Backyard Bubble

A while back I stumbled across a website called Play at Home Mom. The site has tons of fun ideas for playing with your kids, from simple little games to big DIY projects. Two of the ideas jumped out at me: the plastic bubble and the light box. Both looked cool, but the bubble was definitely the biggest hit of the weekend.

Around 10 AM Saturday morning I spent about 15 minutes duct-taping up two sides of a 10x25 sheet of 3.5 mil clear plastic. Then I took it outside, rigged it to our fan, and taped up a bit in the middle. Because it was a really windy day, I made a couple loops of duct tape and staked the fan end to the ground. Then I turned on the fan and POOF, we had a bubble.

At first Micah was little unsure of it, mostly because I was dumb enough to joke about it blowing away with him after a particularly strong gust of wind.

But once he went inside, he was in love.

When the wind blew hard, the whole back end of the bubble would lift up, way up, over our heads. At first he was a little scared whenever the whole thing started flapping around, but by Saturday evening he and I both were laughing like crazy and yelling, "It's a windy wind! A WINDY WIND!" It was hilarious at the time, I swear.

A couple things:

1) Suffocation - The plastic we used is a 3.5 mil plastic. It is NOT the super-thin plastic drop cloth material. The thickness of the plastic is such that it cannot be accidentally sucked over a child's face. Also, please keep in mind that air is continually being supplied by the fan and the bubble is never deflated with a child inside. That said...

2) Supervision - It kind of goes without saying that although the risk is low, we still supervised closely. I would have been content to watch from outside, but he wanted me to come in with him. I spent most of the weekend playing inside the bubble with Micah, and it was nice and cool and kind of surreal. I can totally understand why he loves it!

3) Fan placement - The original post showed them using a stand fan. I prefer a fan that sits on the ground because if the kids get excited and run up the plastic wall, they can jerk the fan over. Ditto for wind. A fan on the ground might fall over too, but it won't come down on someone's head.

4) Seams - I was a little sloppy putting the bubble together and didn't get the plastic lined up right in the seams. When the bubble inflated, I had exposed strips of tape. When we deflated the bubble for naptime and came back out later, those exposed strips had stuck to the plastic in several areas and tore it when I tried to pull them apart. When we do this again, I'll be more careful with the seams.

5) Staking - I did a poor job of staking the thing down and spent the entire weekend hitching it back over to the fan. Next time, I'll use bits of rope attached to the seams and I'll properly stake down both the bag and the fan.

For only about $20, we had an activity that totally fascinated Micah for nearly two whole days. I figure we'll give it a shot the next time we have the cousins or Micah's friend Trey over and see if other kids get as much of a kick out of it. My guess is, yes!

A few more pictures

Let's see, what else did we do this month?





We visited rockets and model Space Shuttles at MSFC.




We painted glittery paper eggs and made an Easter tree.




We purchased a play structure and the guys assembled it.
Yeah, it's been a good month.

And now an exceptionally cranky baby is waking up from her too-short nap. This is why you never hear from me anymore. I swear, that child can hear someone typing from a mile away.

Stand Up

It's been a while since I've gone on an old-fashioned political rant here. I've mostly transitioned from idealistic-and-mouthy-college-student to mommy-who-takes-lots-of-pictures; however, this topic, fittingly, touches on both. I'm a little rusty on the bloggity ranting, but let's see if I can get this one out.

So. Background. In Alabama, as in many states as of late, a flurry of bills seeking to limit access to abortion or to outlaw it entirely have recently been introduced. I am Pro Life AND Pro Choice, and so am fundamentally opposed to all these bills. The reasons for my opposition are many and are best explained in a different post, because what I'm talking about here today is the bill that I feel most strongly about: SB12/HB418.

This bill, known as the "Right to See and Know Act" is one of the forced-ultrasound bills that have recently become so popular among the Republican legislators of this country. In its current form, the bill requires that:

(b) Prior to a woman giving informed consent to having any part of an abortion performed or induced, and prior to the administration of any anesthesia or medication in preparation for the abortion on the woman, the physician who is to perform the abortion or a qualified technician shall:

(1) Perform an obstetric ultrasound on the pregnant woman, using either a vaginal transducer or an abdominal transducer, whichever would display the embryo or fetus more clearly.

(2) Provide a simultaneous verbal explanation of what the ultrasound is depicting, which shall include the presence and location of the unborn child within the uterus and the number of unborn children depicted. If the ultrasound image indicates that fetal demise has occurred, a woman shall be informed of that fact.

(3) Display the ultrasound images so that the pregnant woman may view them.

(4) Provide a medical description of the ultrasound images, which shall include the dimensions of the embryo or fetus and the presence of external members and internal organs, if present and viewable.

Now I, of course, am thrilled that the current bill has recently been amended to include a little less rape by offering the option of an abdominal ultrasound. But the part that has my full attention is this section right here:

(1) ABORTION. The intentional use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or devise [sic] or method to terminate the life of an unborn child, to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with an intention other than to produce a live birth and preserve the life and health of the child after live birth, to remove an ectopic pregnancy, or to remove a dead unborn child who died as the result of natural causes, accidental trauma, or a criminal assault on the pregnant woman or her unborn child.

(Emphasis mine)

Let's clarify here. The "Right to See and Know Act" would require that a woman undergoing a D&C for the removal of her miscarried baby be forced to pay for a medically unnecessary ultrasound AND have her dead baby described to her. In detail.

