Recovering - slightly, after traumatic bead store adventure

I've been thinking since I last wrote about work - I almost considered taking that post down, because it came off as kind of whiny.  I like the farm work.  I like what I do every day, and I wish I had time and energy to do more.  It feels so grounding and healthy to be working purposefully, practically.  I get restless at my house in town.  I think what really drained my energy was the desperation behind it.  I really wanted everything to work out, to be beautiful and fruitful and healthy.  But I'll be honest - this ain't the Shenandoah Valley.  We've got sand.  It's gray sand, but still very sandy.  The natives lived mostly on game and what came out of the creeks and waterways, which are all polluted now.  They weren't farming most of their food.  It's tough here.  And there is a stigma in my family about non-intellectual work.  It's considered pointless drudgery.  I guess I had to work through that.

Well, the calf was frolicking when I was out doing the milking last night.  He would rest awhile, nurse awhile, and then tear across the pasture with his tail up like a little maniac.  So cute!
Poor Chestnut is kind of a helicopter mother.  She ran after him, mooing desperately while he skipped and pranced around.  It's a little ridiculous, because they are in a totally safe and secure pasture with hard fencing.  But I can sympathize....

I used to judge parents that seemed overly concerned that way when my son was a baby.  Now since Clothilde became mobile I know what it is like having to constantly supervise a crazy child who could at any moment scale any piece of furniture and suddenly be doing things like sticking pins into the electrical sockets (after first disposing of the useless childproofing plug), playing with matches, either drinking out of the toilet, clogging it with an entire roll of toilet paper, or flooding the bathroom.  Some kids you just have to keep a really close eye on.  At least Clothilde couldn't walk until she was nine months old.  It would have been even more horrible if she could have done that thirty minutes after birth.

Speaking of which, we went on the most hellish bead-shopping trip ever today.  I had to bring Clothilde.  It was hell, pure hell.  The women in the bead store hated us dearly.  Too bad their system of picking out beads meant you also had to write every bead, price and quantity down on tiny paper.  They were so rude to us.  I think they were hoping we would just leave without buying anything, but I stuck it out.  Clothilde did her best to ravage everything, and even managed to throw her shoe across the store after a 15-minute scream fest because I was restraining her.  Oh well.  I hardly ever go in there, anyway.  Rose would have been perfectly behaved in there when she was a baby.  It's so hard to judge other people's parenting, because so much depends on what kid you get - and you don't get to choose!  I just try not to judge at all any more.