Jason Wiebe Dairy

Well, she doesn’t like to be called Baby, but, she IS the baby of the family!  And the way 3 year olds are…sometimes they are BIG and can do it MYSELF and sometimes the are too small to do what you want them to do.  And they still like to be rocked and carried around on Mommy’s hip.

1 year ago we went to Miami and met our little Haitian baby for the first time.  We loved her but had almost no idea what she was really like.  We know alot more by now.  She loves to sing and has learned a dozen songs since she’s home.  She loves to talk but acts like she absolutely has forgotten every word of Creole. It’s totally amazing how many English words she has learned.  She loves to eat, especially what she calls “sandwiches” which is a piece of bread cut in half with butter in the middle. She’s sassy and bossy and noisy and… She’s a sweet heart.  One year has flown by and we look forward to another year with her with joy!

Our little Julie has been home now 3 months.  Things are going really well.  She’s potty trained except for the night.  A great delight is running after the cats with a stick and yelling.  Or the sticks work well on a tree stump like a drum.  She was pounding that stump and singing loudly! Still loves her milk…good thing she landed up on a dairy farm. This week she was also rescued from a mud puddle.  Screaming like she was dying and the mud squishing up between her toes.  So Mama carried her in to the tub and did a clean up job…don’t believe she learned her lesson though.  Later in the day she was hauled in by big sister and this time it took a complete bath and change of clothes to take care of the mud. Julie is also doing a lot more talking.  Lots of words and quite a few short sentences.  A mixture of English and Creole.  She is quite a noisy, joyful child and the noise level has increased considerably around here since she arrived.  The first ten days of silence are now a distant memory! We are also working with a lawyer on trying to complete her adoption. Grandpa and Grandma from Canada are making plans to come this week to meet her for the first time!  That will be fun!

We have reached the milestone of having Julie home with us for one month.  She is  a totally different girl than the quiet, exhausted child we brought home.  Away from home she is still very quiet and clingy. At home she is a little Tigger.  She is talking, laughing and singing.  She goes skipping and hopping through the house…and our hearts!  She was helping her big brother put wash in the dryer and I said to her, “Julie, are you helping Benji?” She folded her hands in front, smiled a big smile and gave 3 hops! She loves to play with little dishes and dolls. Also going outside is something she wants to do every day but is still abit leary of the dog and cats.  Nothing is as much fun as jumping on the bed! There are still some tantrums but much shorter and less frequent.  All in all I would say there has been a lot of progress and she is making herself right at home!

Our small town of Durham is just getting over the worst flood that I have witnessed in my lifetime. (I’m 37.) 

I left with a load of cheese for Kansas City on Wednesday the 23rd of April at about 9:30 AM and within ten miles of home drove thru pouring rain.  On my return trip I drove thru heavy rain in the same area.  The river was over the bridge by our house, but we usually can get home other ways.  However they were all flooded too.  After waiting about an hour I got thru to within a mile from home. 

Then I called home and had my hired man come thru the water with our loader so I could go home.  After doing a few chores I went back to Durham and helped prepare for flooding.  Only one street close to the river is low enough to flood.   With all the help that showed up and sandbagging and moving things to higher shelves there was very little damage although there were several feet of water on main street. 

Our dairy farm is high enough we don’t have to worry about flooding here, but I was glad that by next morning milking time things had returned to pretty much normal and the milker was able to get here to milk in the morning, because on a dairy farm the COWS MUST BE MILKED…

Jason