I miscarried my second child, a daughter I call AnnaBelle, in June of 2009 at around 11 weeks. I miscarried my third child, a boy I call Aaron, in February of 2010 at 13 weeks. Both times I needed a D&C.

When I think back on my miscarriages, the one completely vivid memory I have of both is the moment the doctor turned away from the ultrasound screen to confirm what I already knew from the images. Time seemed to slow and freeze and it was as if everything was suspended in free fall, like I could almost see the words leaving his mouth and making their way across the room to drill their way into my brain, the ringing in my ears almost drowning out his murmur. "I'm so sorry."

I needed compassion. I needed to decide if I wanted to risk waiting on the baby's remains to come out naturally or have a D&C. I needed my husband to hold me. I needed my living child in my arms. The last thing I needed then was for my doctor to say, "...but now I have to tell you about your dead baby. See, here is her head and her nose. Here are his arms and his legs. Here is the heart that is no longer beating..."

This bill would force my doctor to do exactly that. That, or make a woman have another ultrasound a few days later. "Look, here is your baby. It is still dead. Here is its head..."

If you don't have a problem with that, then I'm pretty sure we can't ever be friends.

I am completely sickened by this bill. With most anti-choice legislation, I may oppose it and disagree completely with everything about it, but I can at least see where the other side is coming from. But this? This is unnecessary, unspeakable cruelty. It is nothing less than state-required torture and abuse of grieving mothers. It is horrific that anyone ever wrote it. It is horrific that anyone ever SPONSORED it. There is no justification, NONE, for such a thing.

On March 18, there was a rally in downtown Huntsville opposed SB12, among other bills. And so I called up my sister, packed up my baby girl, and we drove to Big Spring Park to stand with a hundred and fifty other people of different backgrounds, professions, ages, colors, and religions to say NO. NOT ME, NOT MY WIFE, NOT MY MOTHER, NOT MY DAUGHTER. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS THING.

Will it help? Probably not as much as letters and phone calls to my representatives.

But was it right?

Hell yeah it was.

Lately

I started to write a real post, but it's late and I'm tired and Todd just got home and I'm hungry and it's been a long, long couple of weeks. So here's what we've been up to:

Turning 8 months old




Gluing stuff




Playing with leftover party streamers




Dodging another effing tornado




Pointedly ignoring cameras




Enjoying the warmer weather




Being loud




Trying on new hats from nice ladies




Tossing children

7 Months

Seeing as I'm awake anyway, I might as well take the time to post. As always, the weeks have flown by and Aerin actually turned 8 months old on Tuesday. This would probably be a more tender look back at the month if she hadn't woken up at 3:15 this morning. Or if I'd been able to fall asleep after I put her back down.

So yeah. This adorable brat is 8 months old.

The big story of the last month is TEETH and MORE TEETH. She has total of four now, her two top left teeth having made a rather dramatic appearance a few weeks ago. She supposedly has two more lurking on the right side, waiting to pop at the most inconvenient time, I'm sure.

This month marked her very first (and hopefully last) nursing strike. One morning she woke up, nursed, and went to daycare, just like every other day, but when I went to feed her at 3:30 that afternoon, she absolutely refused to eat. She arched her back away from me and cried. At the time, I thought she was just tired and maybe hungry for the blueberries she hadn't eaten yet. So we got home and she still refused. She was clearly hungry, but she wouldn't even lie in my arms, much less latch on. She screamed, she scratched, she pinched, she pushed away, and she wouldn't eat. Todd was out of town, so finally, I just had to put her down in her crib so I could cook dinner for me and Micah. Aerin screamed the whole time; I mean screamed. And so went the rest of the evening. And the weekend. And the first two days of the next week. She wouldn't even take a bottle or a sippy. When Todd would hold her out to me, she would stiffen in midair, already pulling away just from my touch. I spent the entire time worried, upset, hurt, and just kind of pissed. When she finally latched on at 8 PM on the following Tuesday, my arms were covered in little black bruises and I had already promised her to a roving band of Gypsies.

Of course, she's fine now.

Jerk.

Her growth has slowed down a bit. She's still in 9 month outfits, although she fills them out a bit more. Her weight dropped during the nursing strike, so she's still holding at around 19 pounds. Since she's approaching the 22-pound weight limit in her Chicco carrier and Micah's nearly outgrown his car seat, we bought Micah a new car seat a few weeks ago and turned his old Roundabout around for Aerin to ride in. We're still using the baby carrier in my car, but she seems to enjoy the bigger seat in Todd's.

She's started eating more solid foods like Cheerios and puffs and has learned how to chew things pretty effectively. She loves yogurt and can drink water from a sippy (although she can’t quite hold it up yet). She still doesn't roll over (I KNOW), but she's got pretty good balance when it comes to sitting. She can also swipe a remote, water glass, or phone from a far greater range than you'd expect. Nothing within a good 3-foot radius is safe. She's also pushing up on her arms and acting like she's thinking about getting her legs tucked up under her. She's actually happy to play on her stomach these days, at least for a little while.

She's got a whole repertoire of noises now, from a happy little dadadadaDA to an imperious tuh and she straight-up GROWLS at us if we're not moving fast enough when getting her dinner together. Her teachers laugh at that one; she's their little feral baby.

She has started bouncing a lot when seated and loves the jumper at the daycare. When she's excited to see someone, she flaps her arms, squawks, and bounces up and down with pure, unrestrained joy. She has yet to meet a stranger and is still completely free with her smiles. We've been known to cut quite a swath through the grocery store, and no little old lady is safe from her charms.

See what I mean?

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Looking back: