November
24, 2003
The day was
unusually warm today so I called to the children each by name, once they were
all around, I told them what I had in mind.
“Darcy, I need you
to take, Shanda, Kenya,
and Elliot, Melody to the barn, I think that Bliss and Chace can help in some ways as well, I want you all to
clean it out the best you can, but don’t put any fresh bedding down, leave it
out. Timmy, Joy, and Tanni, Cyanne,
and ChyanneI need you to help me take all the stuff
to the new barn.” They all looked at me with wonder.
“I’m going to be
attaching the house to the barn, and the play house so
that you all have your own rooms.” The children looked at me with wide eyes,
there will be an area for you older ones that don’t really want to have the
younger ones near, and the babies will be near me still. As you clean think
about the way you want your rooms to be. Now if you still want to share a room
to sleep in, that’s fine as well. Then you can still have what’s your room to
be for your own toys, and clothing and such.” Each started to head into doing
what they were suppose to. As I got ready to head down
to the new barn with the tractor full of the fresh beddings. Elliot ran
up to me eyes wide, I picked him up so that he was at
my level.
“What about Sky?”
“Don’t worry she’ll
be home soon. She’ll be able to have the same as the rest.” He laid his head on
my shoulder. I knew he missed her I hated to see him like he’d been with her
gone. Elliot wasn’t himself. Not mean, or anything, he just kept quiet. He
didn’t want to do anything but cling to me.
“Elliot,
how about you work on the half that you think that Skyla might like.” The little boy’s head lifted up as he agreed
to start.
An hour went by before
I headed up to tell the other children that they could rest. When I got there I
found that Darcy somehow made the work into a game of some sort. Not wanting to
bother them I stood there and watched. Then got in on it as
well. By the time the game was over I wasn’t the only one covered in hay
and straw.
“Hi
Mamma!” I had to smile as I
looked for a clean spot on Kenya,
“What’d you do use
yourself as a broom?” I asked as I picked her up. She smiled and nodded eyes
wide as they could get.
“I was going to tell
you that you could all stop when you wanted and had something to eat and drink.
“
“We want to keep
going Mamma!” Kenya told me as she climbed down. I looked around, are you
sure?” They all nodded, I about kicked myself, they’ve really wanted, no needed
this. I couldn’t believe I had over looked this.
“Well then seeing
that the animals are all down at the other one, and all those chores are done,
let me help you.” They nodded.
“Amma!”
I turned to Bliss who had a rag in her hands herself and was reaching up to me.
I picked her up and let her help.
“She’s been doing
going back and forth between the others as well ‘helping’ them as well.” Darcy
said with a laugh. They were all enjoying this I could tell.
“Chace!”
I turned to see what had happened, Chace was laughing
as hard as he could, and Elliot was jumping all over the place, and was trying
to get something out of the back of his pants,
“What in the world?”
I asked as I walked over to see what was going on. “Chace, what did
you do?”
“He put something
crawly down my pants!” I had to laugh, I had no idea
that he knew how to do that!” I turned to Chace and
picked him up.
“Chace,
you little Scamp,” He laughed repeating the word scamp over and over. I handed
him to Tanni, and told Elliot, that we’d go inside so
he could get rid of what ever it was.
“I think your little
brother got you big time, Elliot!” Elliot rolled his eyes up, and glared at me.
“I think so.” He
answered as we walked into the house.
“What was it?” I
called through the bathroom door.
“It was a spider! It
was big too!” He called out as he opened the door. Elliot stood there pouting a
bit.
“He was mean! I’m
going to,…”
“You will not do
anything, Chace didn’t know that he was doing
anything that was wrong or mean.” We headed back out. For awhile Elliot seemed
to be getting back into things after a couple threats of being sent inside for
a nap, though. He was like that ever since that incident with the spider and
his brother. I could see that most of the little ones had to be getting worn
out.
“I want you all to
stop for a little while.” Once we were in, as I laid both Chace and Bliss down.
I noticed it was pretty quite. I had to laugh the three younger cubs, all laid
in one pile, while the older three laid in another
sleeping. Not wanting to bother them I headed to my seat and just watched them.