Baby Chicks Are Here (at our house!)

Sorry, not much of a photographer.  Also, Elsa desperately wants to take pictures, and as I went through these pictures, I realized why the lens was so smudgy-there was a little picture of a hand right over the lens cap.

And I am possibly the most neurotic baby chick mama imaginable. (Elsa has explained to me over and over that actually, we don't have to call them baby chicks, but they are such babies...) We have our four (a Rhode Island Red, a Buff Orpington--apparently not the best layers, but the cutest classic yellow fluffy chicks, and two Silver Laced Wyandottes), and they are tucked away in our upstairs bathroom.  Today I noticed that my quads are actually a little sore, from rushing up and down the stairs constantly to check on them.  Constantly.  I obsess over whether they are too warm or too cold, whether their cage is clean enough, whether they have pasty butt, whether their water has been pooped in...and whether Elsa has crept up there to yet again cuddle their little bodies and attempt to sing them to sleep.  There have been some battles, as apparently I wasn't clear enough when I told Elsa that we weren't going to hold them a whole lot at first because it wasn't good for them.  By this I meant once or twice a day.  She feels, fairly strongly, however, that waiting fifteen minutes between chick cuddles definitely counts for not holding them a lot.  And I must say, I totally get her.  I find myself itching to hold their little fluffy bodies, except that it is quite clear that they are not remotely interested in being held. 

The other night, Elsa came rushing down, flushed and rosy with bright eyes, to tell me how she had had to round up the chicks because someone (hmmm, I wonder who...) had left the cage door open and they had escaped and were peeping wildly all over the bathroom.  Apparently, she had rescued one from the toilet seat.  I am so thankful the seat was down....which is another thing I neurotically check for now.  She managed to do it all by herself.  Jesse was up there, but she didn't want to tell him, she said, because she didn't want to scare him.  Which gave me an unrealistic visual of Jesse, standing on the bed, shrieking.  But man was she proud, and competent feeling, and I think this is what it is all about.  (Well, also, really cute chicks and eggs will be cool, too.)  It has been fun to watch David, too, who takes his cue from Elsa, "It's okay, it's okay, little chickies...you are so cute."  And he has figured out how to hold them gently, not around the neck, which is a big relief.  Despite how stressed I am, I can't imagine not wanting to do this again, and again, and again.