Lovely Chaos. This is the phrase that’s esqsentially evolved to be my mantra.  I can’t claim to have this wisdom 20 years ago (or even 10) but with the slower metabolism and fine lines around the eyes comes a realization that you can either fight the “mess” or you can recognize the beauty of what it means. I’m talking actual mess, as in markers with caps off and little tiny legos that are Everywhere including embedded into your foot and dog vomit in surprise places like next to your bed so that your first moment of the day is stepping in warm stinky mush.  I’m also talking the figurative mess of being pulled into a zillion directions with a feeling of “there is no way I will ever be organized or fulfill my many duties as a human and I am failing at all aspects of life.”

We have a big blended family and a small farmhouse.  The sibling fights are intense but then so is the love.  I started out with my two girls and I ended up with 5 kids.  Two I didn’t give birth to but they are all my children.  There are 3 dogs and 3 cats and a bearded dragon (we won’t even include the fish and hermit crabs in the grand pet-hoarding total).  I work full-time as an emergency small animal veterinarian and Sean works full-time as a project manager for a construction company.  We renovate our old house little by little as we can squeeze it in.  There are activities galore after school every day.  I am an unpaid Uber driver for my children Mon-Fri and our poor infant son has to think his cute little bum is permanently attached to his car seat.  It’s a somewhat controlled fire daily, where we try to catch our breaths with dinners (often way later than we’d like) on our front porch with candles and music and real communication with one another.  In those moments, where it all suspends briefly and I can see the contentment shining back in the faces I love, it becomes a recognition of the beautiful purpose of it all.  This realization was not a light-bulb moment, but rather a slow dawning with each adding moment solidifying it for me.

Recognizing it leads to accepting it and even reveling in it, like a pig in you-know-what.   And that brings me to our latest pushing of the chaos envelope with the acquisition of our new friend, mini pig Theodore Nibblebottoms, aka Ted.  Why, with all the above listed craziness, would we bring a pig into the house? I’ll agree the timing was crap, but then when would be the right time?? Ted, at 8 months old, needed a new home so we just took him in.  I’m a vet and I read the books and I know they are a lot of work….sort of the opposite of a hermit crab.  They are super smart and need a lot of attention and stimulation and Ted gets an A++ for fitting this description exactly.  But he is sweet and funny and just needed someone to trust.  This creature arrived to us still just a piglet and was scared of life.  Pigs have no natural defenses except this ear-deafening scream when they feel threatened.  It is quite possibly the worst noise you could ever hear. But they are also extremely food-motivated and intelligent, so training is actually not that difficult, as long as you have the time (ha, the irony).  I had him neutered at my work before even bringing him into the house, since having an intact male boar is evidently akin to a teenage boy on anabolic steroids.  The hormones took a while to dissipate however, and I received an x-rated video from Sean while I was at work that first Saturday where piggums was having his way with our infant son’s rocking horse lamb.  Sean informed me he then had to clean up “a lot of pig giz” and he wasn’t pleased.  In fact he had been in the process of cleaning up pig poop in the dining room when he heard the lively grunts and found Ted doing the dirty deed.   I pointed out how adorable it was that he “cuddled” with the lamb afterwards but Sean failed to see the cuteness of the situation. 

Teddums thinks he found a new friend

Thankfully, the hormones have since subsided and his days of violating my son’s toys appear to be over.  He has learned to trust us enough to follow us down the deck steps and he’s in his glory in the yard and hangs out with the dogs like he is one of them.  If you haven’t seen a pot-bellied piglet excitedly run laps while making happy pig squeals, you really haven’t lived yet.  He loves his scratchy time and will flop over onto his side, close his eyes, and make contented low oinks as he receives his pets.  Sean went from abhorring him (“Gross, he looks like a hairy scrotum” and “He ate my effing bass amp!!”) to giving him those belly scratches, building him a fortified pig pen outside and affectionately calling him “Mr. Pigglestitch.”  Ted is personified (pigified) the idea of seeing the loveliness in the most chaotic and seemingly out of control situation and going with the flow in an almost zen-buddhism kind of way.

Most likely he thinks Hampy is his fat sow of a mother 

Obviously I would give a home to all needy pets of all kinds and have a million kids if I could.  But there has to be a limit to the level of chaos before it becomes anarchical irresponsible mayhem.  That’s the delicate line to stay on the mentally healthy side of and that’s the goal of Lovely Chaos.  For now drawing the line at a pig seems reasonable.  Now excuse me while I go make the baby a bottle, fold 5 baskets of laundry and clean up dog vomit while giving Ted his mid-morning belly rubs.