Looking forward to another Positive Birth

In preparation for my 2^nd birth, I have been looking over all my antenatal notes from my 1^st pregnancy. We did a weekend antenatal course with Cuidiu (Irish Childbirth Trust). This was an amazing eye-opener for me and my hubby. I learnt that my body was designed to give birth, my body could make the natural pain reliever (endorphins) as required, assuming I control my fears and panic- these natural endorphins would be able to be released. We learnt that this was our birth- no one else’s- definitely not the hospitals. So armed with the knowledge of the natural process of birth, as well as the hospital processes, we could make educated decisions during the labour. And most importantly feel that we owned the experience.

I would highly recommend doing some antenatal study outside of the hospital offered courses. The hospitals obviously explain all about their process and approaches, which may or may not be exactly what you want.

I also did a home study course on GentleBirthing. This is a hypnobirthing program developed by an Irish woman, Tracy Donegan. The idea behind it, as with the Marie Mongan Method of HypnoBirthing, is to remove the fear many women associate with birth, and replace it with positive images. I am practicing this again, and am finding I can reach the state of deep relaxation very quickly, and also my little one loves it. I find it a great way to connect with the little one, the minute I begin the deep breathing the little one starts to move around loads. He/she obviously feels I am relaxed and can communicate with me.

I am also reading a lot. I have been reading Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Child Birthing and have found it brilliant. I recommend it for anyone interested in a natural or “normal” birth. (Just on a side note- we are very lucky to have Ina May visiting Ireland for the Homebirth Annual Conference, 29^th April, see www.homebirth.ie.)

Another great resource I used near the end of my first pregnancy was Journey into Mothehood by Sheri L. Menelli, a book of birth stories. I was balling crying through most. So emotional, positive, and encouraging. I downloaded this book free of charge from their website:

from Sheri's blog (http://smenelli.wordpress.com/):
"Please feel free to download this book of Journey into Motherhood and pass it on to other birth workers and expectant women.
http://www.birthingbusiness.com/Book/giveaway.html"

A bit about Fear:

The majority of women have heard the horror stories, the scary birth stories, friends’ bad experiences, TV and Movies with women screaming their heads off, cursing their partners, swearing they will never let them touch them again. It is a touchy subject as well. If you have a lovely birth, like we had with Little Man. While it was uncomfortable, yes; long, yes; painful, no. Would I have done it again straight away?? Well, if I got a little rest first, then yes. I got up from my 1 or 2 stitches and had a lovely shower, and then I carried our baba back from the delivery suite to the maternity ward. No drugs to numb me or dose the baby, we began our breastfeeding relationship happy and alert.

But when you tell people this, they make out you have rose tinted glasses on. And I feel like I am boosting, which I hate and try hard not to do. I have heard comments that by telling your positive birth story, you are belittling the women who have a tough time, but this is not it at all.

Overcoming the Fear:

I very much believe in the philosophies of GentleBirthing, and Cuidiu (Irish Childbirth Trust) and the NCT (UK’s National Childbirth Trust). That if women remove the fear (through education), and replace it with positive affirmations, a positive outlook towards birth (through education and deep relaxation in the case of hypnobirthing) then they have a big advantage towards obtaining their natural birth. Women need to stop listening or watching the horror stories surrounding birth and immerse themselves in positive stories and images.

A great idea I used (originally I came across it in Tracey Donegan’s GentleBirthing program, but have seen various types since) is to make a birth board- mine was simply an A4 page with images I felt represented how our birth would be, how our breastfeeding will go, how we will engage with our beautiful little one.

This time round I tried to add in some positive images of siblings and new babies. This is one area I am a little apprehensive of. But I am staying positive. Little Man will adore his little brother or sister as much as he does now. He kisses my belly all the time, and chats and reassures it.

What are other people’s experiences or thoughts on birth without fear/pain?

Pinterest Weekly Challenge: Messy Foam Play

Little Man loves the bath, a bit too much, in that we can’t get him out of it!!

He also loves painting and anything messy really.

I have to admit I don’t do enough of it. It might be the control freak in me coming out to play; the idea of the potential mess makes me nervous.

But I am going to do more with him. That’s my plan.

So for our first messy play activity, I got out two tubes of “crazy soap” foam bought from Tesco’s after hearing they had used this in crèche and Little Man loved it. This was about a year ago. And we played with it at the time and boy was it messy. But actually clean messy, as it doesn’t spill everywhere it just sticks to everything, but it is dry, so easier to clean up. And washes off clothes, etc.

