It's a BOY!!!

I can't even believe it. I wrote to Pioneer Woman asking her to show photos of a cow giving birth. I'm not the squeemish type by any means. Come on... I got more ER stories that you could even handle. lol. So anyway, PW said she doesn't have any photos of the cows birthing, because they never catch it. They have so many cattle, they can't always find/follow the knocked up ones.
So today, we went to the Michigan State Fair. We went with Nana, Aunt Audrey (my sister), Uncle Mark (my brother), all of their punks, and my two punks, plus a punks friend, the punk. ;o)

We started off doing a few things, then trotted off to the Miracle of Life exhibit. MSU (Mooooo U veterinary students were on hand for their learning experience). As we made it through a couple exhibits, we happened to walk up to the cow pen just as one was giving birth!!! FOR YEARS and YEARS I have wanted to see this and never have. No one was actually in labor when we went before.

So after a lot of moving around for the right "view", we got our seats... right next to the shute. The put lil' momma in to check her. Momma was NOT happy. It was obvious by all the mooing!













Next is the Veterinarian and his students from MSU. They all took turns reaching into the cow to see why the baby calf wouldn't come out. Here you see him taking his turn, and the white thing under his arm pit is a baby cow hoof! (remember to click on the photo if you want to see it bigger).

After they checked her, they found out that not only was the calf breach, but it was also upside down too! Upside down and backwards! They told us that they would have to assist her in getting the calf out. They had to put chains on the babies legs, and working with her contractions, they would pull the baby out.

This happened SO FAST that I barely had time to snap the photos! Next year I'm taking the video camera!!! It was amazing! The students helped lower the baby to the ground and the crowd went wild. Poor cow. :o) We were so excited! It's a BOY!!!














Here is little "Norman" after his birth. He was very weak and trying to pick his head up to figure where the heck he was. It was AMAZING!
In this photo, it is the back of his head. He picked his head up and was trying to look around. He was a bit dazed to say the least.

We had a wonderful time at the Fair, but seeing the birth of a calf was something we have never seen before.

Happy Birthday Little Norman!

We're Baaaaaacccckkkkk!

So I didn't tell ya... we went camping. We were cohearsed into borrowing D's partners pop up. We packed the camper/truck and were living like the Griswalds for a few days. It was a lot of fun, however I didn't appreciate creepy crawlies in the camper.

Den was in there one morning and I walked in and he immediately said, "GET OUT!". This coming from my DH that thinks I spaz out, which I frequently do. He gently escourted the smashed arachnid out the door. EEEWWww my skin crawls just thinking about it.

I must admit that I did spaz out once. It is justified too. Hornets. I HATE hornets. And wouldn't you know... one would get stuck in between 2 of my baby toes, and my shoe and sting the living shinola out of my toe!!! I was SCREAMING because it felt like I had a burning ass hot coal stuck between my toes!!! I scared the crap out of all of the kids and my DH stood there looking at me like I had totally lost my mind. AND YES I DID lose my mind. Katrina told me today that Hornet stings are the worst of all stings. I BELIEVE her! My freaking toe is still itching... Gotta get that benadryl cream on it.

That was the worst part. The best parts? Camping mid week in an WIDE OPEN park. There wasn't a soul around for the first couple days. The kids could run all the way to the main drag in the camping park, and we could see them point blank. Finding acorns for Fuz Nut who kept coming while we were gone. He ate one today and that was it. Nuts everywhere. Hope I didn't upset his GI tract! Making Pizza Pies in the pie irons for dinner last night. Smores... We had so much fun and are now looking to buy a camper! Not a pop up though. I would like to make it a bit harder for the creepy crawlies to get in. Speaking of which... I have an awesome picture for y'all but I can't seem to locate the camera. Hmmmm. I will try to put it on tomorrow.

Later!

3 People...

On the way out to Milford Memories to see Mel, I heard something on the radio that has stuck with me.

They say that due to the internet and email, people are communicating verbally less and less. Because some of these forms of communication do not show emotion, people are losing touch with people that are close to them. I specifically can name probably 4 people that send me only junk, but never an actual email letter. If you get email from me, you know that it is either a letter, or something extremely funny. I don't pass on chain letters and such - that is unless it is for flip flops!

Anyway, moving along...

With this huge change in communication, they say that approximately 76% of the general public do not have 3 people (friends, not family) they could go to, or count on in an emergency. 76%! That's a shocker! It made perfect sense to me, and that is probably why it has stuck with me for this many weeks.

I am now cherishing my relationships with the men and women in my life even more. I know EXACTLY who I can count on, and hopefully they know they can count on me. Take this information and think about your own life. Namaste.

Conversations from the car...

