Swim fetch fun

 After expertly moving all the sheep and goats out of the back pasture, Rialey got to play some swim fetch in the pond.

Then the thought occurred to me, what if something went wrong, and I had to go in after her. Rialey's a great swimmer, but there I was standing there with a 7 month old strapped to my back. Although Elliot has been taking swim classes, I'm not sure he's quite ready for an inter-species water rescue. I guess we'll stick to dry land play for a while.

Naps

All along I've said that Elliot is a very middle of the road baby. He's not the kind of easy baby that sleeps through the night and endlessly amuses himself during the day. On the flip side, he's also not the kind of baby who required endless rocking and walking the floors.

With him, it almost always boils down to just two things, gas and naps. As he's gotten older and I've learned what in my diet causes him issues, the gas has become less and less of a problem. I mean he still toots like a grown man on taco night, but the gas doesn't cause the same kind of pain and suffering for all of us.

This just leaves naps. From the beginning, Elliot was not a great sleeper. He's not terribly difficult to get to sleep. If the timing is right, few minutes of walking and bouncing and singing boring songs usually does the trick. The problem is that he doesn't stay asleep. If left to his own devices, during the day he will nap for about half an hour at a time. My mother has solved this problems by spending many, many hours holding and rocking and soothing him into sleeping for 2-3 hour stretches. This has the advantage of getting him the hours of sleep he should have, that he needs but the disadvantage that little boy has never learned to sleep on his own. Plus his Mawmaw won't be around forever. Pair this with the fact that he was sleeping snuggled in the bed with me at night, and we have a baby who just cannot sleep on his own.

We've started working on it. During the day, we are trying to put him down for naps and at night he is sleeping at least part of the night in a pack and play next to the bed. Night time is working pretty well (I'm slowing recovering from baby snuggle withdrawal), but so far he cannot nap for more than about 20-30 minutes without waking and crying. The pediatrician says this is a very common time for sleep regression anyway. He says no matter what we do, things should get better in the next couple months. For the sake of our cranky kid and my unfolded laundry, I sure hope so!

The cuteness

Sometimes this kid is so cute it hurts! (if I do say so myself)

A boy and his dog

Nobody messes with her baby. Nobody.

Splashing away the grumps

 Elliot woke up this morning a cranky dude. Tried letting him splash around in his ducky tub to restart our day.

Seems to have worked!

What's Happening!

So a lot has happened since last I posted here.

Anthony and I welcomed our newest family member into the world on August 15th. Little Anthony Elliot was 8lbs 5oz and ?? in long. I had to be induced due to high blood pressure, but otherwise went natural. Labor was fast and furious. I walked and walked and walked around my hospital room until it was time to get into the tub and push. Elliot came out perfect and healthy into the warm water and his dad's waiting arms. I had a few health issues afterward, but all is well now. We are both doing just great!

The other big news is we moved! Anthony was offered a really great job up in Greensboro, NC just before Elliot was born. The bad news was that they needed him to start very quickly which meant leaving baby and me when El was only 3 weeks old. Anthony found us a wonderful farm less than 15 minutes from his work and busted his butt to get it ready to move me, the baby, and a select group of our animals.

On my end, I sold off a lot of livestock and tried to pack up the house and farm. My mother moved onto the farm and helped with animal and baby care. Of the goats, Eve and Turnip got sent to a wonderful lady to join Rutabaga (now Mayberry) and get spoiled rotten. I sold off all but the very best of our flock leaving us with a very nice looking group. We ended up moving with 9 sheep, 9 goats, and a motley group of turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and quail. My dad helped us purchase a gorgeous livestock trailer to get everyone moved.

Anthony with the invaluable help of my step-dad packed a giant u-haul truck full to the brim with our belongings and used it to pull the stock trailer up to our new place. All the animals did well with the move, though Fred, our barn cat, was more than a little pissed at being moved with the livestock (safe in a crate, of course). We are all now settled in our new home awaiting kids and lambs and trying to convince the chickens to stop flying out of their pen at night.

The farm itself will be shifting from a business to more of a homestead. A place for us to raise our own food and focus a bit more on our own family. There may be some products in the future, but both Anthony and I agree that egg sales are for the birds!

So what is the future of this blog? We'll be keeping the name HighTail Farms because we feel like it is who we are, not where we are. Ideally I'd like to turn this into a 365 project. That's a picture a day, everyday. I did it for years, but we'll see if it is something I can keep up with now that we have a farm and a small human to contend with.

That means there will also be a bit of a shift in the content. Expect a lot of pictures of the ins and outs of our daily life, less direct focus on the farm, and of course lots of pictures and videos of baby Elliot because I'm a new mom and I think he's really stinkin cute. I'm warning everyone now so you can get out while the gettin's good!

I'll be moving a handful of posts over here in the next few days (weeks?) because I was originally thinking I would start a whole new blog for the 365.  I hope everyone will stay tuned. Life with baby and farm certainly hasn't been boring so far. I look forward to chronicling our future here with all of you.