So this time I was a bit more prepared. I have a plastic box I use for Sensory Play, filled with containers, lids, brushes, sticks, etc. so I put a blanket on the floor, then a large plastic box lid on the blanket, and the plastic box on top. So lots of areas to catch spills/ mess. Little Man was very good at keeping the foam in the box. I find he is very open to instructions. Good for showing them limitations.

We then proceeded to squirt the foam. It was great fun, Little Man loved it. He found it tricky enough to squirt it himself, so I helped him, or squirted it for him.

He enjoyed squashing it between his fingers, imagining he was washing his hands with it, rubbing it up his arms, mixing it around the box, putting it into the little containers.

I made a snow man, which was then squashed. I then made a big ball of “clouds” as we called them. It took a while to convince Little Man to try holding it before squishing it, when he did and rolled it around his hands he enjoyed the feeling. It feels so light and delicate. Then he squished it!

Such fun.

Then to clean up we took the box up to the bath and Little Man used the shower head to rinse it all.

What next now??? Will have to do a search on my to-do Pinterest Weekly Challenge for mess play activities.

Take Notice of the Little things

On JDaniel4’s Mom blog Good Girl Gone Redneck wrote a lovely post on pausing from life for a moment, it made me well up.

So I thought I would take a few minutes to take note of the little things about my Little Man, the things we maybe take for granted, the things we need to treasure and bring to the fore of our brains for stressful/ tough days.

• How soft my little man’s skin and hair is. I read somewhere that breastfeed babies have softer skin and that this continues as long as they breastfeed (found one reference there on Dr Sears website relating to initially babies skin: http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/breastfeeding/why-breast-best/3-little-known-benefits-breastfeeding  not sure where I saw longer feed baby reference). I swear LM’s skin is as soft as the day I first met him.
• Recently if I seem a little impatient, or am trying to convince him to do something he doesn’t want to do, like get into bed, he strokes my face and hair and says: “It’s ok Mama, it’s ok”. So lovingly.
• Breastfeeding- all the quite time spent looking into each others eyes. Gives me (and him I believe) a lovely calming moment. (see post on breastfeeding)
• Getting so excited and happy that his Dada is home from work that he drops everything to run and give him a hug. Making my hubby’s day. So sweet.
• Eyelashes- my Little Man has the longest eyelashes I have ever seen, they would make Rimmel mascara jealous, and he has begun to use them. Unintentionally and unknowingly to him at the moment. When he wants something, he tilts his head flutters those lashes and puts on a cute voice. It is so adorable. He is so innocently cunning. I love it.
• Unlooked for, Unasked for, Un-pleaded for hugs and kisses, just cause he wanted to give you one. It just makes my heart swell. At 2.5 he can be so affectionate and gentle.
• Kissing/ hugging his baby brother or sister- no I haven’t given birth yet, he does this through my belly. He may be on the way to climb up on my lap for a cuddle, story or a feed and he pauses mid climb to embrace my belly. Then kiss it and sometimes talks to it.
• Little man has 2 beauty spots (like largish freckles) since he was born. I have noticed another tiny freckle starting on his arm. I feel privileged that I (his mama) know that he had only 2 since birth, one on his right leg and one under his hair on the back of his neck. We call them funny spots. The idea is that when pushed it makes you laugh. Strange I know.

Pour Your Heart Out- Love Thyself...

Pour Your Heart Out- a Link Up Honest Blog Post inspired by thingsicantsay.com

Reading some posts over at Good Girl Gone Redneck, got me thinking about body image, something I have struggled with for a long time, but thankfully haven't been obsessing over in recent years. So here goes.

I have a love/ hate relationship with food, and a questionable relationship with my body image.

I suppose most women do. 

When I was 12 I became quite cubby. It was awful, totally debilitating. It stopped me from being myself, it stopped me from doing things I could have, should have, and would have.

How I got there I'm not too sure. Just "puppy fat" as they call it maybe. But it was a vicious circle, as my confidence dropped, I felt less motivated and less inclined to do sports. I couldn't take those awful pushy teachers shouting and trying to be motivating while stripping your confidence down.

So I became shyer and more introverted.

