Damon gave me a very nice gift today- he took Fuller to work with him. All day.

While they were together, Damon took the opportunity to help Fuller with his orienteering skills.

They started with a map of downtown and headed toward Subway (their lunch destination), keeping their eyes open for American flags. The goal was to find twenty flags and mark where they were found on the map. And Fuller took pictures of them as the hunted them down.

Fuller is a rather observant child, often shocking us by recalling events and details from days, weeks, or months past. But when it comes to looking for specific things (like his shoes or Optimus Prime’s axe) he tends to just glance around and declare them lost or beg for my help. And while I love that he knows my super power is finding things, I want him to develop the skill on his own.

So, I appreciate this activity Damon cooked up for him. Fuller learned to look up and down, near and far to find his object d’jour. And plotting their finds on the map just helped reinforce Fuller’s concept of maps and direction.

I know the holiday memories are slipping from the blogs and people are posting New Year’s goals and whatnot, but we can finally post about Damon’s special gift of 2008 now because the recipient opened it today.

First, I have to mention that Damon likes to give handmade gifts, but because he is Damon, he likes to Go Big. He learned a few years ago he should just focus on one Damon-made gift per Christmas. Most of his gifts are divined to him early in the year, giving him a bigger window of time to make sure the gift does in fact Go Big. In fact, the 2008 recipient was revealed to Damon during the 2007 Christmas season… my mom (aka McMom, aka Vieja).

McMom started a certain Christmas tradition in 2003 or so. I’m not sure of the exact date because I wasn’t there. Her bookclub in Germany (and McMom will correct me if I’m wrong) had a Christmas party and read the first act of Dorothy L. Sayers radio play “The Man Born to Be King.” McMom enjoyed this so much, she had us do it Christmas of 2004 (Fuller’s first Christmas) and gave my sisters and I each our own copy of the full play.

Every Christmas since, she has hosted people in her home for a nice time of fellowship and reading the first act. And every year she has some difficulty gathering the scripts and dividing up the parts. Sometimes people have to double up on parts or even triple up, so it makes it even more difficult and messy. The scripts are old, dog eared, scribbled on, and sometimes confusing who is doing what.

Damon decided to help her out and came up with a way to use a lot of his gifts in making this gift. First, he created a software program that became a script generator. He scanned in the pages of the play (first act only) and divided up bits and bytes (there might be technical jargon I could interject here, but would you understand it?) into the various parts spoken in the script. Now, all McMom has to do is pop the DVD into her computer, click the boxes next to specific characters and a script will be generated with those parts highlighted. She can then print the script and hand it to her party guest, who will know exactly what part(s) he or she will be covering that festive evening.

BUT! That is not all!

No, Damon had to Go Big.

When my mom received her gift this morning, she didn’t just get a little DVD. No, what she got was this box:

And inside of the box was the makings of a playset.

Damon had created a stage with three backdrops for the three different scenes. And he created figures representing the the twenty characters who would appear on stage. They would appear on stage if it was a stage play, which is wasn’t, but that’s ok. McMom has grandchildren who can’t read yet, so this will give them something to do, right?

Here is an example of the stage, a backdrop, and two of the figures. You can see more detail by looking at even more pictures of the playset.

Damon put a lot of thought and photoshop into creating the figures. He was able to make ten double-sided play figures, arranged so the figures on the opposite sides are not on the stage at the same time. Damon had a little trouble with one character though- Zorastes. He is in the scene with the High Priest, and to solve the problem Damon got a bit literal: since Zorastes (a bit part) is accused of hiding behind the High Priest, he is on the back side of the figure of the High Priest.

When Damon sent the playset to McMom, he added an End User Agreement, which included this caveat:

The Manufacturer shall read the part of “the shepherd” and ONLY be required to read the part of “the shepherd” at all future readings of TMBTBK the Manufacturer is present for.

Apparently Damon has read the part of Herod enough times (three) and would like to be typecast as “the shepherd” from now on. The shepherd only has one line. And we think the part of Herod should be passed on to whomever my sister Austina decides to bring home for Christmas next year.

I know McMom really liked her gift, and I’m really proud Damon put so much thought and work into making it so cool.

