Do the very young kids have nightmares, or more commonly called by me, kidmares? I think so. I think all animals have dreams, the way they twitch and snort in their sleep. Why not newborn kids?

Last week we had a bunch of kids born in one day. That night Lee and I was up most the night. Why? More does were kidding? No, we were busy running up and down the hill to the barn, checking on kids because kids were crying. Our baby monitors are the best things for kidding and for letting you know if a kid is in trouble and we thought these kids were being stood on by their moms. This is a very common occurrence.

The mom is happily standing there munching hay, steps forward, stands on the sleeping kid’s leg and when the kid screams in pain, a lot of time the mothers go, “There there, just take a nap, things are fine,” not realizing they are standing on their kid. They just think he is being cranky.

These kids can really be screaming bloody murder because mom is standing on them and the mom just stands there all unconcerned. So, when kids scream, we go check, no matter what time it is.

Well, on the night of the rampant kidmares, every kid we checked was not being stood on. Had mom hurriedly got off him when she heard us run to her stall? No, no sudden movement from her, and the kid was still lying there screaming with his eyes closed. Shake him and he quits screaming and wakes up all sleepy and confused. Even the mothers were looking concerned.

If you think about it, the kids really did have a reason for the kidmares. Imagine being born that day, you are peacefully floating around in your bag of water, in warm darkness, inside mom, cushioned comfortably like being on a big water bed. Even if mom trotted, you wouldn’t be shook up much at all.

Suddenly, something propels you upward, and you go through a major squeeze and your water bag bursts, leaving you exposed, and to add insult to injury, mom decides to stand to have you and you are dropped from a great height and land on your head. No warm water bed cushion to land on, just hard rough hay to flop on.

Or worse, she is lying down and you are still in your bag of water being squeezed through a tight hole. You look through the water and you see this big face peering at you. Horrible. And, hands with finger that look like talons reach for you, burst your bubble as you come out, and roughly towel dry you. These giants wait until the cord that is still attaching you to mom is stretched and turns white and they cut the cord and dip the stub in iodine. Ouch! And, mom gets in on the torture. She is roughly licking you and speaking in loving but extremely loud tones in your ears. She rolls you over and licks you from end to end, naturally cleaning off the iodine, to the giants dismay. Good grief.

Then you are pushed under her belly and shown a big teat and you are too addled to feel hunger at the moment, so you are put back in front of mom to be roughly tongue dried again, rolled around, and then you are pushed back to that teat again and the giant with the big face and big hands pushes your nose into the teat. Oddly enough, you do start feeling like you are hungry and open your mouth and lunge and miss getting a mouth full of hair, which thoroughly disgusts you, put still the big giant and mom insists on you trying again.

At last, you get the idea and suck and taste the most wonderful elixir, nectar of the gods. So, far this has been the only good thing that has happened. You suck a few more times and you fall asleep for a few minutes, then wake up really hungry and you try to stand and fall over. Stand again and fall over, this happens several times, particularly if you try to take a step towards that wonderful teat, wherever its at. Also, mom tends to accidentally knock you over in her eagerness to keep cleaning you. You thump the ground a few more times before you can get hold of the teat and then mom notices your sister doing something and turns around knocking you over and accidentally stepping on you, but just for a moment. You decide to give it a rest and try again later.

No wonder the little guys have kidmares! Eventually it all works out and they learn to walk or wobble around very well and when they get their wits about them, they learn that moms will knock you over and step on you and you try to learn real fast to stay out of her way.

Oh, my, what a tough beginning to life for the little kid. Just thinking about it, I know I am going to have kidmares tonight, even if the kids don‘t.