Children

Shift

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Too early. Only my second sip of coffee. Rub my eyes.
“I think our heifer is calving.”
“No way.”
My wife and I got closer to the window and realized that our day had just changed. There was no mistaking it.

In some ways the timing was perfect. It was Saturday. I didn’t have to struggle with the farm vs. work thing. Sometimes it’s awkward finding the balance between my Structural Therapy practice in town and my farm and family life in the hills. I thanked our heifer for her good timing and went out with my wife and three kids to check out the birth.

She was still in the first stage so everybody went inside to prepare breakfast while I milked our milk cow and kept an eye on the situation. Breakfast was a distracted event. We were mostly looking out the windows, keeping an eye on the progress.
“Is that a hoof?”.

We all went out and watched as our heifer walked tight circles and went through contractions. A little hoof would become visible during the contraction and then disappear.

We wanted to give her space but we also wanted to see. The kids had all sorts of questions. I’m glad we got it straightened out that the calf doesn’t come through the urethra.

We ended up separating her from the rest of the herd because our bull was trying to mount her when she was having contractions. A calving heifer doesn’t need to deal with that bull____.

Once in a protected pen (well, almost protected….the horses would periodically have their heads over the top rail to check out what was going on) she started progressing again. The calf’s head and foot appeared during contractions. Even it’s little tongue was sometimes out. After a while, though, it plateaued. It became apparent that the other leg must be stuck. I really didn’t want to interfere. I wasn’t even sure she would let me help. My fears piled up. I’ve never done this before. What if I make it worse instead of better? What if she freaks out and busts through the fence? What if she cow kicks me and busts my knee? What if it’s too late and I find a stillbirth?

Faced with the option of losing both the heifer and calf because I didn’t do anything I mustered up the courage and approached her. I offered a bucket of grain but she could care less about that. She watched me tired and weary as I took hold of the calf’s hoof. The next time she had a contraction I helped pulling at the slightly downward angle the calf would naturally come through. Between the contractions I would let go. She seemed uneasy and even started trying to bust through a section of fencing. I’ve seen cows bust through because of much less so I backed away and left her alone again.

When I came back she was lying down. I knelt down beside her and waited. When she had a contraction I helped. Eventually she stood up and we continued this dance. I didn’t let go; this time keeping contact with the calf at all times and pulling when she had contractions. I connected into the process and she accepted me as part of it. In this way I could really sense the block. I reached in feeling along the side of the calf for its leg and found it. I couldn’t quite free it up so with my other hand I slightly rotated the calf’s body. That was it. The leg came free. The heifer sighed, lay back down, and the next contraction I pulled the calf out into this world by it’s two front hoofs. The sensation of unlocking something when I turned the calf and freed its other leg and the sensation of the calf entering the world wet and steaming on a bed of hay in front of me is too beautiful to really describe.

Mama didn’t waste much time. She got up and was licking her calf moaning the placenta out or moaning in rejoice, I’m not sure which, maybe both.

Your body is amazing. It doesn’t need much help besides maintenance and nourishment. For various reasons we sometimes experience the equivalent of the situation that heifer was in. A leg is stuck and no matter how hard you try or what way you move it is not getting any better. It’s a simple shift that needs to happen and then everything can flow working the way it’s meant to but without that shift it’s not going to get any better. When you get stuck in physical pain seek out good bodywork. The shift that can happen will free you to your own natural health. Sure, sometimes that shift your body needs can take weeks or even months of consistent bodywork, but it’s worth it.

If the calving metaphor is too much try the pebble metaphor….

Suppose you have a pebble in your shoe. You can stop and get it out of your shoe or you can keep on walking to your destination with the pebble. A lot of people convince themselves that it’s just a pebble and not worth the trouble of stopping….that they’ll just deal with it when they get to their destination. What happens when your gait starts accommodating the pebble by lessening the weight on the foot with the pebble in the shoe? You arrive at the destination with sore muscles here and there from accommodating the pebble. And if this pebble causes a blister your gait might remain skewed for days even though you eventually dumped the pebble from the shoe. There is a chance that the “said pebble”, that was not worth the time to stop and address, could eventually lead to an injury.

This is not to say we should be paranoid about any discomfort in life but that if there’s a way we can address it we should. And there is a way….