While out doing a lot of running around, the kids were watching Full House on DVD in the back seat. As I hear it over the speakers, I recognize a voice.

"And that would be Scott Baio, everybody!" I say,
"Who's Scott Baio?" replies E
"You know, Chachi" I answer
"Who's Chachi?" she asks
"From Happy Days" I say.
"What's Happy Days" she asks...

And that is why I feel like a dinosaur.

Later that same day as that hellacious storm is about to roll through, E asks, "Mom, do people who live in trailors throw out an anchor and bury it for storms?"

Christmas On Demand...

Michele, our favorite Stampin Up! gal, held a Christmas Card making class last night. She normally does this class in November, but by then most of us either have them done, or are in a mad dash to get them completed. So we begged and pleaded with her to hold this class during the summer. Michele lives quite a distance from me. It's about a 45 minute drive, but not a straight shot. Regardless, her designs, as you can see, are BEAUTIFUL and worth every effort to attend her classes. Plus the conversations that go on and her hysterical stories are worth the trip alone!

This one, I might add... the little tree tag on the bottom right... is actually on the insde of the card. When you open the card, there is a tag hole in the front, and the tag is inside! VERY clever!!

These are 2 cards side by side... same with the ones below.
Which card will I pick this year? I'm not quite sure yet, but I definitely have some favorites. That's for sure!! Let me know which one you like best!

Enjoy!

Dual Windshield Wipers

There quite brave... once Fuz Nut heads off with his nut!

Sucking Chest Wounds Batman!

Move over Dr. Seuss!

G doesn't want no stinkin kids books!

No way! He's more interested in hearing

how a Nasal Pharangeal Airway gets stuck in your nose to help you breath, or

how you would put an occlusive dressing over a sucking chest wound.

And here, he is shopping for the latest in medical equipment to put in his Tiger Backpack. At least it will be good for something!

Next lesson... how to intubate without busting out the patients teeth!

And with that... HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!

Just one look...

That's all it took for me to be whirled back to a newscast and a video of a young teenage girl being abducted, and later murdered. G and I were sitting in the parking lot of our local Walgreens yesterday while D ran in. As we sat there, facing the door, I watched a young girl walk into the store. She appeared to be around 18 or 19. Probably going in for some lash extending mascara or a new bottle of nail polish.

She looked as if she took very good care of herself. She wore a pink tank top, and pink shorts with her cute little flip flops. As I was watching her, I suddenly felt the horror. OMG. This girl could easily be abducted. This is someone's baby. Her whole life ahead of her. This could be my "E" in a few short years. She suddenly appeared very vulerable, and I felt suddenly very worried about my child.

With that... I am now totally obsessed that my child needs to learn some sort of self defense. I want this kid to be able to drop a dirt bag like a bag of dirt. Ever see "Enough"? That's what I want. Is Jackie Chan doing lessons?

My Date for HSM 2

I'm sure you've heard the hype... High School Musical was a HUGE hit. This year, Disney came out with High School Musical 2. Emily was invited to 2 different premier parties, both included a sleepover. She chose to go to K's because it was the first one she was invited to, and because K is her BFF.

The excitement was electric and palpable. I made a HSM2 Cake for the party too. XM radio had the premier of the sound track playing too. Disney channel had a countdown going on all day with 15 minute blocks with the Making of the Movie too. It was very exciting.

G and I dropped E off at K's. We stayed for a few minutes then decided to go out to dinner on a "date". Around this neck of the woods, FORGET trying to get in any popular place on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. However, Chili's NEVER has a wait. Plus their food is almost always consistantly good. We went there.

My date ordered the kids Macaroni and Cheese, and a tall blue chiller drink. I ordered the Grilled Caribbean Salad w/ grilled chicken breast. Hot stuff and I had a great time in our booth for 2. Our food came and he went to town, shoveling it in. As I put my dressing on, and started to mix the salad up, I noticed that the chicken was still pink inside. Just then, Mark our waiter, came up. He asked if everything was alright. I asked him if the chicken should still be pink inside. His response, "NO!" and he promptly removed the dish from the table.

Seconds later the manager shows up. She is extremely apologetic and offers soup while I wait. I took her up on a cup of cream of broccoli. Next she delivers my new salad, and is again, very, very sorry for the inconvenience. G and I enjoy our date. I must tell you, he is so handsome, and such a pleasure to dine with, even with cheese covered lips.

As we finished eating, the manager comes up and starts talking with G. She gives him a free meal coupon and told him to write his name on it. Which he did. She then hands him another free meal coupon for a total of 2. Then the bill comes. They not only gave me free soup, but also comp'd the salad too!

