Chasing Chickens

            This past week has been stressful to say the least, even more than usual. My fiancé is a wild land firefighter and has been on an assignment for two weeks. Although I am used to taking care of our daughter for the majority of the time, it’s really nice to have the extra support when he comes home from work to help me put dinner together or just hold her while I get to take a shower. Needless to say, his presence was very missed.

During his absence, three of our chickens managed to escape. We live in Los Angeles mind you, not on some farm in the middle of nowhere. So finding them isn’t as easy as driving down an old empty road. I spent a good portion of the first day driving around our neighborhood listening for their clucking and asking neighbors if they had seen any chickens running around…. Pretty sure my neighbors think I’m crazy. No luck.

Finally, later that night I saw my cat staring with intent at something in our neighbor’s backyard. Audrey!! Our dear Audrey was running around trying to find out how to get back over the wall. I ran over to the neighbors house, rang the doorbell and no one answered. I had no choice but to break in to his backyard and save my chicken! I was so happy I had found one of our missing chickens… until the next morning when I saw that little shit running around his back yard again.

HOW IS SHE DOING THIS?? I put June in her carrier, strapped her to my chest and ran over to his house. Again, no one answered. So now, I’m breaking into this guy’s back yard with my child. I could just imagine calling my fiancé from jail explaining to him that I got arrested and our child was with CPS all because I was trying to rescue our chicken. But did that stop me? Of course not! I spent a solid ten minutes chasing Audrey around, swinging my arms trying to catch her with our eight week old daughter strapped to my chest the whole time.  When I got her back into our yard I boobie trapped the chicken coop so that there was no possible way of it getting out again.

With the comfort of knowing the chicken was locked up safely, I caught up on household chores, grocery shopping and made dinner. I’m doing all of this with a very gassy, irritable baby who won’t stop crying by the way. Finally we get some rest, well she did any way… in two hour increments. Me? I laid in bed staring at the ceiling with June asleep on my chest (because she would cry when I set her down next to me) contemplating how I got to this point. You know, the usual bedtime inner dialogue.

The next morning I woke up, made some coffee and what do I see? That god damned chicken in his yard again. So what do I do? I say, “f*** it, we’re going to the beach!” I packed up the car and left that chicken right where she wanted to be.

The lesson I learned this week is that sometimes we have to ignore all of our responsibilities, pack our bags and go on an adventure. Because our biggest responsibility as a mother, or human being, is to take care of ourselves and that is often forgotten amongst the growing to do list that is our greatest burden. When you live a life without sleep, with throw up on every outfit, cold meals, sore nipples and no breaks…. It is so very important to spend a day or even an hour trying to relax. When your mind/body/spirit isn’t healthy, the entire household falls apart. Make yourself your biggest priority. Always.