When we went looking for mobiles, all we could find were creepy angel babies trapped in plastic bubbles that moved in circles to even creepier music box songs. They didn’t cut it. I made Artemis a mobile of the Platonic solids instead. I used cut-up DVD packaging for the first draft, and I spray painted them white with some auto paint I bought at the B&Q.

Then Emily asked if there was lead in the paint.

I said I didn’t know. That didn’t satisfy the expectant mother.

We thought about ways to cover the pieces with some protective barrier.

Condoms.

Well, seriously, what would you use?

We looked over every brand of condom in the convenience store. This was done before Artemis’ birth.

Here’s the scene: Emily (then 8 and 1/2 months pregnant) and I were asking the little girls behind the counter at the 7-11, in broken Chinese, to hand us one of each variety of condom 3-pack so that we could carefully inspect the Chinese to figure out which were ribbed, dotted, lubed or flavored.

The two girls couldn’t understand what we were doing. My Chinese wasn’t at a level where I understood them, but I’m sure their conversation had a Kevin Smith feel to it.

girl1: What are those laowai looking for?
girl2: I don’t know. I think they’re looking for the perfect condoms.
girl1: [snickers]A bit late for that, innit?

The condoms didn’t work. The tetrahedron was much too pointy. (Insert your own geeky joke about the multiplication of regular solids here.)

With no way to protect mother or baby from lead paint flake paranoia, the shiny, white regular solids were shelved until they were accidentally thrown away by the ayi.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to this site and grabbed some new templates. With some colored posterboard (avoiding need for paint), I finally finished her mobile.

She’s pleased.