Then when I was 15 I took a Home Economics class for the first time, just for a few weeks. And we learnt about calories. I probably had never heard of a calorie, this was over 15 years ago- people weren’t calorie/weight obsessed, well not in Ireland anyway. We (in an all girls school) were given the homework of analysing and taking note of what we ate and how many calories we had for a week. What were they thinking!!

Anyway, that is where my obsessive relationship with calorie counting began. I was so excited, it was so simple, I had never thought of it that way before.  It meant by simply taking account of my calorie intake and trying to keep it less than say 1500 calories a day, or 1300 on a good day I could lose or maintain my body weight.

I quickly found food items that you could eat lots of but that were low in calories- fruit, rice cakes... I also began to lie. I would tell everyone I had had dinner/ lunch at another’s house.

I got a trill from missing a meal. To say it became an obsession was an understatement.

But it worked and I lost weight. I got kissed for the first time. I could look in the mirror and like what I saw. Clothes fit me. People commented on me losing weight which I loved, I relished it, it motivated me even more. Even writing this I am getting flash backs of the feelings, they were dangerous.

I don’t think I was anorexic, in my opinion I never went that far. But I had a problem, which I only admitted to myself when the weight lose effected my life negatively resulting in infertility issues nearly 10 years on.

I now have my perfect Little Man, and am expecting number 2. I am happy in my skin. I am not thin, but I am fit and healthy. I will never win a modelling contest, but I have so much more. If I had know when I was 15 that the miss management of my weight loss may have contributed to trouble conceiving, I don’t know if I would have changed it. But all I can do now is be healthier moving forward, and take a healthier approach to diet and exercise. My mantra now (although different now I am pregnant again) is to eat yummy healthy food with some treats and run accordingly. I took up jogging, which is great, it allows me to eat lots, and then get exercise and maintain a healthy weight.

Weight and body image is such a scary topic, teenagers, especially girls (but I understand more and more boys too) are so vulnerable. And susceptible to others opinions of them, and the bombardment of magazines with so called perfect (too often size “0”) bodies. It is so sad. I hope I can instil a healthy approach to eating and exercise in my kids. How I’m not so sure yet.

Pregnancy Exercise

I am currently 29 weeks, or 7 months pregnant, and I am huge! Well much bigger than on LM at this stage anyway. I got a bump on LM at 20 wks, but before that had nothing really, it just popped out. This was much more gradual- I have had a definite bump since week 14.

I was also much sicker and tired on this pregnancy, most likely to do with the very active toddler, who understandably did not get that his mama needed to lie still with eyes closed!! So I just played along with him, and got through the first trimester eventually.

I have now passed the middle of the 2^nd trimester, apparently the honeymoon trimester, where you have so much more energy. I did feel much better, all nausea gone, and had a lot more energy. But that did not stretch to a walk after LM went to bed, or a yoga session before bed. No if I was lucky I went for a 25 minute walk at lunch Mon-Wed at work, but that depends on weather. Then we often go to Zoo at weekends, which is good exercise. But can’t see me walking to end of beach and back anytime soon- just no time during the day and too tired in the evening.

And now I am in 3^rd trimester, I’m getting bigger and these Braxton hicks are really being felt!! The tightness, the discomfort... and usually when I try to do some walking.

Also LM doesn’t do prams. We stopped using the pram, the little we did use it anyway, when he was about 13/14 months old. He always slept better in the sling, and interacted more. Only really used the pram for long walks.

But now it is a bit of a quandary, do we try to re-introduce the pram, as I can no longer carry him in the sling (L!!), so I can go for walks while he sleeps. But the problem with that is he naps great in his bed, 2-2.5 hrs and we usually have to wake him. So I just have been trying to organise days around naps- either go places in mornings and back for naps, or leave when he’s tired and he naps in car. Only now he really only sleeps for an hour in car seat, and wakes easily.

So I have convinced myself!!! Only one solution, no pram just continue as we have been- it just means my potential for walks is reduced. So short walks with LM in his trike. Or evening walks.

Or what other exercise might be beneficial for preparing my body for birth??

So I did a little googleing.