Well, the winners for the Instructables Halloween contest were announced and I was shocked stunned depressed to find my entry wasn’t among them. Unlike most of you, I don’t enjoy losing, so I’m taking this very personally.

Fuller and Damon went to Lake Martin this weekend so Fuller could stretch his birthday a few more days and go see his first Auburn football game.

According to Damon, the weekend was a great success. Fuller and I have many thank you notes to write (once I figure out who gave what- Grandma Linda, I’ll be emailing you) judging by the loot brought back.

I am sad there are no photos of Fuller at his first Auburn game, but Damon forgot the camera and only has stories to tell me. Like how Fuller would follow the game based on which side the football was on on the scoreboard. Or how after the game, Fuller was in his carseat and Damon was setting up the GPS and Fuller just blurted out, “Thank you for taking me, Daddy.”

While they were busy having fun at Lake Martin, I was home enjoying some out of town friends (courtesy of Covenant’s homecoming) and doing some nesting cleaning. I was thrilled to have them come home Sunday night, but very glad they had this special weekend together.

The final part of the WW2 Captain America costume is the shield. Now, observant readers will notice that the shield Cap used in WW2 (in the retold story, which this costume is from) is a triangular shape with a field of stars and vertical stripes. However, I took the anachronistic approach and chose to outfit Fuller with a round shield. First, the round shield is readily available for about $20. Second, I didn’t want him accidentally poking his eye out with the triangular shield. And finally, the round shield instantly identifies him as Captain America; which is important since, most folks won’t become aware of this costume design until the 2011 movie comes out.

So, I decided to buy a commercial shield and modify it for Fuller. I bought the shield from Amazon (FYI, it’s now on sale cheaper… crap!) The shield is 13″ in diameter, which means it’s sized for a kid, not an adult. This is fine since it’ll be Fuller’s and not mine. It’s a pretty nice shield, but it needed some modification to be cool enough for this costume. First, the straps were elastic and too close together.

In the comics, the straps on Cap’s shield are short enough to fit snugly over his forearm, but can be lengthened to go over Cap’s shoulders like a backpack. Marvel Comics has never explained the mechanics of this process, but often, the straps are drawn with buckles when worn on Cap’s back. I, of course, had to figure out a system where Fuller could both hold it and wear it like in the comics. The solution I came up with was to use some of the luggage clips and some “D” rings from the thrift store bags I bought at the beginning of this project.

The next problem I had to solve was that the shield is a little too flimsy. So, I took some epoxy and filled in about a third of the shield. I also set some spare plastic luggage clips into the epoxy as the straps’ bindings. After the epoxy dried, I filled in the remaining space with expanding spray foam insulation. Once the foam had hardened, I used a long knife to carefully cut back any excess foam and make a nice, flat back to the shield. As a finishing touch, I hot-glued a round piece of leather-like vinyl over the foam.

All-in-all, it turned out pretty good. It’s fits both his arm and shoulders very well. He can clip and unclip the straps as needed all by himself. The only thing I wish I’d done differently is used less epoxy. I only really needed to use epoxy to reinforce the shield, not completely fill the curved part of it. The spray foam adds plenty of stiffness, so less epoxy would have saved me time, money, hassle, and weight. But I can’t complain. It definitely turned out pretty cool.

The jacket is the most important part of Fuller’s WWII Captain America Costume. I began by eye-balling a pattern from one of Fuller’s winter jackets. Then I cut out the pieces and sewed together the vest (with lined right and left panels). Next, I sewed the sleeves, sleeve linings, and a pair of shoulder straps (for his Captain’s bars). Once I assembled the basic jacket, I cooked up some dark blue dye and dyed the jacket navy blue.

After the dyeing, I sewed together the red-and-white vertical stripes into one long panel. I trimmed off the bottom half of the jacket and replaced it with the striped panel. Then, I took a black strap from one of the thrift store bags I bought and sewed it in place as the jacket’s waist band.

Finlay, I added details like the white chest star (complete with navy banded edging), the metal buttons from a thrift store dress, and some hook-and-loop tape to help keep the inside flap closed.

After finishing it, I remarked to Alli that he needs to be careful, ’cause he’s gonna be a heart-breaker in that thing – chicks dig a man in uniform.