A Big Thank You!!!

I want to say a big huge thank you to everyone who participated!  This exists because of each of your questions, answers, quips, stories, laughter, concern, and especially many of you who were eager to share your bellybuttons for photographing.

Thank you all so much!  This was so much fun and I learned quite a few new things about the bellybutton!

Feel free to come here and add to this museum as you like!

Laura Mappin

Most Unusual and Funny Story

I asked a guy if he wanted to know anything about his bellybutton.

He assured me he knew everything he wanted to know.

Then he said, "I used to collect my bellybutton lint.  I'd save it in a cup on the top of the fridge.  When my girlfriend came over for the first time, she found it and asked what it was.  I asked her to guess. She did.  And she was right."

They are now married.

Watercolor Bellybutton

Trying out the watercolorbot to draw a bellybutton.

Holding Belly

Just noticed while watching people walk by the table as they read the Bellybutton Museum sign, quite a few started ever so slightly to hold their bellies.

I wonder about an experiment at the next Maker Faire.  Place multiple tables around the fairgrounds.  One would be a Back Museum, another an Arm Museum, maybe a Butt Museum.  See if the same percentage of people move to hold each part of the body.

What related experiment can you imagine?

Climb Back

Can you climb into your own bellybutton, through your mother's bellybutton, through her mother's bellybutton all the way back to the primordial soup?

Little Johnny Jet

Someone asked if Little Johnny Jet had a bellybutton.  He had a mom and a dad.  He was delivered by helicopter though.

Christmas Card

Someone posed in front of the Bellybutton Museum wall while showing off their bellybutton.  The person taking the photo said this was going to be her Christmas card.

Bellybuttons - Exhibit D

Bellybuttons - Exhibit C

Bellybuttons - Exhibit B

Bellybuttons - Exhibit A

Bellybutton Hidden

As I explained to a group of people  what this museum was about, a woman came around the corner to talk to me privately.

She said, "I will offer you my bellybutton for a photo but I want to do it privately.  See, it's hidden by a big scar."

I promised her that I only post tightly cropped pictures of just the bellybutton.  And I always post people anonymously.  "Well, I haven't told you my name," she added.  Indeed she hadn't.

This scar was the result of an operation during childbirth that saved her life.  Maybe it was an emergency C-section.  I'm not sure.  It was over a decade ago and she lived!  Our bodies are here to do the living.  They're not so much for looks.  I shared my facial scar story and that I lived too!  We celebrated together for a split second.

Thank you, anonymous woman, for bravely sharing your story - and your bellybutton!

Bellybutton Smiley Face

This person showed me their smiley face smile mark from a surgery.

Finished Wall of Bellybutton Museum 2013

On Becoming a Bellybutton

A number of questions here are probably answered by this KidsHealth link.

But exactly how the bellybutton seals is probably a question for an medically informed reader.  Anyone?

I'm guessing it's a process that our body does automatically like repairing a break in the skin.

Maybe the same person can help with this one.

What does it Do?

Here's an answer at KidsHealth.

What has a Bellybutton?

Stuff a Pillow?

Storage

Should not Answer

Pregnancy

Someone said this usually happens early on in pregnancy.

Someone else suggested this was like those turkey cooking devices that pop when the turkey is done.  (The someone was a guy.)

Deformation?

Bellybutton Use, Removal and Addition

We're all pretty sure we don't need it, that it is a leftover artifact from being a fetus once upon a time.

But some of us wondered if there is some structure on the inside of the bellybutton that keeps organs in place.

This led to a discussion about whether bellybuttons could be removed.  We all figured why not.

Word is that a well known model had hers surgically changed to look more smoothed over to almost appear gone.

How odd would it be to look at a person who doesn't have a bellybutton?

What if it became customary to have one's bellybutton surgically removed at birth?

Then we wondered - could a bellybutton be added to the body?  Um ... probably, at least cosmetically.

If it came into fashion like tattoos or piercings, would you get one?

Or two or three?

Woodchuck?

Not a Navalometer but a ...

 ... navelometer.