at the top of her game.

Little Miss needed a whole lot of mothering last night – she woke up hour after hour, yellin’ her loudest MaaMaa, MaaMaa … now if you are a mommy, you know how terrifying this can be in the middle of the night. It is something akin to the telephone ringing at 2am and knowing that it can not be good news.

Yep, it wasn’t good news. It seems that Little Miss had a slight run in with some foreign plant life yesterday and the side effects kicked in around 1am. Blurry eyed I wandered to her room, I calamined her hand; red and itchy – no fun there! Of course then she wanted MaaMaa to lay with her – on her single bed.

Now, I know that Frannie has that cute little photo at the top of the page and as much as I would like for it to be an accurate reflection of myself, it just isn’t so. I am the mother of 4, a farm wife and I love to cook. Exercise? I try – I run after those chickens and children all the time, but it doesn’t do me a bit of good when The Prince insists on meat, potatoes and homemade bread every night – so this means I am not svelte – and a single bed is not my friend, especially if I have to share it with a wiggly, itchy youngin’ …

So I got Little Miss all settled in and as she drifted off to sleep, yep I did the bad bad thing – I crept out of the room as fast as I could. I snuggled up in my King-Size-Bed, spooning with The Prince … oh, but you know that didn’t last long.

An hour later an even louder MaaMaa was squealin’ through the house, probably wakin’ up the Widow Wilson. Off I slump and let me tell you … I was slumpin’! We start all over; me reassuring Little Miss that MaaMaa isn’t going to be leaving her all alone in the dark with itchy hands (and now feet too).

I tried to stick it out, really I did. I tried to stay there until I thought I would go insane. Little Miss is a snuggler in the worst way. She wants to wrap herself around me in more way than I would ever let The Prince try. I gave it a valiant effort for about 45 minutes, but when Little Miss was sound asleep; I just had to make my way back to the King-Size-Bed.

I had to kick the cat off the bed and tell The Prince to move over before I could burrow in again. Obviously my slumber did not last long … the call came again, of course I went and I stayed … until, of course, Brutus gave his wake up call.

The days are never dull here on the farm. No sir, we have more fun than any family deserves to have.

Don’t worry; I’ll be givin’ Little Miss the appropriate dose of Benadryl before she goes to bed tonight. Frannie needs her sleep!


I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4