Catching Up and AB Calender

Tao tried to roll over a few days ago! He didn't manage in the end but it was extremely exciting to watch ;) He was trying to push off the bed with one leg and using the other to try to kick over and get some momentum. Maybe the next time he tries he'll flick his shoulders in the same direction thus acheiving success :)

Maybe he might learn to use his head as well (literally...he has a big head).

I may be suicidal but I have taken on another project which I think is very worthwhile. I am making an Alternative Baby calender (quite sadly dubbed the ABC project, I'm so clever). It'll be something else I keep track of in this journal.

The thought hit me after a discussion I started on "making money off your kids" (ie getting them jobs in modelling or acting). It got me thinking about how things like disposables and formula are flogged (irksome is the formula companies trying to claim that formula is better than breastmilk, damn them into eternal misery) hard coz people make money off them, and how misinformation is constantly spread (babies need to be "taught how to sleep", need to "learn who is in control", have to learn to be independent, etc).

A few of the mothers said they might consider getting their kids modelling work if they could find any work they actually agreed with, of which there is precious little. No one makes money off breastfeeding, there is very little to be made in cloth nappies (plus there's a whole lot of wonderful misinformation passing off disposables as better than cloth despite trying to be like cloth).

Initially I thought about making up some promotional posters with Tao as poster baby to promote breastfeeding, babywearing and cloth nappies. Who knows what I would have actually done with said posters aside from them just being an exercise in design. My brain took the idea into the depths of it somewhere and toyed with it until it came up with the idea of making a calender and getting all interested parties on the Alternative Baby forums involved. This calender could then be sold to ... I never actually got that far. However it seemed like a good idea.

I put the question to the people on AB and so far have an overwhelmingly favourable response so we're going ahead with it :)

Participants so far:

Design
me (who will try to stick with photomanip if the ladies will do layout)
KateF (who does some wonderful layouts so she's been volunteered as main layouty person, if she likes I'm taking her up on that ;)
Anastasia (who has offered to help with layout)

Models (photographed by)
myself, Josh and Tao (by whoever isn't holding Tao)
KateF, Zoe and Isabelle
Kate, Jack and "Bubba E"
Sam, Amber, Patrick, and Max
Anastasia and Kira
Lisa and Ziggy?
Deana and Lauren
Jayne, Liam and Sienna
Belinda and Mitchell
Rachael and Joshua
Sumara, Talitha and Bear
Mer and Luca
Tania and Escher
Samantha, Jasper and unborn Scarlett

Donation Offers (who will be getting ads of course ;)
Kate - money
Collette - special colourful nappies for the models plus webspace

Be updating as I go, from the looks of things the topic keeps growing and I may be relegated to supervisor with the amount of talent that's coming on board :)