Remember this little ball of fluff?
Well look at her now:
My Luke keeps asking, "Can you believe how fast they are growing up?"
I tell him that I feel the same way about him.
Our chicks are getting their big girl feathers and beginning to act like real chickens, pecking around, flapping their big wings and fussing at each other.
My poor little chicken Papas are getting a quick course on the joys and pains of parenthood. They are so excited to see their girls getting big, but they are also a little sad and a lot scared to LET them be big!
Their babies used to snuggle in when they held them, now, like all big kids, they squirm and fuss if you hold on too long. They have things to do, place to go, bugs to catch! They've got no time for snuggling! So, my fellas have had to learn to sit still in the pen, to not chase the chicks, but wait for them to come over on their own terms for a snuggle. And they do, but it is hard to wait. Very very hard.
I understand this feeling.
Also, like all good daddies, my guys just ached with worry the first time their little ones ventured into the world on their own.
The chickens were outgrowing their indoor box, so we put up a pen in the backyard, and moved their box into it.
We close up the box at night, but in the day time, they can run around the pen, scratching in the grass and spreading their new wings. My guys spent a good part of the first day in there with the chickens! I drew the line at delivering my children's dinner to them in their cage.
So the first day was a lot of fun, that first night though, it took my guys FOREVER to go to sleep with their babies all alone in the backyard. The boys were so worried that a cat or a snake, or a crocodile or a rogue hippo would come and devour their girls.
I told them I understood this too. I felt just that same way when I left them in the nursery at church for the first time.
Parenthood is rough.
Remember that thing in high school, where they give you an egg and see if you can keep it safe? It's supposed to simulate parenthood, but I think they would have come closer to the bittersweet truth of raising little ones if they had passed out fluffy little chicks!
By the way, they made it through the night just fine, which called for celebratory sugar cereal on the deck, of course :-)
