No cause for alarm

This blog entry is dedicated to my 'baby' baby who will be 11 months old tomorrow. Awwwwww.
I hardly ever get to blog about her because, frankly, she's too young to be really bad yet. (Read: have her father's genes manifest themselves ... heh, just kidding. Anyone who knows us knows where the bad stuff comes from.)

Now, lemme tell ya, this is the most laid-back baby I’ve ever had. I thought her brother was cool, but this girl takes the cake. Siblings trod on her hand? Not a peep. Sister sits on her head? She laughs (This has actually happened - twice - no kidding. I turn around to muffled laughter coming out from under Tall Girl's bum.)

This baby almost never cries. She only cries when she's hungry or physically hurt.

So yesterday when I found her crawling toward me, weeping, I jumped up.

I inspected her high and low, checked the time to see if she was due a bottle, then noticed something dark in her mouth. I prised her strong gummy jaws open for a closer look.

Babies are very oral. They continuously taste things. The sibs also share amongst each other. Tall Girl is particularly bad. She’s going thru a picky phase (this is the child who sincerely believes athat 26 thompsons white seedless grapes - and perhaps some watered down Juicy Juice Strwberry-Kiwi - constitute an excellent meal) and is always giving Bitty Girl her rejected food.

Well, Ms Fat and Happy had managed to retrieve (from where, I know not) and insert (with her long mastered pincer grasp that she’s supposed to be just now perfecting) what appeared to be … a clod of dirt.

Now … we live on a farm. Subsequently, the word ‘dirt’ when applied to something found inside the house generally refers to dried bits of actual soil mixed with …wait for it …goat and sheep poo. That’s what we farm: Livestock. Mixed flock of goats and sheep plus various fowl for eggs and our own table. This rich soil/poo mixture rides into the house on our boots as a matter of course.

My baby daughter was possibly eating goat poo.

Now, while this might send you into pyroxisms of panic, I’ve been farming a long time. And I have 3 ½ children. After awhile the “OH FUCK!” factor in certain situations is greatly reduced.

So there I am, calmly scooping out all the offending matter while she smiles at me and gums me fiercely with her strong jaws. I administered a bottle and all was well.

Wow, it's hard to beleive that my little one will be a year old in just a month. She'll be almost exactly 15 months old when her baby brother is born (the widest gap between my kids). Her sister will be 2 and her brother 3 and 3 months.

Yep. I'm insane. In love and In sane.