Teen Living

Kaylynn (Tammy's "baby") in the crib in our nursery.

Tammy taking care of her baby doll. She dressed the baby in some of her old clothes.

Tammy is in 9th grade this year and is taking Teen Living. Part of this class is about Teenage Pregnancy. For 5 days the kids in class experience a little of what it's like to be a teen parent. The school has 20 mechanical babies, but they have 100 students. So not all the kids get a mechanical baby. I kind of wish Tammy had gotten one but she didn't.

Instead we went and bought a baby doll and filled it with weights. For 5 days, they had to take care of this baby doll as if it was an actual baby. They had schedules they had to keep the baby on. If they were in a car, the baby had to be in a car seat, etc. If they went out with friends, they had to "hire a baby sitter". They had to keep log books about the "baby's" schedule. Tammy got creative and bad a 10 page scrapbook.

Oh, and they weren't just baby dolls, they had to fill the dolls with weights so that the baby dolls actually weighed what a newborn would, between 5-7 lbs.

Tammy's named her baby, Kaylynn Elizabeth. Kaylynn weighed in at just under 7 lbs. Tammy actually said, and I quote, "at least you didn't have a 7 lb. newborn mom." You're right Tammy, you were 7 lbs. 12 ozs. ;o)

Saturday we went to the mall and Walmart and did some Christmas shopping. Tammy had to put Kaylynn in a carseat (luckily we have one) and a stroller (we have a carseat stroller combo). At the mall, most people thought "the baby" was mine (we had the carseat in the stroller since it's a combo, and placed a blanket over the carseat so no one was able to see that there was a baby doll in there and not an actual baby. While I was in one particularly crowed store and Tammy was waiting at the entrance for me while I paid, several people gave her dirty looks.

She hated every minute of it. I on the other hand, think it's a great program. I took Teen Living in school too, but we had eggs that we had to take care of. Tammy's dad "N" had a bag of flour. I'm glad they are doing baby dolls that weigh as much as an actual newborn. Wish we had gotten more pictures. I didn't take pictures of the scrapbook Tammy made either. I hope they get them back so I can share those. She did a great job!