You Know You're In the Rayel Household When....

...you hear:
          "don't eat the floor"
          "don't eat the wall"
          "mmmmmm! carrot!" (said the same way Cookie Monster says "mmmm! cookie!")

...doggie is included in most activities that go on - especially our evening rosary. Doggie is learning to make the sign of the cross. Joseph is his most excellent teacher.

...you see Joseph hijack John's monthly photo shoot.

...you see John's face light up when we go get Joseph from his afternoon nap.

...you see Joseph's face light up when John opens the door to get Joseph from his afternoon nap.

...the boys willingly pose for pictures together. Say "cheese!"

...you see John crawling around with one sock on his foot and the other in his mouth ... and then you see Joseph imitate his little brother.

...in the middle of saying our prayer before meals Joseph looks over at John, realizes he has a Cheerio in his mouth, leans over and says "first we pray!"

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 53)

1) A Wegman's is opening near us, and I just signed up for my Wegman's card today. Word on the street has it that I should be excited ecstatic. I guess I'll have to wait for our store to open to see how I feel about it, but I have a feeling I'm going to like this little enormous store :)

2) John is growing like crazy. He is now crawling all over the place, pulling up and stealing Joseph's toys. Joseph is fine with the first two accomplishments, but isn't too keen on having his little brother take his toys (even the ones he isn't playing with).

I guess it won't surprise you that one of Joseph's current favorite words is "mine!" We've been working on sharing a lot around here. Very often Joseph will say "mine!" then he'll look at me, realize I'm watching, tentatively offer the toy back to John and say "share." It's a work in progress. Sharing is seriously hard business.

3) Most of the time, though, the boys play well together. It's especially sweet when Joseph tries to play games with John. Recently he's started crawling really fast across the kitchen and John giddily follows. They go back and forth and back and forth laughing the whole time. It's really cute to watch.

Joseph decides he needs to have his picture taken, too.
He jumps in during John's "6 month photo shoot."

4) Our mom's group took a little field trip to the fire station a couple weeks ago. All the kids loved it. Here are a couple pictures from the trip.

 

5) We went to a train museum near us for Labor Day and Joseph loved it. When I say loved I'm not even a little bit exaggerating. It was a small museum that had one large room with a display in the middle and one small room with a fairly large lego display. Granted, the displays were interactive in that you could push buttons to make the trains or people or various objects move, but still it was only two rooms. We spent two and a half hours there. Crazy. We met up with some friends at the park afterwards and one of them said "I can't believe you were there for two and a half hours!"

6) Joseph started Preschool last week. We joined a homeschool co-op that meets once a week for a few hours. So far he's loving it (not surprising). I'm excited for Joseph to have this opportunity. And, as much as I balk at the idea, it's been good for me to have a little more structure to my week.
Sadly, I was a terrible mom and didn't take the obligatory "1st day of (pre)school" photo. I didn't even dress him in particularly cute clothes for his first day. Ah well. You live and learn. Maybe next year.

7) We've been enjoying a few of the warmer days at some local fountains. So much fun!

Thanks for hosting, Jen!

For My (Not So) Newly Pregnant Friends

I started this post about six months ago when I first found out that one of my best friends was having her first baby. Fast forward six months and here I am realizing that she's due in one week!!! I needed to finish it ASAP so all my sage wisdom ramble-y thoughts wouldn't go to waste. The post got long, so I've split it up into two posts. This is my "opinions and thoughts about everything but sleep" post. I hope it's helpful to my first-time mom friends!

If you plan on using disposables, Target diapers are the way to go. I love them because they're cute, inexpensive and work as well or better than every other disposable diaper I've tried. The only caveat to this is I prefer Pampers diapers for the newborn stage simply because they're "green line indicator" works much better than the Target "disappearing blue dots indicator." But once they're into size 1 diapers you don't need the indicator anymore - you're going to know when they peed.

Joseph is all smiles while sporting his
adorable cloth diaper :)

I have a love/hate relationship with my cloth diapers. I love them because they save me money and contain blowouts infinitely better than disposables. And did I mention they're adorable on baby bottoms? They are. BUT! They do require more work. You have to change them more frequently (those disposables can hold a lot) and you have extra loads of laundry. The laundry really isn't a big deal to me - I don't mind doing laundry. The extra changes were a big deal to me...until I recently discovered hemp liners. My hemp liners have helped me fall back in love with my cloth diapers. Before I discovered the hemp liners I had to change each cloth diaper ever 1-2 hours (basically every time one of the boys peed which meant changing 2 diapers every 1-2 hours....that's a lot of diaper changes in one day!). Now they can go 3-4 hours without being changed. This makes a huge difference when you're trying to diaper a toddler who doesn't want to sit/lay still for any diaper changes. I didn't use our cloth diapers for many moons because I got tired of fighting Joseph to change his diaper. Now I'm back into it, and since I discovered the hemp liners I haven't looked back.
Note: I do still use disposable diapers at night and when we're on vacation and sometimes when we're going to be out all day simply because they're so easy to use. But I'm trying more and more these days to use our cloth diapers as much as possible - especially if we'll just be out for the day.

