I've often told people that I know in my everyday life...the people that see my sink full of dishes, the people that see me loose my cool with my boys...that this blog is the way my life would be if "life" didn't happen.
Unfortunately last night "life" did happen. We lost one of our baby ducks. Im not sure what happened. The older two boys were already asleep in bed, but Wyatt had a late nap in the car so he was still up at 8:00 p.m. He and I checked on them one last time before we shut them up in the garage in their box. We changed their water, changed the towel in the box, put out a little more food and then went out on the front porch to catch a slug or two.
When we came back with our slugs, one of the ducklings was laying on his side not moving. Not that I know how to revive baby ducks, but I checked and he was not breathing. We held him for a long time. Kissed him. Told him what a good little duckling he was. Wyatt and I both cried.
I have to tell the older two this morning and am not looking forward to it.
I am having a bit of a deja vu moment - except I am the parent now and not the child. I don't know how many baby birds we tried to save when I was a kid. How many pets we lost. Im sure it was as difficult for my parents everytime.
I know, life happens. Its all in the circle of life. Yada, yada, yada. But sometimes life just sucks. Of course I won't tell the boys that. I will udder the same words my parents told me. "Life is fragile" and "that's why mama mallards have so many babies, because most of them don't make it". "Sometimes we just don't know why these things happen." And I am sure these words will be as inadequate as they have always been.
So today, I am not posting what I had originally planned. We'll leave that for tomorrow.
Its time to go wake the older two up now. I don't want to. Right now it is cold here. (What happened to Spring?) And they are all snuggled up, warm and happy. I wish I didn't have to share this with them. But there are lessons for them here, and there are lessons for me. As much as I'd like to think, I can not protect them from "life"happening. I can only guide them through it.