I do not believe in reincarnation (goodness, imagine if I came back as a goat in my next life!) - but certainly it is true that life seems to go in cycles. Seventeen years ago my days were consumed with caring for my infant twin daughters - an endless schedule of bottles, diaper changes, and rocking them to sleep before it all started again a few hours later.
Now, thankfully, my children are independent in all these areas. Some mornings I barely see the girls before they grab their self-packed lunches and rush out to catch the school bus. That's when my real work begins. I mix up breakfast for the goats (a cocktail of five ingredients) then quickly get dressed, make myself some oatmeal and start a load of laundry before the goats are ready for morning bottles. All that warm milk gets the digestive systems going, so my next task is sweeping up some half ton of pellets. (That's the part that correlates to diaper changes, if you're keeping track.) Elliot wanders off to eat more hay but little Emerson is ready for his morning nap, so he stands next to me, silently pleading...and how can you refuse a sleepy goat who just wants to be held? I grab a plastic crate and hoist his near-fifty pounds onto my lap. He snuggles himself in and after a few minutes his eyes are closed, his breathing deep and steady. Not exactly how I planned to spend my morning, but...
Seventeen years ago, I would have counted having a sleeping baby in my arms one of life's greatest blessings. I guess there are worse things in life than this...
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