If you have a boy make it a habit to put a wipe over his "master of surprises" as soon as you take his diaper off. You may still end up with a puddle under baby to clean up, but that's a heck of a lot better than trying to find the pee that spewed across the room and/or in their (or your!) face. You will probably only need to do this for the first few weeks, but until then....beware!

A fussy baby isn't necessarily a hungry baby. There are so many reasons babies cry. Many of these reasons are obvious (dirty diaper, hunger, tiredness), but others aren't quite as obvious (gas, over stimulation, too hot or too cold).
An easy way to deal with gas is by pumping baby's legs in a bicycle-type motion to help the gas move through their system. Burping baby during and after each feeding will also help with gas.

It's ok, John. Joseph won't hurt you :)

Feeling baby's ears is a good way to check baby's temperature (or so I've been told).
Knowing whether your baby is too hot or too cold can be hard to figure out. I will often feel my boys' ears and hands (and sometimes feet) when I'm trying to determine if they're too hot/cold. Either extreme can make baby quite fussy or interrupt their sleep (the worst!).
Over stimulation can be a big cause of fussiness in babies. I didn't learn this lesson very well until we had John. Sometimes John would be fussy and I would go through a mental checklist as to why he could be fussy and then I'd think - "hmm, he slept recently and is fed and changed, but Joseph has been running around like crazy and making a lot of noise. Maybe he's just over stimulated." Sure enough as soon as I took John upstairs for some quiet time with mommy he would settle down. It was nearly instantaneous. So, especially during those first weeks/months be aware of baby's stimulation. Less is more in their world.

If you plan to breastfeed...
        1) Don't let baby fall asleep at the breast. This is one of those things that is easier said than done, but it is so important - especially in those first few weeks when baby is developing their sleep associations. It's probably going to happen now and again, but do your best to make sure baby doesn't fall asleep at the breast otherwise you'll have to break the habit later on (which can be a painful habit to break!).
        2) Nursing is going to hurt (for a while), but don't let that dissuade you from breastfeeding. I know lots of lactation consultants say it isn't supposed to hurt, but I have yet to meet a mom who breastfed who said they had no pain in the beginning. Give yourself a few weeks to adjust and the pain should start to alleviate after a few weeks. Until then, you just have to grin and bear it :( I recommend using Lanolin to help protect the nipple and once the pain subsides you can also express a drop of your breast milk and coat the nipple with that - it has similar protection as the Lanolin (and is so much easier and more convenient). I've also heard great things about cold compresses (like this or this), but have never used them myself.
        3) Pacifiers are not the devil - use them if you want. From my experience (and that of my friends) it won't affect your breastfeeding success.

"Don't even think about taking my paci." - John

With Joseph we had to greatly encourage the pacifier. He was nursing something like 8-10 hours a day and not sleeping and super fussy. So, after about 2 (or 3 or 4??) weeks of being a human pacifier and me reaching pretty close to my breaking point (because Joseph almost never slept more than 2 hours at a time - even sleeping 2 hours straight was rare for him) my dad suggested we try giving him a pacifier. Oh - we had tried to give him one before, but he wanted nothing to do with it. But, we kept offering it...over and over again we would offer it. And he did eventually take the pacifier. He gave it up around 5 months, but by that point he was at least consistently sleeping in 2 hours chunks - sometimes even giving me 4-6 hours of (broken) sleep each night! Woohoo!
John was the complete opposite. From the moment we offered the pacifier he loved it. If he felt it near his mouth he would reach for it/your hand and pull it to his mouth.
Both boys have been great nursers and neither have had "nipple confusion." Needless to say, I'm a fan of pacifiers.

Beauty in Motherhood

It's amazing to me that each day can bring out so many different feelings and emotions. These days that are filled with love and laughter, exhaustion and exasperation. I sometimes find myself wondering how I got to this wonderful place in life, but I'm quickly reminded that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God's grace.
I love my boys very much, but there are times (sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes entire days) where I wonder how I'm going to get through. Times when I know I should be laying on the floor playing with them, but the selfish side of me takes over and all I want to do is putter around on the internet and read about how to be a great mom (or wife or whatever). But reading about these things doesn't make me a good mom. Slowing down and spending time with my boys - reading to them, building "big, tall towers" over and over again, wrestling with them, changing their diapers, feeding them - this is what makes me a good mom. But I struggle. Daily I struggle to be the mother they need me to be.
I feel like I've been struck over and over again this week with how much my boys need me to be present to them and how much I need them to help me to heaven. All the seemingly small things I do for them help me die to myself and serve Him more perfectly.
I've read several posts this week that have really made me think about my life, and about my role as a wife and mother in particular. Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee articulates so well this season of life. I could really relate to everything she said. And Msgr. Charles Pope sure gave me a lot to think about with this recent post. And, finally, Dwija over at House Unseen introduced me to this beautiful depiction of Jesus with his mother. I can't get over the beauty of that picture. It's such a beautiful reminder of how important this work of motherhood really is.

