Congratulations! You’re having a... watermelon?
“Press button in case of watermelon seed ingestion,” a sign by a lake in Canada reads in the video. A skeptical looking woman presses the button, and her round stomach is replaced with an adorable baby with a watermelon-patterned hat.
Devon Spittle and his wife might have put the most effort into a watermelon-themed birth announcement, but they’re not the first. In fact, “don’t eat the watermelon seeds,” appears to be a common phrase among those with child, appearing on maternity shirts and birth announcement cards.
Photographer Jen McKen also used the theme of watermelon seeds to announce she was pregnant for a baby due in July 2016.
“You know what your mama always said about eating the seeds….one of them might grow in your belly! WELLLLLLLL, mine should be completely ripe come July 2016 — which just happens to be smack dab in the middle of watermelon season,” she wrote with her announcement. “I should know, because I’m slightly obsessed.”
But Spittle’s announcement stood out for its creativity. The stop-motion video begins with his wife eating close to half a watermelon to the tune of the nursery rhyme “Down by the Bay.” She starts suffering apparent cramps and leaves the home, getting into a car and starting the drive to Okanagan Lake, according to comments on a Reddit post of the video. The couple reportedly lives in British Columbia, Canada.
As she drives, her stomach gets progressively bigger, until she steps out of the car at the lake holding her now-large belly. She comes up to the aforementioned sign and presses the button displayed, which flattens her stomach and replaces it with a baby in pink and green blankets and a watermelon-patterned hat. The new mother smiles up at the camera while holding the sleeping baby, which Spittle said on YouTube is a girl named Poppy.
The video has garnered nearly 100,000 views since Spittle uploaded it Wednesday, a little more attention than a new baby typically receives. Most people wrote the video made them smile and was one of the cutest announcements they’d seen.
“Well done,” one user wrote. “I think you win the award for best planned YouTube video of 2016.”
Spittle said in Reddit comments that it was a total of 900 pictures, and difficulties with the video included needing to watch the weather for the day, in order to keep the shots in the car uniform. He said he was going for “cheesy/childish.”
It’s not Spittle’s first stop-motion video that involves his wife having a baby either. To announce the birth of their first son, Bentley, the Spittles did a stop-motion of the new mom eating ice cream as her stomach grows and then a baby replacing it. That video, published in February 2013, earned about 125,000 views on YouTube.
This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 9:26 AM with the headline "Congratulations! You’re having a... watermelon?."