What A Third Baby Goat Taught Me About Control (Part 1)
I never gave it much thought, why I wanted FeFiFo to learn how to latch on to the nipple and suck better, until five weeks into “motherhood”.
But I jump ahead here, don’t I?
Let me press pause and introduce you to FeFiFo, my second new addition.
FeFiFo is a baby goat who came to me after being abandoned.
He was found laying by a rock, crying for his mama, while roasting in the hot Caribbean sun. He was filthy and depleted, and I later learned, covered in mites.
FeFiFo, our very first night together.
Hmm, that’s animal lice, if you didn’t know.
I picked FeFiFo up on a Thursday afternoon, while carting along Lucky B, my first ‘new-to-me’ addition to my little four-legged family.
Lucky B, our very first day, about 12 hours old.
Lucky B was not yet 24-hours old, and so flipping cute. He’d been in my care since that morning when I went to check on him and see if his teen-mom had returned.
Yep, abandoned by a teenage mom, what a story.
So a quick note on Lucky B, as I know you must be interested...
I’d gone out to enjoy a healthy dinner the night before, at my favorite island restaurant (where everyone knows my name), and it was over my delicious salad that I heard a baby crying.
Well, the first cries happened pre-salad, over wine with good friends for an impromptu dinner date, but I hit pause on my old need-to-save-all-people-creatures-and-the-bloody-world way of being and didn’t run to investigate.
I’d spent enough time on the island, almost-two-years, to know now that while it sounded human, it was not.
Plus, I’d work on myself and let go of that seemingly innate need to worry about-all-the-things-all-the-time and martyr myself for others.
Good-bye social worker mentality.
(Disclaimer so I only receive love notes: I am not dissing social workers, far from it, I am acknowledging that I acted as one when it was not my place to.)
Yet this cry, it was a bit distressed, so even as I hit pause on my old way of running to the rescue, I paid attention. I mean I have mama-ears as I’m a female, so how could I not.
I made it halfway through my delightful, perfectly-drizzled-with-pesto dressed greens before I simply had to go investigate.
Okay, it was my choice, but the desire to make sure all was well was stronger than me.
And I say ‘had to’ it disturbed my ability to sit there and simply enjoy a meal with friends over a glass of wine.
It was a choice. My choice.
[Helicopter mom, I feel your pain.]
It took me five minutes to find the cry and just as I was about to turn back, given the lingering silence, the baby called out.
And it felt meant to be.
[Ah, self importance? Yep. Just being real here.]
So, a short walk from the restaurant into the parking lot and standing tiptoes to look over a high hill, I came face to face with Teen Mom.
But silly me, I’d left my iPhone by my salad and it was too dark to check on the baby I knew must be with her or perhaps still half in her.
So, after a few soothing words to the adolescent, mama-goat, who was standing at attention, either in labor or shock that something had come out of her own body (like I know I would have been), I jogged
(yes, me, I jogged...kinda)
...up the hill to the restaurant, took the ten steps briskly and announced to my friends that I found mama but needed light to see the baby.
And that’s how the story of Lucky B began… B stands for Brigadoon, that little restaurant I mentioned.
B also later would come to stand for Beast, Boo, B*tch… and so many other fun words!
But this isn’t about Lucky B and his story. That will come.
This compilation of words is about my reaction to how FeFiFo chose to suck, or not suck his milk from a bottle.
And how I wanted to control his way of being.
This is about how it’s a “norm” for the nipple to be sucked straight on and not from the side of his little mouth.
Says who? Says the vet. Says others with goats. Says all.
Except the one who matters most… FeFiFo.
How often do we fall into doing things the “right” way without first giving thought to — “Well, what even is the ‘right’ way?”
Without asking “does ‘right’ even exist?”
And never pausing first to check in with our gut, intuition, that sense that is within all of us.
See, that’s truly the only thing that is RIGHT.
Your inner knowing.
And it’s right for each one of us yet also different for each of use.
My ‘right’ way of thinking or being or feeling or acting or reacting or doing might be the total opposite of your ‘right’ way…
And we make that wrong.
We unknowingly take this way of thinking, taught to us early on by our parents...
Who only knows what they know when they know it so no blame and no shame here…
We unknowingly learn this way of being in school, where all are taught to act one way… line up one way… sit one way… raise our hands one way… ask for permission for every little thing, the same way...
And that way is dictated by society, by being ‘civilized’ and also by the individual teacher.
Parents, did you catch that?
Why do we interview employees who go through the interview process but we as parents don’t think to interview our child’s teacher.
The one other person your child will spend so much time with and be influenced greatly by...
[Ah, the Education Lady popped out there for a moment!]
Fun side story...
