Baby giraffes

Animal biology is proving to be quite entertaining.
Professor Bishop is great - first day of class she pulled a young python out of her jacket pocket!

Today, I learned how baby giraffes are born.
The mom gives birth standing up so the first introduction to this world the baby has is a good 10 foot fall to the hard ground. The baby then turns over and curls its feet under it to catch its new found breath and greet the bright world. The mother stands over the baby and a few seconds later....WHACK the mother kicks the baby and it goes sprawling head over hoofs. A stunned zoo employee watching this event asked the zookeeper what on earth she did that for. He simply answered: "She wants him to stand up." The mother continues to kick the baby until its stands wobbly - but standing none-the-less. The zoo employees cheer and then WHACK the mother kicks it back down. Again, the stunned zoo employee asked the zookeeper. "Why on earth did she do that? The baby was standing!" The zookeeper replied, "She wants him to remember how he got up." In the wild, predators would gladly snag a baby giraffe for a meal so it is the job of the mother to teach it to stand as quickly as possible and remember how to do it so as to survive. That amazes me.
Prof. Bishop talked about how it seems that you've just stood up from a challenging trial when your knocked down again. Remember that God loves us and is teaching us to stand, and remember how we climbed up the last time so we can do it again.
Still.
Poor baby giraffes.

Well I am behind on homework. So this is short.

P.S. in one of my classes I watched the guy sitting next to me eat nearly a whole tin of Altoids in a matter of an hour or so. He ate them like candy! I can't even handle a half of one.