Friday Morning, May 9th/Weekend “NEWS”! Happy Mother’s Day! I’ve got some Mother’s Day Amazing Facts, What a Mom is really worth and two very funny Mother’s Day videos! “BUZZ” Paris Hilton says she’s in love forever, and the Jenna Bush weekend wedding! “PHOTO GALLERY” Michelle Johnson, 1984 photo of the star of “Blame It On Rio” movie!

MOTHER’S DAY FACTS . . .

1. Mother’s Day is a strange time of year for mail in many countries. In 1973, mail delivery through the U.S. Postal Service was delayed for eight days because of the amount of mail. Telephone networks are also at their busiest on Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is the number one holiday for flowers purchased throughout the year.

2. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

3. The youngest authenticated mother is Lina Medina, who delivered a 6½-pound boy by caesarean section in Lima, Peru in 1939, at an age of 5 years and 7 months. The child was raised as her brother and only discovered that Lina was his mother when he was 10.

4. Bobbie McCaughey is the mother who holds the record for the most surviving children from a single birth. She gave birth to the first set of surviving septuplets – 4 boys and 3 girls on November 19, 1997, at the University Hospital, Iowa, US. Conceived by in vitro fertilization, the babies were delivered after 31 weeks by caesarean in the space of 16 minutes. The babies are named Kenneth, Nathaniel, Brandon, Joel, Kelsey, Natalie and Alexis.

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

6. Elizabeth Ann Buttle is the mother who 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.

7. The highest officially recorded number of children born to one Russian mother is 69. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 pregnancies, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy.

8. The modern world record for giving birth is held by Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Leontina claims to be the mother of 64 children, of which only 55 of them are documented. She is listed in the 1999 Guinness World Records but dropped from later editions.

9. Katherine Hepburn’s father was a surgeon and her mother was a dedicated suffragette and early crusader for birth control.

10. James McNeill Whistler’s best known painting, often called “Whistler’s Mother,” is actually titled “Arrangement in Black and Gray: The Artist’s Mother.”

11. Bette Nesmith Graham, mother to Mike Nesmith, one of the Monkee’s, was the inventor of Liquid Paper correction fluid. She sold the rights to the Gillette Corporation in 1979 for $47.5 million and when she died in 1980, she left half of her fortune to her son.

MOM’S VALUE:

A financial survey estimates mothers are worth over half a million dollars a year. The typical mom conducts the same daily business of seventeen occupations combined. Using salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, a multi-tasking mother’s annual salary is calculated to be $508,700.
Raise children (Child care worker) $13,000
Plan vacation and play (Recreation worker) $15,500
Cook meals (Executive chef) $40,000
Serve meals (Food service worker) $20,000
Plan meals (Dietitians/nutritionists) $41,600
Keep house (Property manager) $22,600
Clean house (Housekeeper) $9,000
Care for pets (Animal caretaker) $17,500
Dispense medication (Registered nurse) $35,000
Attend functions (Management analyst) $41,000
Manage family finances (Computer system analyst) $44,000
Manage investments (Financial manager) $39,000
Carpool (Bus driver) $32,400
Homework & discipline (School principal) $58,600
Resolve family issues (Psychologist) $29,000
Keep family schedule (General office clerk) $19,000
Maintain family harmony (Social worker) $30,000
Total: $508,700