Cowvan

Ran into this weirdness while out running errands. Better pictures here.

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!

Sleep, barn doors, and my Gwenny

We are pooped. The holidays and the packing have taken their toll. I treasure getting to cuddle up with my little guy every night and snuggle and nurse our way to sleep.

Meanwhile, up in North Carolina Anthony is hard at work getting the farm ready for all of us. He and his father built and painted these amazing doors to close off a safe room for the sheep and goats to overnight. I can't wait to see them in person. 

We lost my babygirl Gwen last year on Christmas Eve. I realized this year that through the magic of things like timehop and facebook memories, I'll get to relive her swift and horrible demise in pictures every holiday season.
That's why I was so happy to wake up this morning to this picture of my girl in her prime during her visit to a physical therapist for her knee. She was a an ornery and hard-headed goat who was so smart and funny and sweet in her own way. I still miss her every day.

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.