1. Swimming- will get around to soon!
2. Walking- I texted and friend and we went on first walk, which was great, alot longer than I would have gone on my own!! Good conversation too.
3. Pelvic Floor Exercises: this is the most important exercise to do during pregnancy and after really for the rest of our lives!! This will keep us from any embarrassing incontinence issues down the line, so advice seems to be to do daily. I have an alarm set on my phone, but a good idea is to put little tiny stickers around the place, where you will see them a few times a day and every time you see them do your exercises.
4. Yoga obviously is a good one. And I do have the yoga mat and ball. So here are some positions for easing discomforts during pregnancy and preparing for birth. Obviously I am not a yoga instructor, so best to do yoga, especially pregnancy yoga, in a class. Also consult your doctor before starting any new exercise.
1. The figure 8 (or whaooo wiggle wiggle as I call it with LM who I try to get to join me in my yoga)- great for flexing your pelvis and loosening /easing pains in your lower back. Basically on all fours, hands under shoulders, knees under hips. Then make the figure 8 with your hips, alternate between wide and small ‘8’s. Do about 12 repetitions and do in the other direction.
2. The cat stretch (or tiger stretch- again for LM, his favourite book at the moment is “The Jungle Book” and he likes Sher Khan the tiger)- great for back pain, again on all fours, and breath out while tucking your chin to chest and arching back up- like a chat would. Then return to original position, while breathing in. Keeping back straight in all fours position.
3. The squat (pretend seat- again for LM, we pretend we are sitting down, and have a cuppa tea) - great for leg muscles, and those planning on squatting being potentially incorporated into birth.
4. Tailor sitting (taken from the Mayo Clinic): Sit on the floor with your back straight in the "butterfly position" (the bottoms of your feet together and your knees dropped comfortably). As you press both knees gently toward the floor using your elbows, you should feel a stretch in your inner thighs. Don't bounce your knees up and down rapidly. If you find it difficult at first to keep your back straight, use a wall to support your back. Hold the position for 10 or 15 seconds and repeat the stretch 5 or 10 times.
5. Shoulders/ neck exercises- I seem to be carrying all my tensions at the moment in my shoulders and neck, twice this pregnancy have been crippled with shoulder/neck muscle cramps that have tensed my whole back up, resulting in me stuck in bed for at least 2 days. So this includes shoulder roles, head turns

Blog Hop

My first Linky Blog Hop

Travelling with Tots- activities:

@ http://www.being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

We are heading on a holiday soon, and again need ideas to entertain my Little Man (LM) on aeroplane, bus, restaurants, trains, airports…

So I have been putting my thinking cap on and here are some of the things we have successfully used previously and some new suggestions we plan to try:

• Book and toy Combo:
• As I mentioned in my recent Week1 Pinterest Challenge my LM loves all things to do with the Sea- fish (Nemo, sweet lips, swordfish), penguins, hammerhead sharks, octopuses, jelly fish, crabs, etc

Week 1 Pinterest Challenge Snow Globe Aquarium

Also this trip is slightly sea themed as we plan to visit a cool aquarium and marine park.

• So we recently purchased a little penguin Dada and baba from Schleich (a brand which we adore!!)

• And while on our date on Saturday, me and my hubby passed a new charity shop, and got a great Penguin book

100 Facts about Penguins

• So we will be combining the two into a lovely gift for LM to appear at a potential disaster an opportune moment.
• Activity Books:
• Mr Men counting- I picked this up a while ago and it has been in my goodie box (anytime I see a good deal on books/ games/ toys, I buy them and pop them into the goodie box for future use) and looks like a good activity book. LM is counting everything these days, so i think he will enjoy it.
• Lacing Game: as detailed in earlier post

• Puppets:
• We got a load of tiny finger puppets from Ikea at various times, and always good for telling stories.



Ikea Puppets

• Figurines:

• We had a treasure hunt last Sunday and the “treasure” this time was a little boy, we called him Ben. Through the treasure hunt we developed a story around Ben. I also picked Ben, and his mum and dad up in sales, all €2.50, and they are goodie box occupies. So we thought we might bring his mum and dad with us and they could be waiting in the apartment.

• I-Spy Book: inspired by Pinterest Pin
• I took some photos of a mixture of LM’s toys and am planning on making a cute little I-Spy book. Still in process of doing this, post shortly.



