EDITOR’S LETTER

BEING A MOM

As I have mentioned many times (because I’m your typical mother and love my child) I have one son named Sutter. I’ve never been a kid fan; never babysat, never liked to hold friends’ babies, never been one to want to have many children. I had to have a nurse teach me how to hold a baby correctly and put a diaper on my child when he was born. I of course have gotten better with all this since I’ve been forced to be in the “kid circuit” since I now have one myself and find myself thinking kids can be pretty fun. You can say that becoming a mom can change you in many ways.

When raising a child on a ranch, they get to experience a lot of life’s lessons early and are faced with the realities of life as well. With livestock, we all know the worst can happen at times and as my dad always said when I was growing up, “if you’re going to have animals, you’re going to have dead animals.” As a mom it’s always hard to watch your child be distraught, especially when they’re upset over an animal they loved perishes. It’s been a tough spring for Sutter; his mini donkey which was one of two that was gifted to him from his grandmother on his first birthday was found dead as a doornail one morning. It looks like he was playing, ran hard right into a “no climb” fence and broke his neck. “Chant” was buried and since we’ve replaced him with a white mini donk named “Dre”. This was tragic for the entire family as we all take part in chores and general care of the animals.

We lose calves in calving season as most people do, chickens will go missing and we also have older cows we periodically have to put down. We always inform Sutter as to these realities as at some point he’s going to know that certain animals are missing and since he’s very involved with the happenings on the ranch, he’s always aware of who and when should be calving etc. I am transparent with him except with Rogè. At Christmas, “Santa” brought Sutter one thing he was very adamant about on his Christmas list, a “fish bowl fish”. Christmas morning he was so overjoyed when a blue Betta fish was waiting for him. He named him Rogè; we have no idea how he came up with this name. Being the good mother that I strive to be, I clean the bowl every week and make sure Sutter feeds him.

One day Rogè lay motionless at the bottom of the bowl. I don’t say a word and head directly to the pet store and pick up yet another blue Betta; Rogè part 2. A few weeks later, we have a floater; I again head to the pet store in search of another blue Betta; Rogè part 3. This one only lasted a week. At this point I’m tired of dropping $12 per fish and know I have to tell Sutter the truth in which he cried. I also told him he could pick out a new fish since he has no idea he had already gone through 3. Two weeks go buy and we head into the pet store, I ask, “what’s an easier ‘fish bowl fish’ to manage other than a Betta?” Apparently a Betta fish is the easiest to keep alive so it looks like Sutter may be getting a Guinea Pig. At least it’s not slimy and hopefully will live longer than a few weeks.