Spring has sprung! Flowers are blooming, baby chicks are hatching, and as you can imagine the lists of spring projects are endless on a farm, even on one as small as ours. Our solution to that long list of projects was a “staycation”, or vacation spent at home on the farm. We figured it’d be a good opportunity to cross some projects off the list like repairing fence, starting seeds, fixing up the chicken coop, and so on. 
But then we remembered we have kids. Young kids. Toddlers.
If you’ve ever tried to work on projects with little ones nearby, you know what I’m talking about. It’s damn near impossible. It takes exactly one million years to finish home projects when you have littles ones.
One million years.
Thankfully our staycation wasn’t a total bust though. We did manage to get a few projects started. Finishing those projects, however, is another story.
Just in case you didn’t know, working on projects with toddlers around goes something like this:
1. Inhale coffee, feed kids, dress kids, dress yourself, dress kids again. Yes, again.
2. Bring children outside or to the location of your project and bring along every single toy they own. All of them.
3. Go back and collect the items that you need for the job. Also get more toys and the sippy cups you forgot earlier.
4. Begin working on your project enthusiastically.
5. Stop working abruptly five minutes in. The youngest one has that look on his face. You know, the poop face.
6. Go back inside to change the diaper.
7. Begin working again. Enthusiastically.
8. Stop working after 10 minutes due to a loud commotion.
9. Investigate.
10.While investigating you find that the kids only have one Peppa Pig action figure and they plan on fighting over it. Fighting and biting. Piss off Peppa!
11. Distract kids, hide Peppa Pig, consider throwing the toy away when they’re not looking. Chicken out about throwing it away.
12.Start working on your project again. A little less enthusiastically.
13.Stop working after five minutes. It’s lunch time and your kids are starving for the food they’ll never eat.
14.Face palm.
You see what I mean? Exactly one million years until completion.
This is just part of having toddlers that all parents have to get use to. Kind of like having to actually sleep in clothes in case one of them climbs in bed with you in the middle of the night. Or having to spell out words like a-s-s-h-o-l-e and i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m while talking to your spouse.
At the end of the day, as long as you keep putting energy into the farm, the farm will give energy back to you. Everything might not get finished in a speedy manner, but finished it will be. Eventually. Until then make memories along with a little bit of progress. 
Would I recommend a staycation to everyone?Yes! Even if you don’t have a farm, try a staycation at least once. Spring time is perfect for it. Use it to tackle your spring cleaning! And if you have little ones, well, don’t set your expectations too high. Keep your project list short and sweet.
Happy Spring!!!
Farm To Table Mama 