I Spy Book from deliacreates

• CD Case game: I have yet to do this, but am planning on it- great idea!!

bkids.typepad.com

• Etch a Sketch- we bought this for €3.99 before our last trip to France and it was a success, and has been used a good bit since. Good for drawing games- Mama or Dada draw picture and LM guesses what it is. Or opposite, LM draws and we guess.
•            
• Card Games: We got 2 sets of cards- wild animals and vehicles. Both are things LM loves. They are €1.50 each and great images. So you can play traditional games of snap or memory or go fish. Or make up your own games, like make the sound of the animal or vehicle that comes up, or name the animal’s baby, lots of scope.
• Colouring: Bring a small selection of crayons (twistables would be great as no mess, no breaks) and a homemade notebook/ colouring book. I made a colouring book with images found on the net, all the cartoon type people LM knows from films/ books/ toys at the moment. Print, and bind/ staple.
• I got some great cartoon prints from http://www.coloring-book.info/coloring/
• Water Painting: found this great set- a reusable no mess paint set. The one we got was “Cars” themed, it’s great, you have a little pen that you fill up with water and use this as a marked/ paint brush. When rubbed over special paper it reveals the coloured image.
• Books (again): some of his favourites, not too many obviously, limited case room, we decided on the following:
• Katie and the Sunflowers (a recent birthday gift for Dada from LM)

Katie and the Sunflowers

• The whale and the Snail (sea theme)
• Disney book- heavy but a requirement for sleep!
• And new Apple Tree Farm Collection

I purchased a brilliant collection recently which had been put aside for this trip. Can’t wait to read it with LM, he has 2 of these books already, and about a year ago I picked up a set of figurines that we now call Poppy, Sam, Mama (Mrs. Boot) and Dada (Tom- he is really the farm hand, no dada on scene but for LM he is also called Dada- his assumption) and Dog (rusty).

Farm Set from the Early Learning Centre



Farmyard Tales

What ideas have you used to entertain your Little Ones while travelling???

Pinterest Week 2 Challenge: Scribble Pictures

 Last week I set myself a challenge:
"So the Challenge: To pick out one of the hundreds of pins relating to kids crafts/ activities on Pinterest and do this with my LM. One a week. "
Well this is our 2nd go...

Scribble Pictures



I found a lovely pin on pinterest,

puttiprapancha.blogspot.com

and thought this would be a great use of the Little Man’s (LM) scribbles to make new art pieces, and a nice craft. I have a big pile of paper full of LM’s scribbles, put together on a recent tidy. And I was wondering what I could do with them, couldn’t make myself throw them out, and couldn’t think how to store them.

You will need:

• White card
• Coloured card
• Cheap Ikea plastic kids frames

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30186025/

• Good few pages of kids scribble drawings
• Scissors- kids one too!
• Glue
• Kids books- to get images from

How we did it:

• Cut (LM has recently gotten very good using his little scissors) and tear some of the colourful scribble pages- lots of fun, develop fine motor skills and a good noise from tearing.

We then made them into a big pile and got out a fresh piece of card.

• And glued (using the little rhyme “dot dot just a spot” or “dot dot not a lot”) all the small bits of paper into a nice collage. LM enjoyed it.

• I then picked out some nice (and would look good in silhouette) images from two of his favourite books- The Jungle Book and By My Side Little Panda.

By My Side Little Panda



The Jungle Book

• I didn’t have any proper tracing paper, so I used normal greaseproof paper- works great. I traced the outline of the image using a pencil.
• Then I turned the traced image over (so pencil side down) and put it onto the back of the scribble collage. And draw over the visible lines with the pencil ensuring the page stays in place (best to tape tracing to back of the collage page using masking/ painters tape).
• When you then lift up the tracing paper, you will see the outline has transferred onto the page. Simply cut the image out, then turn over to see your scribble silhouette.
• I then mounted the silhouette on another coloured piece of card and framed in a cheap plastic Ikea kids frame.



Jungle Book Scribble Art @ http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

• The 2^nd one we did was a little more complicated as it was a panda and I wanted to show the white bits using scribble paper and the black bits using blue card to match the frame.

Panda Scribble Art @ http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

Pinterest Weekly Kids Activity/Craft Challenge: Week1

I LLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEE Pinterest, it has been such a source of inspiration while decorating our house. I am not a great DIYer, but that is what is great about Pinterest, there are such a wide range of projects. So loads of simple, but impressive crafts/ house ideas that most people can easily do.

And more recently I have been using it for ideas for crafts/activities to do with my Little Man (LM). So I am setting myself a challenge, alla the greats before me (YHL, BowerPower, tutusandteaparties, etc).

So the Challenge: To pick out one of the hundreds of pins relating to kids crafts/ activities on Pinterest and do this with my LM. One a week.

And hopefully with all this creativity flowing through me, some will rub off on me and I will come up with some more of our own unique Pins.

