Noah and the Ladies
This year we got chickens. Noah is, to put it lightly, obsessed with the ladies. We will be sitting on our front porch and watch him bob off through the field, blonde hair glistening in the sun, to the chicken coop. It’s nice that we can see him from our front porch all the way to the coop. With him gaining walking skills, he has felt empowered to go wherever he fancies. Most of the time when we find him at the chicken coop, he’s just sitting at the fence staring at them. His small pudgy hands gripping the chicken wire. Sometimes he’s in the coop covered in chicken, poop, making gentle noises trying to mimic their clucks. He loves to try and catch them, but his walking is too erratic and slow at this point to keep up. I don’t think the chickens mind him either.
He loves the chickens so much. They were getting into the garden while free ranging and I was spraying them with water to get them out. One day Noah was out there with me and I started spraying the chickens and he started yelling at me. I thought, “Oh I must’ve just sprayed him with the water. No big deal. Sorry buddy.” I went back out later to check on the chickens. Sure enough they were in my garden again. I got the water hose out, but this time Noah was behind me when I started spraying them. As soon as I started spraying them, he immediately started throwing his arms up and down, screaming at me. He looked like a flightless bird himself. From what I can tell, he thought I was hurting the chickens and he wanted me to stop. It’s these hilarious moments that remind me has emotions, he has empathy, he cares about things in his world. It was check in with myself moment to explain, “Hey buddy, I’m not hurting the chickens. They just can’t be in our garden or else we won’t have any food.” It’s so fun to see him caring about some thing and gaining interests. For the longest time when he was younger people would ask, “What is Noah into?” It would always make me really sad because I didn’t know. He didn’t show interest in anything specific. He would throw things around erratically. Now that he’s getting older and he’s able to express himself with some noises and hand motions it appears he is developing some preferences. It’s been amazing to see our son flourish with the addition of these chickens. I feel like it gives him a sense of purpose. I like to imagine him saying, “Mom, we have to go check on the ladies,” and spinning on one heel to march out to the coop. I’m not certain about letting him collect eggs. I think our net collection would be zero if that happened. But at some point he’ll be able to go out there and harvest.
For now, I’ll just be content watching his wheat colored hair bobbing along the field to check on his friends.
