Musing on The Stages of a Mother's Life.

It's all about the alimentary canal.

When it comes down to it any form of caring comes down to three things. The preparation of nutritious food, cleaning the body and the maintenance of a clean hygenic place to sleep. One way or another it all comes down to poop. The making of it, the removing of it, the disinfecting of it and the disposing of it.

The nub of it is that in order to do this well for any person or creature it must be done with altrism at least and love at best. I rather feel that caring for another whether our own flesh and blood or an animal causes a bond to be created. It is not possible to ferry around bags of poop daily without an affection for the animal or person. The pure inconvenience of it is irritating enough. Then there is the visceral response to both the texture and odour. 

We have the cutest kitten i've ever seen. She's frankly gorgeous. Huge eyes, fabulous colour, oodles of personality (or is that catonality-I apologise for anthropomorphism) but by george she really is the most flatulent feline I've ever encountered. Yet we feed her we tend to her, we clean up the litter tray after her and when she covers herself in muck outside we wash her (this doesn't go down well to be fair) Yet when she curls up on my lap I feel nothing but tender affection for her. 

The same can be said for our chickens. And my first job of the morning is to open run and let them out to play, sort out some delicious tit bit (Meal worms, sunflower seeds mixed grains and, as it turns out, washed baby spinach...) and then don the rubber gloves to clear out the night's poo from their sleeping quarters and the run itself. I even walk round the garden picking up stray piles. 

I had thought that once i'd got my children out of nappies I'd passed that stage. I see that, as long as you care for anything, at least a reasonable portion of your day will be concerned one way or another with what we will euphemistically call hygiene.

Musing over
Katherine