Win Animal Planet's Emergency Vets for the DS

One of my favorite events in Raleigh happens every October. It's the Dog Olympics at the North Carolina State School of Veterinary Medicine. I used to take my little American Eskimo mix, Chelsea, and watch her whoop up on the Labrador retrievers in the retrieving competition. Imagine my pride when she tied for 2nd amongst a big group of dogs whose name alone implied they should have beaten her.

I love that we have the vet school right here in the Triangle. I have taken my dogs there multiple times and always received phenomenal care. Our chocolate lab even presented with a good learning opportunity because he had some weirdo eye condition from where he pulled too hard on the leash. I sound proud, but I was actually embarrassed that he was so rude on a leash. Of course, we had only had him about 2 weeks at that point, which would be a great excuse if he wasn't still rude on a leash 18 months later.

Anyway, without disguise of a smooth segue, we have a copy of Animal Planet's Emergency Vets, a new game for the Nintendo DS that lets children play as a veterinarian in 15 vet mini-games. They can care for 30 different animal species cleaning teeth, grooming them, and even examining x-rays to diagnose problems.

Standard giveaway procedures apply. Earn an entry for each of these:

1. Leave a comment telling us about your pets.
2. Post a link on your blog about our little giveaway; leave another comment with the link.
3. Tweet a link to the giveaway; leave a comment with a link.
4. Follow us on Facebook; leave a comment letting us know.

Entries remain open until 11:00 PM on Tuesday, June 16, 2009. A winner will be chosen at random after the contest closes. Please make sure we can contact you in case you are the winner.

Good luck!   

What Do You Want to Change Next?

Christopher and I have been sick. Since early last week, we have been battling stomach viruses and flu viruses. Of course, if I hadn't taken him into the doctor for the stomach virus, we would likely not be battling a flu virus, but that's another story.

Saturday morning, Kevin, Christopher and I stopped by Target on the way home from the pediatrician. We bought some generic Motrin for babies. Little one had a fever that wasn't budging, and we fully intended on medicating our baby according to the doctor's suggestion. I bought the generic. I usually do.

Later that day, when I checked into Twitter, there was a new #thing. Not that I really understand the whole # in front of words, but I think it has to do with groups. Anyhow, the new one was #motrinmoms.

If this story is new to you, I suggest you go to Advertising Age and read this synopsis. They sum it all up nicely with the appropriate links. That will give you the basics.

There are also the opinions of bloggers who think people have over reacted, and of course the blogger who just has a great sense of humor about it. I'm finding the difference of opinions fascinating.

And because I'm sure you were wondering, the ad annoyed me. I found it completely miss the mark. I didn't feel the need to rant over it, but then again, I'm already not a fan of Motrin's parent company.

My point, however, is that did you know they have removed the ad? Did you know that they apologized?

Did you know that someone is listening to mothers online? I mean someone beside the crazy stalkers?

Our voices have always mattered. We are telling the stories of our lives, our families, our children, and everything else we hold dear. Our voices are important and deserve to be heard. There just seems to be more and more proof that the world is starting to listen.

I think this year has been a year of discovering how we can be part of the change in the world.

What do we want to change next?