Pinterest Challenge Week 1:

Snow Globe: Aquarium Take

This is a Christmassy one, but also a winter one, or modified to be a captured fairy/ elf/ aquarium themed one.
Some pins I loved were:

from ucreatewithkids.com


from yesterdayontuesday.com

We previously made one of these at Christmas, and LM loved it. Took about an hour, but very enjoyable and entertaining.

Here is our completed Christmas Snow Globe:



Christmas Carol Singer Snow Globe: http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/


So this time, we are going to do an Aquarium Themed one. My LM absolutely loves all things fishy/ aquariums/ Nemo, sea… last library visit we got a load of related books, and he also got some for Christmas presents, and had some before, some mentioned below.

• Peek Inside the Coral Reef

• Where’s the Meercat? book (along lines of Where’s Wally, but Where’s the Meercat)- there’s a Great Barrier Reef page

Where's the Meerkat?

• Curious Clownfish



Curious Clownfish

• Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo

• Whale and the snail (mentioned already in Books We Like)



The Whale and the Snail



Things you will need:

• Large glass/plastic jar with lid (I used a Hellmann’s mayonnaise extra large jar for snow globe. A plastic one would be ideal- in that it can be a bit child proof. But we’ll make do and have this as a display item in his room to be looked at with mama and dada only).

• Small little sea creatures (we got s set in Aldi recently- had to get a 2^nd set, as there is no way LM would part with original set). Set includes dolphins, whales, lobster, crabs, shark, sword fish, lobster, coral, walrus and seal. I also found a transparent plastic sheet from the inside of a soap dispenser that had little clown fish and a larger blue fish- so LM love this, as Nemo and his dad were now in our aquarium.



• Shells/ pebbles and some sand (nice activity to collect these on beach before hand)
• Super glue and hot glue and hot glue gun.
• Ribbons/ embroidery thread- to represent seaweed/ coral- we luckily had a piece of fake coral in our sea creature set- so we used this.
• Semi flexible wire (I’m using jeweller wire)- to stick little sea creatures to, so they appear to be floating
• Glitter- blue/ green
• some blue crepe paper- we juststuck this on to the back of the jar (the alreadysticky section, due to not being able to remove stickiness!)
• Baby oil- for snow globe I used 3 350ml btls and had a small bit left over (at Christmas had only needed 2 as statue was large and took up a lot of room).

How to:

Beforehand

1. Glue sea creatures (underwater swimming ones) to wire, cut each to various lengths, so sea creatures are swimming at different levels.
2. Using super glue stick some shells, pebbles and ribbons to the inside of the top of the jar itself. Could maybe do this before hand, so little helper doesn’t get too bored!
3. Ask LM to paint the outside of the lid blue, allow to dry (could be doing this while you do 2). We used blue and green acrylic paint.
4. Using hot glue and gun (so get LM to watch this bit, and advice) stick on shells, pebbles, the crab and coral to base of the jar. This is difficult as has to be done in base of jar (oh why couldn’t the plastic sea creatures just float instead of sinking, make my job easier!). So I put the hot glue on the coral, shells and quickly dropped them in use kitchen thong to stand up/ put in correct place. Leave aside to dry.
5. Using hot glue stick on wire (with sea creatures attached) onto the inside of the lid. Leave aside to dry.

6. When glue is dry (leave for 5 mins to be safe- snack break). Now comes the fun bit for the helpers. Add in the glitter- lots of fun sprinkling it in. Can get messy, so best to put down newspaper under work area.

7. Squeeze in the 3 btls of baby oil to the jar- great fun as the oil gurgles as it is is added.



8. Pop in the seal and lobster so they are just floating around when shaken, and then sink to the bottom.
9. Run a good bit of hot around the inside of the lid and quickly put lid on jar. Then run a bit of super glue around the outside of the lid. This did not work for me first time, the oil was leaking out, needed to detach and re-attached and ensure jar lid was catching the tread of the jar top.
10. On top of the lid, stick a large rock and the walrus sitting on top.

11. I also had fun trying to remove the label stickiness from the outside of the jar, but to no avail, I tried scrubbing, soap and water, oil, but nothing worked. I see WD40 attached, but at that stage I had moved on, and just stuck some thin blue paper on back, added nice colour to aquarium.

Some Images of the finished Product:

Aquarium Snow Globe: http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

Aquarium Snow Globe: http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

Aquarium Snow Globe: http://being-a-mama.blogspot.com/