I remember listening to the Frenchman tell his son to put soap on his hands first, then wet them, or was it the other way around?
Anyway, I clearly saw it, in my mind, as personal preference, and paid attention because the husband got a bit annoyed, not typical of him at all, when his son continuously did it in what his father thought of as the ‘wrong’ way.
Or was it one more nail in the not listening coffin…who knows. But it’s curious to step back and think
Well, what’s right here?
At that moment, the kid was 15. His way, as long as no harm or foul was being caused, was the right way for him, was it not?
I mean, take to say it but hands get clean whether soap goes on them first or water, as long as one knows both are needed to get the job done.
I think, at 15, he’d figured that little factoid out.
So back to FeFiFo, this multicolored bundle of cuteness and dirt.
Well, FeFiFo has been a rebel, from day 2.
See, I took him home Thursday afternoon and allowed him to get used to me a bit that day and the next.
Meaning, I didn’t try to clean him much, didn’t force a bottle on him and didn’t push myself on the frightened little dude.
I offered and allowed him to sink into my presence and be.
No force.
Plus, I was also busy with the other little dude who was under a day old. And super cute. And, I admit, very clean…
Which meant FeFiFo didn’t eat, didn’t take to the bottle like Lucky B had that morning in all of two minutes.
Wasn’t even ‘slow on the uptake’ like my original Moo Baah had been, who went for it in all of ten minutes. (Yet, at that time, I thought it took Moo Baah forever!)
Impatient much? Ah yeah, that was my old way of being!
FeFiFo was determined to do it his way… which to me looked a lot like starvation, but I also knew enough to know I can’t eat his food for him and when hungry enough…
At least I sunk into that knowing for a while and then I lost my peace and I pushed a few syringes full of water on him…
Because seriously, dehydration is a thing.
So FeFiFo and Lucky B took up residence in my home starting Thursday and I thought nothing of slipping out Friday evening for a quick 20-minute trek to grab healthy take-out from a local bar called Swinging Doors.
Eddie made the best chicken on the island, a serving size enough to last me three meals. No joke.
Only offered Friday night, this did end up being my last meal “out” before the world shifted on its C-19 axis, but I didn’t know that at the time.
I simply ran in, shared I had two new-to-me baby goats and that Moo Baah was still king of my world, and then headed home with my order.
Again, when I say ran, run or moved fast that is a figure of speech. I am a walker. I can be a brisk walker, but a walker is I.
I drive Mz. Smart, that’s my little red SMART car’s name, back to my cottage and hear Moo Baah hollering, accompanied by baby cries, before I even round the corner down to my place.
Moo Baah prances out to greet me, all happy, frisky, excited and baah-ing up a storm. Vocalizing his displeasure with me leaving him alone, I’m sure.
But as we walk together up the hill and to the gate, the baby cries are pretty loud. Surprising set of lungs on my new addition.
I know, leaving infants home alone even for 20-minutes, so not cool. And I didn’t even quarantine — I mean, isolate them — in a bathroom or somewhere.
I assumed, so small, what harm can come.
Well, I open my gate allowing Moo Baah to enter first, simply because he has flipping horns, to see FeFiFo, who’d yet to be named, in the front YARD.
Baahing bloody murder
Or Maaaaa
And coming toward me at full baby run.
Well, I managed to shut the gate and walk ahead of Moo but missed catching FeFiFo who ran past me to, oh sh*t, Moo Baah — Daaaad.
Ah yeah, confused.
Well, Moo was not impressed and proceeded to head-butt the little sucker, gently, but it was a warning for sure, and just about stopped my heart.
Side note, FeFiFo weighed maybe 1.5 kilos at this point, which is what? 3 pounds. And Moo Baah, he’s a good 60 lbs.
So yeah — heart-stopped.
Working hard not to yell at Moo, I juggled my chicken dinner, protected myself from horns, and scooped up a now-terrified (my interpretation) baby goat while hightailing it to the kitchen door…
With big Moo Baah in toe probably thinking — game!
It was a juggle to not drop dinner, baby, water bottle and open my double dutch door all before Moo Bahh and his horns could get too close. Not that he’s mean, mind you, he’s just...well, a goat.
So, I treat him as such, minus all the love and conversations.
Meaning, he’s a wild animal who’s been ruined, I mean, domesticated.
Goats head-butt and use their horns. I can not get mad at him for having his natural goat reactions to things...even when it puts me in ‘danger’.
Or puts little FeFiFo in jeopardy.
Speaking of, they spent up to 20 minutes together in my (thankfully) walled yard, before I arrived.
So how did FeFiFo get outside when the door was closed?
Great Q and how he got the Fe in his name....
[ Read Part 2 Now. I know you want to. ]
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