Saturday, February 11, 2012

Eli’s spiffed up Doc band…

Not gonna lie. I feel sooooo much better about Eli’s helmet now that it’s painted. The stark whiteness of it, made it seem like there was something wrong with my baby. Each time I looked at  him in it, my heart broke a little. I couldn’t explain it but it made me sad. Kind of like seeing your kid in a cast, I would imagine. I guess it just made me go down that pity road of “what if…” What if Eli did bang his head against stuff? What if he did crack his skull open from a fall? Gah! I just can’t bare the thought! As a parent, we naturally just want the best for our children, plain and simple. I once questioned if I was even cut out for having children of my own because I’m very sensitive when it comes to hurt feelings or seeing a child fall/get hurt. I don’t want to hear about Eli getting bullied or shoved down or have him break an arm—all of which are just about guaranteed to happen at least once in our lifetime, right? I mean who out there has never had someone tease them, or hasn’t broken a bone? Ok enough depressing thoughts. Lets move on to the good stuff.
Now the big reveal. I love it. I did end up stealing the “just fixin’ my flat” idea because it makes me laugh every time. I also had to do an airplane for obvious reasons. I envisioned the plane in the little bump out area over his forehead and the plane spelling out his name in loop-d-loops. Can you picture it yet? Also from the instant that white helmet went on, I thought how much more I’d “like” it if it were baby blue. So baby blue it is Smile. I’ll admit I was shakin’ in my pink slippers worrying I may ruin this thing. I guess my strong dislike for the white was stronger than my fear of jacking it up :/
So the front, I just free handed because I couldn’t find cute baby-like airplane stickers (what the heck people! I ran into the same problem when decorating his nursery. Somebody wanna get on that? You have a large untapped market to take advantage of and I’ll keep you in business Winking smile ) And the back is using stickers.
So without further ado, the before:
Eli sportin' his new doc band 010
Hello handsome Smile
The, to me, much improved after:
spiffed up doc band 009
Front view
spiffed up doc band 004
Back view.
Now I’m not a gambler by nature (that would be my mom, Hi mom!) so I made sure to follow the tips and recommendations from Cranial Technologies on how to go about decorating it. Isn’t that funny that they encourage it? I was so surprised about that. Anyways they recommend using non toxic acrylic paint and mod podge to seal it. After I painted his helmet it started to chip just by applying the stickers! I was seriously worried about it’s ability to endure Eli playing and sleeping in it. But I did one coat of mod podge over everything, crossed my fingers, said a little prayer, and put him to bed and hoped for the best. I was so giddy to see it held up over night when I went to get him up this morning! Not a single chip! Woo hoo!
So, now I look at my widdle guy and see a cool new hat, not a medical device Smile. So what do YOU think?
-Linds

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is super cute. The plane looks awesome. I think you now have to color his hair baby blue and he will be all set.
Jac

Anonymous said...

Hello - how did the paint hold up over time? Thinking of painting my son's helmet....

Thanks

Angi

Linds said...

Hi Angi, the paint held up pretty well as long as I put a lot of the modge podge over it. That stuff seriously makes all the difference. I'm not gonna lie, I did have to make a few paint touch ups but maybe 2-3 times over a 3 month period due to a few areas chipping a bit. But when you think of how they sleep and play in it for 23hrs out of the day, that's not bad. I'd defintely do it again. Good luck if you decide to do it!
-Linds