Yesterday I caught all three boys on my bed at once and I pulled out the camera to catch a few shots of them all together. I know I’m biased but they are all so darn gorgeous!
I don’t know why, but I adore this picture of the boys. Liam’s fuzzy face in the foreground, Ray looking right at the camera and Noah’s little sweet face … just love it all.
Here is a standard sized thing … a dollar bill. And here is Ray … about 3 lengths of a dollar bill.
So, days keep passing and I don’t know where they go. I watch the clock all day long (timing feedings and naps) and I just watch time slip by. Within the past few days I have learned a few sad, but true facts about myself:
1. I have become partial to stretchy clothes.
2. I don’t shower every day, do my hair or put on makeup … and deodorant is for sissies.
3. A piece of toast is an acceptable and fortifying breakfast.
4. I don’t walk outside of these 1000 square feet of my house – therefore, my boys don’t either – therefore we all watch entirely too much HGTV and Food Network these days.
5. I have dreams about fearlessly going number 2 on the potty.
6. Every time I think, “OK, everything is OK, I got this whole infant and three kids thing down!” I remember that there are friends still bringing food to my house, I am not actually accomplishing anything except for keeping bums dry and clean and I have not left my house in 4 days … then I think, “I do not ‘got this'”.
Things are not bad, in fact, they are good. Ray is doing well, I am healing up, and the boys play a lot of legos and happily watch movies, HGTV and Food network (thank heavens they are into building and cooking).
Another thing I like? Ray sleeps at night. Not all the way through, but he only gets up twice during the night and Daniel helps. We have a good little routine going on at night – Daniel gets up when Ray starts grunting (by the way, this kid is pretty good – he hardly ever cries, just grunts to show his discomfort or displeasure with any given situation) and then Daniel changes his diaper and hands him to me. I take Ray and feed and burp him, then Daniel puts him back to bed.
Another thing I like? ….. my Daniel Cakes. ahhhhhhhh. He is heaven. I miss him everyday and wish he were near me. He is soothing and loving and tells me I’m beautiful, even with facts numbers 1 and 2 staring him in the face.
I do feel like I’m missing out on my favorite part of the year: summertime. I long to make trips to Ann Arbor and go to the Farmer’s Market. I want to do outside activities with the boys and take trips to our closest beach. I want to go to Home Depot and get some PVC pipe and make a kid car wash with my boys, so they have something cool to play with this summer in the backyard. But that is a little on hold right now. Baby Ray is too little to take out and about and truthfully, if I did all those things, I think it would be too much for me too, but I like to think about it anyway. Anyway, those are the facts these days.
I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. But so far, so good. I am definitely not able to accomplish what I did before, but things aren’t totally falling apart … yet. I know it will happen at some point, but for right now, I am going to share what we did on day ten of life with Baby Ray.
It was the last day of kindergarten for Noah, so Noah and I did a project together while Ray slept for an hour or so. We made a jar for Mrs. Brothers. I decorated the outside of the jar and Noah wrote things he liked about Mrs. Brothers on colorful strips of paper to put inside the jar. We added some licorice and a note from me too inside and that was it. I know there are a million adorable things to do for teacher gifts – ours was a little last minute, but straight from the heart 
Here’s the fruits of our labors:
As for Baby Ray, he took a bath. Hence, the combed hair picture at the top of this post. Pretty hilarious, right? It only took about 15 minutes before it dried completely and poofed out. While Noah was at school (it was a half day, so he really only attended for about an hour and a half) Liam and I gave Ray a bath. Ray had an eventful morning full of spitting up on the bouncer and his pack-n-play sheets, and several poopy diapers, so we decided it was time. Daniel gave Ray his first bath at home on Friday, when Ray’s umbilical cord fell off (and because Ray peed on his own face). So this bath wasn’t a first, just something we felt was needful after the events of the morning.
Christina told me to put something next to Ray in these pictures, to show his actual size. So I did. I put Liam next to him. Then I realized that was not helpful. Liam is a man-child. Very large for his age, with a large head (like his daddy). So it really makes Ray look tiny, which he is, but not THAT tiny … hmmmm, maybe I should put a dollar bill next to Ray or something more standard.
And thank you Aunt Aria for loaning us the cute newborn outfit. Ray doesn’t fit into anything 0-3 months yet, only newborn clothes right now. But he’s looking pretty stylish in his little plaid shorts and surf onesie
And that’s where we are on day ten. We did a project with Noah, bathed Ray, I made homemade lemonade, Noah and Liam are playing in the backyard with the pool out, I got dressed (but not showered), I put on makeup, I watered a portion of the front lawn (I am really grasping for straws here, aren’t I? … I need the validation of seeing a list of things I accomplished), I made eggs for breakfast, I washed the bouncer cover after Ray spit up on it, I have nursed Ray about 10 times already and changed about 9 diapers, I made the boys clean up the basement, I sent some pictures to Costco to be printed for Ray’s baby book and I blogged. huh. so there. day one without any help and I am “winning!” yeah.
I don’t know how many more days I will have in the near future when I can have an afternoon without any kids, no responsibilities and a camera and a not crying infant … so I did a mini photo shoot of Ray this afternoon. Christina will be so proud of me and all the pictures. Everyone else will think this is obnoxious. so what.
I love baby toes. I am sparing you all the other 10 pictures I took just of his feet.