Dinner total: $7 ($12 because I tipped the waiter for what would have been the real total, because of EXCEPTIONAL service)

For dessert, we popped back on over to K's to watch HSM2, and had cake. It was A LOT of fun. We arrived shortly before it started where all the girls were counting down at the tops of their voices. As soon as it "0", K's dad flipped on the Tiger Game, where all the girls went berzerk. A priceless moment.

This one will definitely go down as a memorable day. I know EXACTLY what I was doing when HSM2 premiered. And as for Chili's? Of course we'll go back. Because 1. people are human and can make mistakes. 2. They went WAY OVER AND ABOVE on how they handled the undercooked chicken. And finally 3. Because that's where we went on dates, celebrated our engagement, celebrated our pregnancies, and took our new babies to. It's "our place".

I picked E up today at the scheduled time. The girls looked great, bed head and all. Someone put ice down K's pajama top while she was sleeping. M was prying girls eyes open and shining a flashlight in them. There was a lot of giggling, gameboy playing and girl stuff. E got to sleep well after 2, and was up by 8. As of this moment... she is cashed out in my bed. I KNOW she had a great time. I can tell by the glitter in her hair.

Fuz Nut the Squirrel!

Congratulations Aunt Jeri!

Yesterday, I wrote down ALL of the submitted names, minus the submitters.

The family voted, and the most votes went to Fuz Nut!

I personally loved Chester by Mary Lynn, however the kids were quick to point out that it reminded them of a character on a cartoon they watch. The character apparently is not very cute and cuddly like this little dude.

Greg also loved Mr. Squirrel submitted by Stacey. While Emily also liked Chester, and Gizmo - an entry by P.J.

Thank you all for participating. Aunt Jeri, your Starbucks Card will be on it's way!

Drum Roll Please......

We're VERY excited to announce the winner tomorrow! We made a very cute little video and I'll post that tomorrow as well.

Good LUCK to you all!

A Nation of Wimps...

Yesterday while at work, one of my favorite Doc's and I had a conversation about children, and over protective parents. He recommended the following article for my reading enjoyment. He stated that when he was an attending, the first thing he did with is residents, was have them read this article. It is somewhat lengthy, but nothing in comparison to YEARS of taking your child to therapy.

A Nation of Wimps

Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers.


Maybe it's the cyclist in the park, trim under his sleek metallic blue helmet, cruising along the dirt path... at three miles an hour. On his tricycle.
Or perhaps it's today's playground, all-rubber-cushioned surface where kids used to skin their knees. And... wait a minute... those aren't little kids playing. Their mommies—and especially their daddies—are in there with them, coplaying or play-by-play coaching. Few take it half-easy on the perimeter benches, as parents used to do, letting the kids figure things out for themselves.

Then there are the sanitizing gels, with which over a third of parents now send their kids to school, according to a recent survey. Presumably, parents now worry that school bathrooms are not good enough for their children.

Consider the teacher new to an upscale suburban town. Shuffling through the sheaf of reports certifying the educational "accommodations" he was required to make for many of his history students, he was struck by the exhaustive, well-written—and obviously costly—one on behalf of a girl who was already proving among the most competent of his ninth-graders. "She's somewhat neurotic," he confides, "but she is bright, organized and conscientious—the type who'd get to school to turn in a paper on time, even if she were dying of stomach flu." He finally found the disability he was to make allowances for: difficulty with Gestalt thinking. The 13-year-old "couldn't see the big picture." That cleverly devised defect (what 13-year-old can construct the big picture?) would allow her to take all her tests untimed, especially the big one at the end of the rainbow, the college-worthy SAT.

Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history. "Kids need to feel badly sometimes," says child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University. "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope."

Messing up, however, even in the playground, is wildly out of style. Although error and experimentation are the true mothers of success, parents are taking pains to remove failure from the equation.

"Life is planned out for us," says Elise Kramer, a Cornell University junior. "But we don't know what to want." As Elkind puts it, "Parents and schools are no longer geared toward child development, they're geared to academic achievement."

No one doubts that there are significant economic forces pushing parents to invest so heavily in their children's outcome from an early age. But taking all the discomfort, disappointment and even the play out of development, especially while increasing pressure for success, turns out to be misguided by just about 180 degrees. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life. That not only makes them risk-averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness. Forget, too, about perseverance, not simply a moral virtue but a necessary life skill. These turn out to be the spreading psychic fault lines of 21st-century youth. Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a nation of wimps.

The Fragility Factor
College, it seems, is where the fragility factor is now making its greatest mark. It's where intellectual and developmental tracks converge as the emotional training wheels come off. By all accounts, psychological distress is rampant on college campuses. It takes a variety of forms, including anxiety and depression—which are increasingly regarded as two faces of the same coin—binge drinking and substance abuse, self-mutilation and other forms of disconnection. The mental state of students is now so precarious for so many that, says Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard University and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, "it is interfering with the core mission of the university."

