Happy Birthday C.J.!!

I am no Ace of Cakes, but at least it resembled a tractor. I used 2 loaf pans for the body of it, then chocolate muffins for the wheels. He blew out the candles without even spitting on the cake - way to go!

Yum, it even tastes good, too! He barely ate any dinner because all he could think about was "tractor cake." It was worth it to save those calories.

A dump truck he can ride - fantastic!

It is always so much fun when a big box comes in the mail - and this one had a present too!

As a special surprise for his birthday, we went to Walnutdale Farms (one of my clients), for some real tractor time!! You should have seen the smile ear to ear when we got out of the car and he stood next to the huge combine!! He was not as thrilled when I lifted him up into the cab - it was high up and pretty noisy. But after a few minutes sitting with him in the buddy seat, he warmed up to it and started talking with Farmer Ken about the corn and the combine.

Rylee went first to prove that it was o.k. That's her role in life I think - to be the guinea pig, first-to-try. She loved it and said it was safe, so then C.J. decided it would be alright to go, too. No pics of that because I was up there with him. He loved watching the corn fill up the bin and the combine "fingers" picking the corn off the stalks.

Then we made a side trip to the dairy to go visit the baby cows. They're always a hit!

Here is a birthday conversation with the little champ:

Person: What day is it?

C.J.: C.J. birday

Person: Oh, how old are you?

C.J.: TWOOO!

Person: What do you want for your birthday?

C.J.: Dump truck, tractor, monster truck, combine

Person: What kind of cake do you want?

C.J.: Tractor

Person: What else do you want?

C.J.: Candy!!

So we tried to live up to all his little aspirations of a special day - a tractor cake made by mommy, all sorts of trucks/tractors/combine, a big dump truck, and a trip to the farm!

H1N1

I get annoyed by the littlest things sometimes. I'll admit it. I've ranted about them before I'm sure, and I will again. Like right now I'm annoyed with H1N1 (more specifically with all the local people who are convinced they have it but most likely don't). So our kids were off of school from Tuesday thru Friday - 4 days - due to too much sickness in the schools. This was all the snow days we are allotted before we even had any of the white stuff accumulate! I blame the media for much of this because without their constant drumming of how awful this flu bug is and how it's a worldwide pandemic, life may be better. How many people kept their kids home just because they had a runny nose or a little cough, but because everyone is all up in arms about swine flu they felt they couldn't send them to school. My friend got a call at work on Monday from the school secretary to send home her daughter because she was sick. Said friend is a nurse, so she asked if there was a fever, vomiting, symptoms of any kind? Her eyes look tired. Nice.

So then all the news is covering this stuff and talking about how schools need only to have a certain percentage of students out sick before closing down. It doesn't take a moderately intellegent middle or high schooler long to figure out if enough of you are sick, school will be closed. I heard stories of perfectly healthy kids calling home claiming to be ill to help increase the "sick" percent.

Then all the sick people of course are flocking to the emergency rooms - after all, isn't swine flu an emergency? That's a great idea, lets spread this bug to all the people who are sick/dying of other stuff. I can see if H1N1 was a serious condition, but it's not. According to our local infectious disease doctor (who was pleading with people to stay out of the ER), it is milder than the average seasonal flu that we deal with every year. Really the only people who might need to be concerned are those with pulmonary issues (lungs).

So that brings me to the vaccine. Being a medical professional, I'm rather sceptical of a vaccine for a disease that was just identified 6 months ago. Animal vaccines take years to develop what with safety and efficacy studies. We just got a new cow vaccine on the market and it took like 2 years even though it was exactly the same as the old one, just one new ingredient, they had to re-prove the efficacy and safety of all the old ingredients plus the new one. So how did they do that in 6 months? Then the whole "forced vaccination" of medical workers - I won't even go there. You probably know how I feel already:)

So when our kids are in school on July 4th, you'll now know why.