{"id":1150,"date":"2015-09-22T14:22:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T14:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/franchlife.com\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2015-10-08T20:13:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T20:13:18","slug":"love-and-little-sleep-can-make-a-fool-out-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/?p=1150","title":{"rendered":"Love (And Little Sleep) Can Make a Fool Out of You"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the weekend of the county fair. \u00a0Our kids look forward to it every year. \u00a0My son says it\u2019s \u201clike a holiday\u201d for him. \u00a0We were on our way to the midway with the handful of rides spaced out nicely so to a small child it\u2019s a grand experience. \u00a0My husband reached out his hand to shake the hand of someone who was only vaguely familiar, and said, \u201cListen, man, I was coming off of a series of night shifts and hadn\u2019t slept for 24 hours.\u201d \u00a0My husband then laughed, clearly at himself. \u00a0The young man seemed to be thinking about what to say. \u00a0He glanced at our children and then made eye contact with me. \u00a0What my husband said and the reaction to it was enough for me to recognize him as the new technician at our vet office. \u00a0Weeks prior, this poor guy witnessed my husband lose it over having to make the choice to euthanize one of our sweet and very loved baby\u00a0goats. \u00a0It had been the third day of trying to relieve some unexplained swelling of her head and face so severe that her eyes were swollen shut and her breathing was labored. \u00a0We still don\u2019t know the reason, though the vet guessed it was a horrible reaction to a spider bite or snakebite. \u00a0Even though she kept getting worse no matter what the vet tried, for some reason, my husband never considered the possibility that she would die. \u00a0Exhausted from seeing patients all night and teaching residents all day, my husband had arrived at the vet office ready to quickly discuss the next day treatment plan. \u00a0He wasn’t prepared to walk in to see her gasping for her final breaths. \u00a0So, my husband was remarkably emotional over the loss. \u00a0A day later, after a good night of sleep, he felt silly about his overly dramatic response to the death of a goat. \u00a0So, I said to the vet tech in a disbelieving and playful tone, \u201cI heard it was rough after that goat died. \u00a0Did he really open the cardboard box you handed him afterwards and quietly stroke the hair of our dead goat?\u201d \u201cYep, he did,\u201d he relaxed and laughed politely with us, and then went on to encourage, \u201cListen, I get it, we all have days like that\u2026\u201d Later, my husband and I laughed some more about the whole thing, not about what the vet tech did say, but what he didn\u2019t say – such as \u201cit wasn\u2019t that bad” or \u201clisten, I often see grown men cry after a goat dies in their arms.\u201d \u00a0We know it\u2019s not really funny. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s kind of embarrassing, dad\u201d suggested our pre-teen daughter. \u00a0I say it’s sweet that my husband cares so for our animals and, more so, for our children who love them. \u00a0The\u00a0vet staff apparently\u00a0felt very sorry for my husband that day and so, a week later, sent a handwritten note with words of sympathy addressed to him like \u201cshe is now frolicking in ever green fields,\u201d \u201cshe was no doubt a fighter,\u201d and \u201cyou gave her the best care but know she\u2019s in a pain-free place now.\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t want to pick on my husband too much. \u00a0Honestly, none of us handled it well. \u00a0The kids and I shed milk buckets of tears behind our barn as we buried our young goat friend in the back corner of our pasture. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter how tough you think you are, you would\u2019ve foolishly cried over a goat you didn\u2019t know listening to our children say their final words and prayers beside her resting place. \u00a0A week or so after the sympathy letter, a second envelope\u00a0arrived from the vet office. \u00a0It was the bill. \u00a0For $ \u2026 well, let\u2019s just say\u2026 it made us feel foolish. \u00a0It was way more than you should ever spend on a goat no matter how much it’s loved. \u00a0Unless you don’t mind being a fool. \u00a0Which we don’t.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4889\"<\/a>

In Memory of Bubbles 7\/11\/15 – 8\/19\/15<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the weekend of the county fair. \u00a0Our kids look forward to it every year. \u00a0My son says it\u2019s \u201clike a holiday\u201d for him. \u00a0We were on our way to the midway with the handful of rides spaced out nicely so to a small child it\u2019s a grand experience. \u00a0My husband reached out his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1164,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}