Maybe if I hot-glue my eyelids shut I could get some rest.

My neighbor came over a few weeks ago, took one look at Luca laying peacefully on the couch staring at the ceiling and trying to yell with his fist in his mouth (we think he may be gifted) and declared that he needed a mobile.

Oh, right. Of course he does. Babies need mobiles.

Kreg and I are trying to minimize acquiring anything a) plastic, b) battery operated and c) ugly for the babe and the mobiles that fit the bill cost enough to pay our heating oil bill for an entire month and might as well have been crafted by Calder himself.

So me, fancying myself as an artsy-fartsy type decided that I would MAKE Luca a mobile. I found this very beautiful idea on the web at spoolsewing.com.


I could do THIS. Sew some little birdies together, gather some sticks, throw the whole thing together with some fishing wire and presto...Luca would be staring up the asses of a bunch of birds in no time.

So I sewed the birds (by hand may I add), stuffed them, found some dry sticks (no small feat in Maine in January) and got ready to assemble the mobile. By this time I was starting to feel pretty good about myself...maybe I could be one of those crafty stay-at-home moms who always look beautifully crunchy, slings her baby around the house and comes up with delicious and inventive ways to cook tempeh.

And then things started to get ugly.

I realized that I was going to need a hot glue gun. For my own personal safety and the safety of others, anyone who knows me tries to keep me away from anything that makes crumbs, stains or is sticky. Hot glue is a no-no.

I went to our little local hardware store and selected a glue gun and some extra glue sticks. And the total (I'm not kidding) came to $6.66. The lady working the register nervously handed me my change and I made some flip comment about how I was probably going to glue my fingers together to try and lighten the mood. Ha-ha. I should have known.

Kreg took one look at me and that glue gun and started spreading newspaper all over the kitchen like I'd brought home a new puppy. I assured him that everything would be fine.

And everything DID go fine until I started trying to assemble all those bird-festooned sticks. NOTHING would make those little birdies stand upright.

Here's a photo of one level of my mobile. Do not adjust your screen.


In addition to the little problem we call gravity, I was using copper wire and fishing line. Copper wire is a great conductor of heat and fishing line basically, um, melts when it hits hot glue...so you can see where this went. I need not go into details except to say that I burned my fingers, there were little birdies dropping onto their heads all over the kitchen and Luca learned a few new words.

In my desperation I got onto the Internet in search of help to try and find other people who had been total failures at this project...a support group maybe? I found lots of crafty mommy bloggers who had posted photos of their beautiful mobiles and written comments like "This project was such a snap, I think I'll make three more tonight while my baby sleeps peacefully for 10 hours straight".

F@$#!

After two afternoons of hot glue madness I finally assembled something satisfying. Luca loves his mobile in any case...and I like to think its because it is beautiful and because it radiates totally devoted lovey-dovey mommyness. Then Kreg pointed out yesterday at dinner that Luca would probably like to stare at anything we hung over his crib.

Thanks Kreg.