Santa

Today, mom and I carved out a small chunk of our crazy schedule to go get Elliot's first Santa picture. Because I'm a bit of a crazy person, I opted to sit in the picture with him instead of letting Santa with his touching every kid with every god knows what kind of disease gloves hold my baby. Look, I'm all for germs and early exposure and working that immune system, but not with my 4 month old and not right now. We don't even have a good pediatrician picked out in Greensboro yet.

Anywho, here's our Santa pic. We tried to get a smile out of the little guy, but did not succeed. His smiles are frequent and easy but fleeting so by the time the photographer got back to her camera, El was back to his default face. Oh well, he's still his adorable self. 

The day was a bit of a kerfuffle. Everything that could...I don't want to say go wrong exactly, but everything we tried to do ended up being more complicated than usual. El managed to fountain my mother with pee THREE times during one diaper change, the last of which called for a costume change on his part. While we were out, he pooped twice. We arrived to the Santa place while they were out to lunch, and mom didn't inform me until halfway through the day that she had an engagement that evening. So by the time we got half of our to do list done, we had to run home. I nursed a very hungry Elliot then ran out and did chores in about 10 minutes flat. Afterward while mom and her husband did their thing, Elliot, Rialey and I finished our errands for the day.  

My poor baby. By the time we were finally heading home for the last time, he had had it and started crying in the car. I pulled over twice to try and soothe him to no avail. I even tried driving (carefully down back roads) while dangling my cell above his head playing an app that has shiny balls rattling around. Nothing helped, but I did get pretty good at fishing out a dropped pacifier and shoving it back into his mouth blind and backwards though.

Respite

My absolute favorite part of these crazy days is getting to sit down every couple hours with my sweet boy to nurse. When I was pregnant, all my baby dreams involved nursing him, and I'm so blessed that our nursing relationship is working so well for the both of us. Elliot has an excellent appetite, and I am so far keeping up with his needs. At night he nurses himself to sleep and during the day, it's the one surefire way to calm him. For me, it's a time to stop, breathe, gather my thoughts, and just enjoy this fleeting time with my little one.

Leeloo banana

I have this silly habit of sticking produce stickers on the dogs' foreheads and then declaring them a Mexican tomato or a California kiwi for the day. Well, this morning my mother decided this big old "organic" sticker should not go to waste so she turned Leeloo into an organic banana. Leeloo was not amused.

In other news, we are working towards getting all the sheep and goats legal to cross state lines for the big move. We got an official scrapies ID number and ordered ear tags for everyone. The vet is coming out later this week to fill out the necessary paperwork. Many of the goats are LaManchas who don't even have ears to tag so we'll be putting the tags on their newly cleaned collars instead.

I've also included this bonus pic of the Elliot monster just because. 

Elliot is 4 months old!

Elliot turns 4 months today. The little guy continues to grow like a weed and delight us with something new every day.

He now rolls over onto his belly at every opportunity and can hold his head and chest up to look around. He still hasn't figured out how to roll back, but I think it's mostly lack of interest. This little dude wants to move!

His manual dexterity continues to improve. He can hold things, flail them around, and bring them to his mouth to chew. If his pacifier falls out, he can often replace it.Yesterday he started sucking his thumb really for the first time, an action we are trying to discourage with limited success.

His head control is great. We can now carry him around one handed which makes life around here a lot easier. He is also working on sitting up and loves to sit upright in our laps and look around at the world.

He's a happy baby most of the time. He loves to be held and cuddled. The gas gets better every day as long as I am careful with my diet. Right now he loves to hear his own voice and will squeal and screech with delight with the occasional actual giggle thrown in. He knows his name and will turn to look and almost always smile when called.

He's over 16lbs now and still wanting to nurse every couple hours. At night he will sleep for 4-5 hours at time before rolling over, reaching out, and smacking me awake to nurse.

Being his momma is still my favorite thing in the world. He's by far the coolest thing I have ever made, and he gets cooler every day!

My Son the Alligator

It's 5 in the morning and my life is in chaos. Anthony and I had our first son, Elliot, almost four months ago. We are also smack in the of a giant move from South Louisiana to North Carolina. For some reason this seems like a perfect time to take on a new project.

I did a 365 photo project years ago. It lasted many years, and it has been wonderful to look back and see my life documented. With the new baby and the new farm, I am looking for a way to keep a record of these crazy, fast changing times. 

The parameters of this project are simple: a picture a day. At least one picture per day. It may be one quick cell phone shot or a series from a photo shoot with the "good camera." Maybe an occasional video. I may share my thoughts on the day, I may not. 

For my first pic, I thought I'd share what early motherhood looked like laced with a bit of TMI. I use this bouncy chair to park Elliot while I do things in the bathroom. Well having to interrupt an early morning feeding for him with an urgent toilet trip for me meant rousing a sleepy baby to bring him with. Of course now he is wide awake. 

Elliot thought this would be a great time to practice being an alligator and roll, roll, roll. 

I feel the need to point out that the little guy is not actually falling out of his chair. Just hanging awkwardly and flailing. Now I know why almost all baby seats come with seatbelts. Cue the tantrum!