Joseph's 2nd Birthday

Joseph was a lucky boy this year - he got three (!!!) birthday celebrations! His first party was with my family while we were on vacation in Ohio. We were so blessed to be able to spend time with them during the week of July 4th. We live far away from everyone in my family, so we don't get to see them very often. It's such a treat when we're all together.
Joseph really enjoyed opening presents with his cousins.

Let me show you how this is done, Joseph.

I got this, Adam. See?

Joseph's second celebration was with our little family on his actual birthday. We had dinner and a special dessert for Joseph (blondies - yum!) along with a few presents from us and Will's side of the family. I really liked having a small, family celebration. I think it might soon become a tradition for how we celebrate most birthdays around here.

Thanks, Grandpa!

Getting birthday wishes from Grandpa Rayel.

Joseph's final birthday celebration was with friends. We had a (very) small "friend" birthday. Last year we invited a ton of people, I made the cake and everything for the party along with all sorts of other insanity and was stressed to the max. This year - I went verrrrry simple. I had a friend make the cake (it was adorable and delicious!), I bought a few simple decorations, did simple goody bags and a simple meal of pizza, fruit and veggies. My stress level was in check this year. And you know what? Joseph enjoyed this party as much as he enjoyed last year's. Mommy lesson learned.

I forgot to take pictures again this year. Luckily, my friend, Liz took over and at least got some pictures for me. Thanks, Liz!

Happy 2nd birthday, Joseph! Now on we go to the terrible terrific twos!

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 52)

1) This past Wednesday I went to the Like Mother, Like Daughter Crazy DC Meet-Up. It was so great to be able to spend the evening with Leila, Sukie, Deirdre and all the other women who came. I was so excited from the moment I saw the post that they were planning the meet-up. I really enjoyed hearing "Auntie" Leila's thoughts on building community, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that much of what she talked about I either already knew or is already being done in our community. We have been so blessed with a loving, supportive community. And I'm glad I was able to hear a few new ideas for what I can do to build up the community around me.

2) I recently joined Blinkbuggy and love it. I really like that I can record quotes and little snippets from our day so easily. I haven't done too much with pictures yet, but just having a journal of memories that easily accessible. I'm still figuring out how everything works, but hopefully I'll be able to share what I post on there with friends and family soon.

3) Have you ever thought about compiling a cookbook with all your favorite recipes? I dream of having time (and motivation) for such things. I would love to have all my favorite recipes organized into one book that I keep in my kitchen. Then I could just store all my cookbooks (or give them away!) and have that much less clutter.

4) I've been enjoying the challenge of posting every day this week. I've been able to get a few posts finished that have been languishing either in my draft folder or in my brain. So far I've posted a bunch of pictures of my two sweet boys - in story format :), talked about my thoughts on baby contraptions, listed my five favorite meals for new moms and gave a little update on what Joseph has been into lately. I'm hoping to do a post about our vacation in Ohio next. Here's a little glimpse of our week:

5) Diet Coke without Caffeine (aka: Caffeine Free Diet Coke) is like chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips. It's just an abomination. I (not-so-recently) took some diet coke that I had acquired after a potluck to a friend's house. We were having a little play date and I was feeling tired so I took some diet coke to wake myself up. When I got there and we were having lunch I got out my diet coke only to realize that it was caffeine free. I didn't even know what to do with myself. I was so upset. Who buys caffeine free diet coke? Why? WHY!?!?

6) I have a question for cloth diaperers: Does anyone have experience with Hemparoo inserts? Particularly with Fuzzi Bunz? I'm about to buy some off Craigslist, but want to make sure they work well before making the drive and spending the money. I have a couple Hemp Babies liners that I really like. I'd love to get more Hemp Babies, but these Hemparoo liners are being sold for $1 each. Are the Hemparoo liners worth my time and money?

7) This guy:

Love.

Him.

Thanks for hosting, Jen!

Joseph, Joseph, Joseph

Whew - today has been crazy busy. Here are a few Joseph-isms as of late.

- Joseph's current favorite song to sing is "Are You Sleeping?" I think because of the "brother John, brother John" part, but I could be wrong about that.

- Joseph is really into dipping his food lately. Give him ketchup, hummus, syrup, "pink a budder" (peanut butter) - anything! - and he'll dip, dip, dip away.

- Joseph is slightly obsessed with holding John. He asks at least once daily to "hold Don?" So, I oblige.

It's especially cute when he tries to pick John up off the ground and informs be that John's "too hebby" (too heavy).

- Joseph got a pebble in his sandals once. I stuck my finger in to get it out. Now Joseph randomly stops, sits down, sticks his finger in his shoe then after about 30 seconds says to me "dat bedder?" (Is that better?) before getting up and continuing on his way.

- Joseph LOVES talking on the phone.

Talking to Granpa Rayel on his birthday.