See you in the office.

Obstacles

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Now that the dust has settled and the Obstacle Course Race is finished I’m in the grind of day to day life.  Three kids are feeling like twenty in moments partly because the moment I have a system figured out..poof…they change.  Just like that, and suddenly all my tricks of the daddy trade are worthless.  While I’m developing new tricks the show must go on.  The dinner must be made, the kids need to be kept alive, the diaper must be changed, their souls must be nourished and supported….easy right?  Then there’s the horses, farm animals, gardens, building the hoop house before fall, securing 4 cords of wood before fall, my Structural Therapy practice, my wife’s work….It’s very easy to say I don’t have time.  I don’t have time to walk several miles, I don’t have time to do restorative exercise, I don’t have time to be good and true to my body.  But just as the dust of one obstacle course race is settling the new obstacle course becomes apparent.  The obstacle course that is everywhere all of the time.

For example, the garlic needs to be harvested.  I have the three kids and very little time this morning before I have to get out the door.  Have you ever tried to get out the door in time with kids?  If you haven’t you should watch this so you can share in the laugh…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQfylQ2Jgg

In the past I might give up at the sight of such an obstacle and wait until I had more time.  The thing is, there’s never enough time.  Now is the time.  This calls for a good old Jedi mind trick….  This is not a chore, this is not a chore,  this is….presto… an opportunity.
What I did was bring the kids scattered energy out to the garden.  I gave the oldest the job of shooting pictures and the younger two a mixture of made up dirt digging jobs and some real tasks.  I used the garlic harvesting as an opportunity to explore alignment
….the difference between the hunched shape of someone stressed out in a time crunch

and someone harvesting good alignment as well as garlic.  Good alignment meaning untucking my butt, lowering my rib cage, keeping my lower leg vertical…

It peeked the kid’s curiosity.  Now I had the two oldest harvesting with me.

The garlic was harvested in no time.  Truth be told, I could harvest the garlic solo faster.  I’m not solo, though, and if you add up the inevitable interruptions that would have happened if I was trying to keep them occupied with something else while I harvested it might not have been faster.  They also wouldn’t have gotten the joy of pulling such bounty up from the ground.

Getting out the door in time…well that wasn’t quite as smooth.

Meet The Trainers

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My kids climb, jump, and swing on everyday things…. chairs, stairs, trees, rocks, railings, tables, dad.  The way they relate to furniture, buildings, people, nature, is downright creative.  Kids can see through walls, climb through holes, design elaborate worlds using space in an original way.

We recently put up ropes and rings in our house.  My 5 year old daughter has built up strength and coordination at lightning speed.  Within a week or two she was climbing the rope 10ft up to the collar tie and swinging confidently.  Soon she was doing flips while holding the rings and swinging on the ropes upside down, lifting her whole body weight up to get her feet and legs in the rings and swinging with the grace of a trapeze artist.

She’s now inventing movements with the two ropes that make it look easy and suggest she has the ability to fly.  She swings in circles holding the rope with one hand.  She swings from rope to rope like a monkey.  She’s identified her left hand as the weaker one and is actively working on it.  All this without a single instruction.

My 2 year old son was hanging from the ropes and rings after a week.  Within 2 weeks he was swinging and within a month it was full swings with his legs straight and higher than his head.

We just put the ropes and rings up.  They figured the rest out.

Child trainers aren’t focused on reps, end goals, theory, or numbers.  They are consumed in play.  I mean consumed.  There is nothing else.  They play hard.  Within that play they adapt.  They figure it out.  They evolve.

At first when I couldn’t find a map of the Bone Frog Challenge and clear descriptions of the obstacles I was discouraged.  I didn’t know how to train for something unknown.  After hanging with my kids on the ropes I went on a trail run.  The spontaneity must have been contagious because I found myself high up in a tree without having planned it.  And just like that… the unknown has become fun.   I’ve been taking their lead.

My 3 month old son’s training sessions are perhaps the most intense.

His efforts at rolling, lifting his head, learning to cling when I hold him, and balance are more subtle and completely profound.  Not only do I infuse some of this into my warm up and stretching but he’s challenging me to figure out alignment while holding a baby.  Then there are the moments of holding the baby, helping another kid, and cooking a meal all at the same time.  A domestic gym of sorts.