Fun and Not So Fun, or, What I Considered Not Posting

The children had a good time today. We have enough presents waiting to be opened that I’m not sure where we will put them all. Not in a merely academic way, but in a literal THERE IS NO SPACE way. So we each opened a gift this morning, in hope that I’ll be able to find proper places for them. It was really fun! We watched Abraham’s DVD; Jadon worked on his activity books; and Abigail carried her Beanie Baby around everywhere. Phil opened a book on Forgotten Arts and Crafts which he loved. Seeing the section on thatching made him want to do a thatched roof. I think that sounds delightful, but I’m not sure it would be practical.

In the afternoon, Isaiah insisted we read Twenty and Ten, a great true story about how some French children save some Jewish children during WWII. We had read it earlier this year, but Isaiah wanted to hear it again, so we spent a few hours doing that.

And after dark, we broke some glow sticks that had been floating around since the summer. The children spent a happy hour or so in the dark, playing light saber and whatever else children think is fun in the dark with a glowstick.

So there was fun today.

But there was a dark side, too.

At some point this morning, Phil and I realized that our ram lamb’s failure to thrive is due to deformities, not insufficient or misguided care. Had we had the good fortune of seeing a healthy ram lamb at some point, we would have recognized much earlier that he was not going to make it.

But who would have guessed that we’d get a deformed lamb at the first? I assumed that all ram lambs have separate testicles that will later join to form one sack. And I knew that proper urination comes out of the proper shaft, near the center of the belly. So what is the yellow draining liquid from an unusual slit below the tail? The clincher for me came when, in a final effort to make sure that I had done all I could for the lamb, I gave him an enema. Rather than helping him expel meconium, or gain greater comfort, the water drained right out of that same unusual slit.

As Phil said, “There is something really wrong with his internal organs.”

Why did our first ram lamb have to be deformed? Why did we perhaps torture it in our misguided attempts to help it? Why on earth did God call us to farm? It’s a rough task! And while it makes for interesting cyber communication, it also makes for real tears.

We debated putting it down. We decided that, if it appeared to be in pain, Phil would put it down. That’s stressful for both man and animal, though. So since it is not in apparent pain, we’ll let it continue for the time.

Oh, little lamb, sleep near your mother, cradled by your sister, and drift to eternal sleep in the cold winter’s night.