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

***********

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?

Toffee

I posted this a couple of times on Facebook, but if you missed those, you really don't want to miss out on your last chance to get some of this toffee.

My friend Renee is adopting Paisley from Russia.  They will be traveling on their first trip soon, and still have some more funds to raise.  To help with the fundraising, Renee opened Paisley's Pantry. 

Her first Pantry offering is White Chocolate Toffee, and to say it is amazing is an understatement!

My jar arrived last night. 

This morning the toffee is half gone.

And I was the only one home last night...

No, that doesn't say much about my will power, but it does say something about how delicious this toffee really is. 

Friday, TOMORROW,  is the last day to order this treat.  It comes packaged in a jar, ready for gift giving.  It would be perfect for end of the year teacher gifts!  I've also been told it freezes very well, but I don't think any of my toffee is going to see the inside of the freezer.

Just click ORDER THIS TREAT and you will be sent to Renee's blog for all the details. 

Trust me, you will only be sorry if you miss out on this toffee!

Easter Pictures

I think I'm probably the last blogger to get Easter pictures posted...but better late than never!!

The day was windy and cold.  Claire wasn't AT ALL interested in crawling around for the eggs, and instead was quite happy banging a couple of them together.  But she was happy doing it!

Day 17: What’s in your purse?

For those of you that have been paying attention...my 30 days are up and I'm barely halfway through the topics.  I think it's official.  I am not a good daily blogger.

My purse...I just had to buy a bigger one (mine's white).  Yes, I carry too much stuff in it, but Claire's stuff takes up quite a bit of room too.

It always contains diaper and wipes.  A straw cup.  Some sort of teether or toy.

My wallet.  Checkbook.  A pile of wadded up receipts that haven't been entered into that checkbook...

Nail clippers and files. A wide assortment of lipsticks, glosses and chapsticks.  Mascara.  Lotion. 

Coupons...that I may or may not remember to use.

Cell phone (which also doubles as a book).

And even with all that stuff I carry with me, it always seems something is missing....

Day 16: Describe My Dream House

I know some people can describe their dream houses very specifically.  There is only one feature that is certain on my dream house.

A giant wrap around porch!

I'm thinking something like this....

I love the porch and the varied roof line. 

I found this house on another site...and discovered it was a remodel of an old house.  Quite a transformation!

And I discovered a new food blog, written by the owner of this house. All in all, a very productive google search!

Swallow Study and Weaning

On Friday Claire and I headed to Denver for her third swallow study.  It had been six months since her last one, and we were hoping that she'd outgrown the aspiration.  If she was still aspirating we were hoping to have her drink more than a swallow or two.  For her first two studies, she would take one drink and then refuse any more of the stuff since it tasted so bad.  We were never really able to get her to drink once we thickened the milk to make sure the consistency was right for her. 

This time they had a new product that was apple flavored.  We started with Claire's yogurt and that went down just fine.  I haven't been worried about solids, so this wasn't a surprise.  We also gave her a small piece of cookie, and this was swallowed whole.  It was pretty hard, so that's what I was expecting, but it would have been nice to see her chew.  I forgot her string cheese in the car though, so there wasn't anything else for her to chew on, and we did the milk next.

We started with thin liquid in her straw cup and she did great.  She took a few swallows in a row and there was just very minimal penetration and no aspiration at all.  With her bottle she was still aspirating on thin liquids, and had pretty significant penetration even with it thickened like we have been.  So the verdict is thicken in the bottle (even more than we have been), but unthickened is fine in the straw cup.  The SLP thought it was the speed which she was able to drink by bottle, and the angle of her head that was causing the aspiration.

I'm not totally convinced that she doesn't need her straw cup milk thickened too though.  She will often get a little 'junky' sounding after she drinks, and I think I will continue to thicken it just a little bit.

So onto weaning from the bottle!  I've wanted Claire off the bottle for a little while now, but also didn't want to lose all my snuggle time with her.

For the last 10 days she hasn't had any bottles during the day, and hasn't had night bottles in about 4 days.  This morning I was going to skip her morning bottle too, but she insisted.  :)  When we were eating breakfast I would offer her straw cup, but she kept pushing it away and signing 'milk'. We finished her morning milk in the bottle and will try to skip it again tomorrow.  She's done so well with the transition this far that I think she'll off the bottle completely within a week or two. 

Sorry for the lack of photos...we lost power last night, and I still haven't pulled the Easter photos from my camera.  Hopefully tomorrow!