Freakin' Hilarious

I cannot explain in words how funny it is to completely cover your midsection in a thick layer of vaseline followed by wet strips of plaster and try to hold still until it dries enough to be removed. I was forwarned by Amber at how funny this process would be but I must say I underestimated the amount of humor it would provide. It has become a common thing among pregnant women today to make a cast of their large buddah-style bellies. It's a creative way to freeze time and share with the future what nature can make your body do. It takes two people minimum to complete this process successfully so I invited the wonderful Heidi Zehnder over to be my caster. That was the first ingredient to guaranteed humor of this whole process. Anything done with Heidi is automatically 10 times more funny than it would normally be. So at around 7 p.m. on July 28th, Heidi arrived at my house and we got all set up. We cut the plaster rolls into strips and then began coating on the vaseline. It is super important to do something like this with someone you are extremely comfortable with because I went from wearing undergarments and shorts to just an old bra that too got covered with vaseline. And you have to truely love someone to allow them to put the vaseline in all the necessary places to assure the plaster doesn't stick. I consulted Amber at one point to ask her how much vaseline we would need and she said "you should look like you're melting," so we applied about half the tub. I couldn't move at all once the vaseline process began because if I did I ended up getting it everywhere...on anything that I touched. It was really gross I must admit. And it was layered on so thick that I kept making dents in the goo so we decided it was best if I just sat still.
After that step was done we read the instruction once more to make sure we had a clear understanding of what to do. After the first strip was applied the rest seemed to fly by. This was a hard part too because I needed to stay still so the plaster could set without any problems or messing up in anyway and I kept laughing. Heidi would do something funny or the baby would kick and I couldn't help it. I just hoped that none of these movements would be devistating to the process. I lucked out. The plaster was applied in no time and it really didn't take much time for it to dry. When it dried it would pull loose on it's own which sort of felt like there was a mouse crawling across my belly or something but there were multiple layers so even if the inside layers felt ready to come off the outter layers still needed at least 10 minutes to dry after the last strip was applied. Once it was dry enough that you could tap on it and it made a tap sound, not a squish then you knew it was ready to be removed. I carefully sucked in (as much as the baby would allow me to) to separate my body from the plaster and gently pulled myself free from the plaster mold of my midsection. Then I immediately went to the shower. Now, one thing I hadn't thought of was having to wash off all that vaseline and the fact that my shower drain has a stubborn clog. I should have thought about this before getting into the shower and wiped off some of the vaseline with an old towel but that didn't happen. I washed and washed and washed with multiple types of soap to try to get the greasy film off of my body completely. I'd wash one area only for the vaseline to settle in another area or on the bottom of the tub. It was quickly becoming a rather slippery environment so after the third type of soap (Man soap) I decided I was clean enough although I still felt like a bird the way I was repelling water. With a couple more showers I eventually came clean and we eventually cleaned up all the plaster dust that filled my kitchen and the belly cast turned out beautifully. It was quite an experience and the only thing I will do differently is use some paper towels or an old towel to wipe off most of the vaseline before getting into the shower. The final step is to now have the cast decorated. My nursery is decorated with a Dr. Seuss theme so I have discussed with my ever-so-talented friend Allison painting it with some images from "Oh, The Places You'll Go" and that is the plan. Here's some photography for your viewing pleasure.