Trivia About Mothers

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T is for trivia about mothers (A-Z Blogging Challenge)

Jayne Bleackley holds the record for the shortest interval between two children born in separate confinements. Her babies were born 208 days apart.  She gave birth to Joseph Robert on September 3, 1999, and Annie Jessica Joyce on March 30, 2000.

Elizabeth Ann Buttle  holds the record for the longest interval between the birth of two children. She gave birth to Belinda on May 19,1956 and Joseph on November 20, 1997. The babies were born 41 years 185 days apart. The mother was 60 years old when her son Joseph was born.

The odds of a woman delivering twins is 1-in-33.  The odds of her having triplets is 1-in-539.

The highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy.

When the female embryo is only six weeks old, it develops egg cells for her future children.  When the baby girl is born, each of her ovaries carries about a million egg cells, all that she will ever have.

August is the most popular month to have a baby.  Tuesday is the most popular day of the week to have a baby.

The youngest mother on record was Lina Medina who gave birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months.  She delivered a 6-1/2 pound baby boy by cesarean section in Lina, Peru in 1939.  See Snopes report.

The median age of a woman giving birth for the first time in the U.S. is 24.8 years.

There are more phone calls made on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year. However, the number of calls is declining due to e-mail and other electronic communication.

Mother's Day is the third largest card-sending holiday.

Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year for restaurants.

Nominations For The World's Worst Mothers

Nominations for the world's worst mothers . . . in the Animal Kingdom, that is!

We all want to believe that animal mothers always take good care of their young.  But they don't always!

A female ostrich leaves her eggs immediately after she lays them.  It is the male that keeps the eggs warm so they hatch. He is the one who looks after the young and teaches them to live on their own.  (photo by Darrensp, Dreamstime.com)

A Magellanic Penguin mother will lay two eggs and want both to hatch.  Her "worst mother" tendencies show up when she gives 90% of the fish to one chick.  Of course, that one grows and grows while the smaller chick cries pitifully for food and dies in the coldness of Antarctica.  A Royal Penguin mother lays two eggs every season.  The second egg is over a half larger than the first egg laid, so the mother simply rolls the first egg out of the nest.  So long, baby Royal!

Black Bears want to have two or three cubs in their litters.  It takes just as much time and involvement to raise just one cub as to raise twins or triplets.  So, often when a black mama bear has just one cub, she will abandon it, hoping to give her efforts to raising a larger litter the next time.  Apparently just one cub simply isn't worth the effort!  (Photo by Eppic, Dreamstime.com)

The African Black Eagle is definitely in the running for one of the worst animal mothers.  Usually she lays two eggs.  But then mommy eagle will feed only one chick.  The stronger chick will eventually peck the weaker chick to death.  Mommy just looks on, emotionless while one of her babies is being killed.

We usually think of  lionesses feeding and caring for all the cubs in their particular pride.  However, when a new male takes over the group, he kills any cubs in order to keep them from eventually challenging him for his position as head of the pride.  The lionesses allow all of this to happen without objecting.  And, of course, not having young cubs, caused the lionesses to go into heat sooner, enabling the new head male to begin his own dynasty. 

The cuckoo is, in my opinion, the laziest of all mothers!  She will lay her egg in another bird's nest. So another mother takes on the job of hatching and raising the baby cuckoo.   The cuckoo egg usually hatches before the other eggs so the cuckoo chick grows faster than the other baby birds.  The smaller birds are pushed out of the nest and die.  Then the cuckoo gets all the attention of the adoptive parents.

Can you add any other "worst mothers in the animal kingdom?"

Hey, Mom!

(photo by Dreamstime.com)

Mother's Day is a holiday celebrated on the second Sunday in May in the United States.  It is a day when children (small and adult) honor their mothers with gifts, flowers, and cards. 

In 1908, Ana Jarvis from West Virginia, U.S., started a campaign to observe a national Mother's Day.  She began with convincing her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate all mothers on the anniversary of her own mother's death.

Jarvis, along with others, began a letter-writing campaign to ministers, businessmen, and politicians.  They urged support for their idea of a national Mother's Day.  It worked!  President Woodrow Wilson made an official announcement in 1914.  He proclaimed that Mother's Day would be a national observance held each year on the second Sunday in May.

The United States is not the only country honoring Mothers.  Many other countries celebrate Mother's Day at different times throughout the year.  Only Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium celebrate Mother's Day the same day as the United States.

Appreciated Advice?

Familiar advice from Mother!

Your face will freeze like that.

What if someone told you to jump off a cliff--would you do it?

Always wear clean underwear; you never know when you"ll be in an accident.

Don't put that in your mouth; you don't know where it's been.

Close the door.  Were you born in a barn?

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Be careful or you'll knock your eye out.

You have enough dirt behind those ears to grow potatoes.

What advice can you add that your mother gave you? Or that you, as a mother, give your kids?  (Please comment!)