Mother's Day Tradition

Our Mother's Day tradition started way before I was a mom.

And actually has nothing to do with me at all!

Our Mother's Day weekend is all about making our COWS mothers again.

For whatever reason (maybe a conspiracy by all the guys???) we always spend Mother's Day weekend AI'ing (artificially inseminating) our cows. 

The days start early.  We are in the corrals by 6am heat checking the cows.  Since this involves standing around watching the cows mount each other I skipped the photos.  You're welcome.  We then sort off the cows that are in heat.  If they are sorted in the morning, they will be bred that night.  We heat check and sort off a group of cows each morning and night for about 4 days.  We finally sit down for dinner around 8pm, which makes for some long days.

Last year Claire was only a few months old, and she stayed inside pretty much the whole time with Grandma.

Mother's Day 2010

This year, since she's a big kid, she helped heat check.  I strapped her on, and off we went!  We didn't have a hat for her at the farm, so we had to improvise...Claire didn't mind the cows at all and enjoyed being in the middle of the action.  She would make it about 30 minutes in the carrier before she was tired of being constrained, and needed some time on the floor to play.

yes, my eyes are closed...

And just a few more pictures because she looks so cute!

signing 'dog'

kissing the dog

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And since this is not a traditional Mother's Day post, here is probably more of what you were expecting.  My friend Patti put together a beautiful post.  I was excited to be included as one of an amazing bunch of moms  who answer the question As a mom, what do you wish others knew about Down syndrome?