Growth Chart

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've posted!!! School and life in general has been really hectic lately. I have several post ideas that I just haven't had time to get online yet. Luckily, blogger must have my limited time in mind; they've updated their photo uploader and it's wonderful. It used to take forever and I had to click back and forth and now it's seamless. Thank you blogger!

I mentioned the growth chart I was working on in a previous post, and here it is:

It's not exactly as glorious as I had envisioned it, but it will certainly do and it looks pretty ok.

I started with a board from the hardware store, it was 7 feet by...well a few inches. It's been so long I don't remember but get yourself a board if you want to make one...the size is really up to you.

I had more photos of the beginning product but I don't know where they went. I started by cutting the board down to about 5 feet long. Then I sanded it and filled the holes with wood filler. Sanded again to get a smooth surface and smooth edges.

After the wood filler dried, I painted it white with a roller. You could use a brush for a different texture effect, but the roller left a very smooth surface.

After it dried, I started to prepare the actual growth chart part of it. I decided to align the numbers with the left side of the board so we can write names on the right side of the numbers and decorate the rest of the board more easily.

I used a tape measure, pencil, and a T-ruler-thing. My great grandfather would likely be ashamed I don't know what this is called...it might have actually been his, I'm not sure. I do know that I've heard its name before and I don't remember it now.

I measured about 1.5 inches in from the edge of the board, on the smaller sides, to get a starting point for my verticle line.

Then I used the guide mark to align my T-ruler type thing and drew a line in pencil. Any straight-edge would work, but if you don't have something so exact and even you might want to make guide lines every few inches/feet to keep your line straight.

I knew I wanted to use a dinosaur theme and thought that green would be a nice color to do the ruler in. It reminds me of vegetation for the dinos to eat.

Apparently blogger still hasn't figured out how to make uploaded photos rotate easily, and I'm feeling too lazy to rotate them and save them differently in my computer, and then upload them. I'll try to remember to rotate before uploading next time. Sorry.

Here's the finished green line. I let it dry and then got to marking the numbers.

Using permanent marker I marked the numbers. The chart starts at 1ft 1 inch. I hung it 1 foot off the floor, this way it goes up to 6 feet and mommy and daddy can be marked on the chart too, for comparison. I doubt Aidan will still be marking himself on here when he's above 5 feet, but you never know...

 Next, I went to the store (you could do this ahead of time, hehe) and was looking for ways to make the dino decorating easy and look good. JoAnn had some foam stickers that were pretty cool, but they were a little small and $7 for a whole box of them. I didn't need a whole box. I thought about printing shapes and making stencils, then I found their pre-painted wood cut outs near the wood crafts section. They cost about $0.60 each, and they were very cute!! I wanted 5, one for each food increment, but they only had four types of dinosaurs. I found an alligator and called it good...reptiles at least.

 Using wood glue, I attached the critters to my board.

 You don't need very much, as I found after putting this much on the back of my alligator...

I found a handy old tooth brush (you know, the kind that have been retired for household needs) and used that to clean out the glue that leaked out from between the pieces and got stuck in the small ridges of the alligator. It cleaned it up very easily and quickly--just don't let it dry before cleaning. Clean as you go.

I tried to put smaller species at the bottom and larger ones at the top.

A few days (weeks) went by and I finally got it hung up on the wall in Aidan's room.

Aidan was interested in helping hang it, notice the level in his hand.

As you can see, Mommy is pretty short, but relatively speaking he's to a long way to go to catch up.


This project took way longer than it should have because I stalled, and I picked it up off and on. It could easily be done in the same day, if you start early to allow for drying time. It's probably better to spread it out though, to give the paint time to really dry before gluing to it and writing on it.

Don't Be Afraid...

...to report abuse when you see it. It's easy to think "It won't do any good." "Someone else will report it." "I don't have time." etc. I know many institutions in our system are backwards, powerless, and inefficient, but they are there for a reason, and they have to work *some* of the time.

Today I called Child Protective Services. I wanted to scream out my window at these people when I saw it happening, but I knew that would really do no good.

There was a car next to us and I looked over and noticed the baby car seat in the middle of the back seat, facing forward. Immediately I was thinking "Those people shouldn't be able to have children." Next I was thinking "I bet that seat isn't even belted to the car." I noticed the semi truck leading the car through a stoplight. Then I was thinking "What happens when the driver doesn't see if that light turns red." It did. Then I saw it. He slammed on the breaks and the baby seat flew into the front of the car. It's mother (presumed role of the female in the passenger seat) then grabbed the baby, faster than she could have unstrapped any buckles in the car seat itself. She tossed the seat into the back seat again. They proceeded down the road, the baby in her arms, and I turned down the next road as planned. This baby was probably about 1-2months old. Definitely not 6 months yet. I don't know if it'll make it that far, honestly, with parenting like that.

The point is, I'm very sad for that baby today, and I'm praying for the best for it. I called our local children's services hotline and reported the neglect, because I thought to get their license plate number. If nothing else, there is a record of what I saw. Other than that, a step above that I can hope for is that an officer/social worker is dispatched to teach them about the importance of car seats. Otherwise, I can just hope that baby is kept safe. What it's life must be like, I don't know, and I'm sure I don't want to see. If there is something worse going on, I can only hope my call triggered a deeper investigation, but as I said, if nothing else there is documentation of my report.

Don't be afraid to take the 5 minutes to call for these children/women/coworkers/friends/permissive men who need your advocacy.

For those of you in the central Ohio area, the number for Children's Services is 614-229-7000. Their website on abuse and neglect is located here.

There might not be much that happens in the end after you report something, but it's better than doing nothing.

By the way, in case you didn't know: babies need car seats. Children need car seats. Early school age children need boosters. Not to mention, children, teenagers, and adults need seat belts and those car seats and boosters won't do any good without that seat belt. Don't let YOUR lack of strength in the fight with natural selection take out your kids. You can be responsible for being stupid enough to not use your seat belt, but don't take your kids with you.