Kelley of Enter Gently is a mother of six children. During five of those pregnancies, she made plaster casts of her belly as keepsakes. The lower photo shows her son Ever inside his own cast. If you'd like to make your own cast, you can find Kelley's instructions at the link.
Russell Greenberg, a designer who lives in New York City, makes custom objects that look like the silhouettes of specific people. His own wedding ring, for example, has the outline of his wife's face. My favorites, though, are the baby rattles that look like parents.
Tom Schaar is only twelve years old, but he already has bragging rights for life. What did you do when you were twelve? Because this kid broke a world record. He's the first person to ever do a complete 1080° turn -- that's three full rotations -- on a skateboard. He did it this past Monday on a ramp at a sports camp at Tehachapi, California.
David Delony of Walyou's first thought was "Tron." That's a good interpretation, but Bhautik Joshi is actually going for the classic lowrider look. He plans to add rims and hydraulics next.
A friend of redditor kelseypolo built a new house that has a secret playroom decorated with images from The Chronicles of Narnia. His nine-year old daughter can access it through a small passage hidden in the back of a wardrobe. Awesome! You can view more pictures at the link.
Naturally, some redditors have more puckish ideas about what to do with it:
If it was my kid, I would let her have the room until she starts to lose interest in it, and then I would quietly cover the back of the wardrobe and seal the room. Eventually, she'll want to go back to Narnia, but all she'll find is an ordinary wardrobe and a solid wall behind it, and I will maintain that the room she keeps talking about never existed.
Admittedly, this is probably why I should not have children.
Baby Björns are cute and practical but...well, they just feel odd at the range or the stockyard or the tractor pull. Andy Herald has a great solution that should go into immediate production.
He's got a lot more facial hair that Lynda Carter did in the role. But that's okay. This man spotted at WonderCon understands that a father shows his daughters how to be heroic.
Joanna Krzysztonek of Poland was pregnant with triplets. One of her babies died in a miscarriage, and the other two were in serious danger. Doctors had an idea about to save them, but it required Krzysztonek to hang upside down for two and a half months. She endured this great discomfort and successfully gave birth to the remaining baby boy and girl:
The head of the Wroclaw obstetrics and neo-natal clinic where Krzysztonek gave birth, Mariusz Zimmer, said doctors managed to ease Krzysztonek's contractions, but considered her to be in labor from the birth of the first child.
"This procedure - I mean giving birth - has a beginning and an ending. If the first baby was born that means the birth had started," Zimmer said.
Both babies, Iga and Ignacy, are doing well and doctors anticipate that they will be able to go home soon.
Jennifer Perkins has a great idea for entertaining young children in the summer heat. Her toddler loves dinosaurs, so Perkins gave her a way to play junior paleontologist. Perkins froze toy dinosaurs in a tub of water, then gave her a spoon, a plastic shovel and a toothbrush to dig them out.
Randall and Sharon Porter make furniture that seems to leap out of a Dr. Seuss book. These are real, physical, functional pieces of furniture that are made for kids, including beds, dressers and nightstands. But really, if I had them, I'd put them in my bedroom.
As a Ferengi dad of two kids, it warms my heart to see a child live out the Ninth Rule of Acquisition, "Opportunity plus instinct equals profit." Willow Tufano of Florida has the instinct to recognize profitable opportunities. She's only fourteen years old, but has already become a cunning and successful business owner. Willow started down the latinum road by offering to clean out foreclosed houses. She sold the furniture on Craigslist and has used the money to buy a house:
One day, Willow's mom, Shannon, saw a two-bedroom, concrete-block home on auction for $12,000 — down from $100,000 at the peak of the bubble. Shannon was telling her husband about the house, when Willow piped up.
"I was like, 'What if I bought a house? That would be crazy,' " Willow says.
Willow wound up splitting the house with her mom. Willow plans to buy her mom out in the next few years, and put her name on the title when she turns 18.
Virtue ethics is an approach to moral formulation that derives moral decisions from laudable character traits. When Brandon Watson, a professor of philosophy, teaches his students about virtue ethics, he uses the Care Bears as an analogy. Because each Care Bear reflects a character trait, the Bears tend to make moral decisions based on those traits:
Whenever I teach virtue ethics, I tell my students that one can see the strengths of virtue ethics in the Care Bears -- as well as the things usually criticized. For the Care Bears are virtue ethicists. Each Care Bear, and later each Care Bear cousin, reflects an aspect of the virtuous life, or of institutions or practices that contribute to, or have to be negotiated in, virtuous life. Tenderheart Bear represents sympathy, Friend Bear friendship, Cheer Bear good cheer, Grumpy Bear commiseration, Funshine Bear goodnatured play, Love-A-Lot Bear love, Champ Bear sportsmanship; we get things more indirectly with Bedtime Bear, as Care-A-Lot's night watchbear, makes sure people get a good night's sleep so that they can do good things during the day, Wish Bear helps people work towards making wishes come true, Good Luck Bear helps people take advantage of opportunities, Secret Bear looks after secrets among friends (hence the close link to Friend Bear), etc.
There are, however, limits to the analogy:
I always go on to say in class that the Care Bears, like all good virtue ethicists, are cute, cuddly, and preachy; unlike most virtue ethicists, however, they drive cloud cars and shoot rainbows out of symbols on their tummy. That's a highly classified level of virtue technology even Aristotle never managed to discover.
Deontologists can shoot rainbows out of their tummies, but only in straight lines.