To Continue Reading.....
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20041112-000010&page=2

Name This Critter!

Got Nuts? Second Edition

Remember this post? http://milobardays.blogspot.com/2006/12/got-nuts.html

Well, guess who is still a regular visitor! Actually he/she disappeared for a while. The kids were blaming it on a cousin, who threw pine cones at our little critter. BUT... I bought another critter block and the little dude returned. He even has his own peanuts in a special jar, next to the doorwall. We're still not sure if it's a chic or a dude, but Emily has said we should call him Notchy, because of the notch of fur on his nose.

Speaking of names... send in your best suggestion for this little guy. The chosen winner will receive a $5 Starbucks Card. Rocky is out. My parent's had a rocky at their house. We're looking for originality here. Suggestions will be written on paper, minus the name of the submitter. Then they will be voted on by my family members. Deadline for this is Thursday. Winner to be announced on Friday. Good Luck!

A Little Bit of This... A Little Bit of That...

Milford Memories 2007

Beautiful waterfall behind Starbucks on Mainstreet.

Lots to say today... Although if I were smart, I would do up a couple drafts and just post them day by day, as the rest of this week is going to get a bit busy. Normally I work 2 days per week. This week? 4

I know lots of you full time working readers are playing your miniature violins, lol.

So here we go...

On Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting my childhood friend Melanie, at the Milford Memories Festival. It is fitting of us, because we both grew up just outside of Milford. We actually marched down Mainstreet one year, as batton twirllers. I will save you the agony of viewing photos. Mel looked great, but as for me, I'm shocked that my parents let me go out of the house looking like I did!

Now that I look at this photo, I'm wondering how I left the house with hair like that! It's a work in progress, but I'm trying to grow it out. The booth that we are standing in front of is the booth I look for every year. It is the bug lady's booth. Did I ever tell you I collect window screen bugs?


With the exception of 1 that I received from my sister-in-law Pattie, the rest came from the Bug Lady. Mel and I searched and searched for her, and found her booth on a side street as we were walking back towards the car. These are the two that I added to my collection this year...

As always, it is such a wonderful annual tradition for us. To my best calculations, we started doing this shortly after Melanie came home from college. We have missed maybe a year or two. Emily has tried and tried to stow away in the car for this adventure, but it is A LOT of walking, in the heat, and it's a time for old friends to catch up. Mel and I go back to a time well before the age that Emily is now.

With that... I have decided to not bore you too much more with the details of my existence today. I'm going to go with my original plan and post more this week. Namaste.

Yeah BABY!!!

My smokin' hot, strapping, young stud is on the right, under the ladder.

Need I say more? I didn't think so.

My Uh-oh moment...

Leather Jacket: $15.00 on JCPenny card.
























Black Sunglasses: $2.99 on Debit Card






















8 going on 18 attitude: OMG, kids! Get back in the car, we have to return something.

Help Wanted...

Quality Control Expert

Job entails tasting of cake batter, to ensure highest possible quality.

Must possess good licking skills and a refined sense of taste.

Must be able to do multiple tastings in one sitting.

Hired participant must not be easily distracted.

No previous experience necessary.

Inquire within.

Happy Birthday!!!

Birthday Reminder
This week we celebrate a special birthday. Monica Lewinsky turned 31
Can you believe it?
It seems like only yesterday she was crawling around the White House on her hands and knees, and putting everything in her mouth
They grow up so fast, don't they?

She saw me, and I saw her...

As I rode along, I heard the brush and twigs breaking on my right. As I stopped to look, I saw her... and she saw me. We both stood for a moment, then she started to walk off, her sleek body, ending in a whimsical, white tail. Two others followed her, but they weren't anywhere near the size of her. They were definiltely her offspring, and so young, they had very little bodies. It was the GREATEST thing I have seen in a long time...

Today Den, the kids and I went for a 10 mile bike ride. Greg and his toothpick legs would have NEVER kept up, so he rode in the bike trailer. Funny how he said he was "tired" at the end of it.

We started out at West Road, N of 26 Mile. I "borrowed" this photo from the website, so nix the pumpkins. Had I any inclination how AMAZING this journey would be, I would have DEFINITELY taken my camera.


We rode South on the path for about 5 miles.


We rode past Dequindre Road and almost into Downtown Rochester Hills. The path turns into an unpaved path, however, it was still very smooth, and even more "country" than the paved portions. The smell of the flowers, the sound of the wind rustling the trees... I LOOOOVVVVEEEEDDDD it. Just when it couldn't get any better, we saw the deer.

NEVER...

Have my flower beds looked this great. This is what fertilizing every 7 days produces...