Lazy Thursday

I can't believe it's already Thursday!!
Today is one of those days.
The ones when your house is cold and you don't get out of your pj's and your house is a mess and you have Important Stuff to do but you just don't wanna.
Baby Ray is napping in her swing and I am surfing through the big, wide Web. But I'm gonna go now and do my Important Stuff. Yay me. Hope I'll actually do it. Maybe I'll come back here and let you know.

Keeping My Baby's Clothes Organized- WFMW

When Baby Ray was born, we got a TON of clothes. I mean a TON. Gifts, hand-me-downs, two first time grandmothers and THREE first time great-grandmothers makes for a LOT of baby clothes. To keep them all organized, I have a set of hanging shelves in the closet of Ray's room. Each shelf is dedicated to one size, and the shelves are in age order. So right now at the top I have 3-6 (Ray's upcoming size), the second shelf holds 6-9 and 6-12, the third 9-12, etc. For the bigger sizes, which I have fewer clothes for, I combined shelves, so the bottom two hold 12-18 and 18-24, and 24 mos and up, respectively. This way, everything stays organized and separated, and if I'm going shopping I can just glance at the shelves to see what I still need in which size, in case I find something cute. If anything comes on a size-labeled hanger, I keep the item on the hanger so I can easily see what size it is without having to shove away all the other hanging things.

Keeping Ray's Clothes organized works for me, so I'm linking up to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family

Container Heaven

So I was trying to explain to my husband the other day why The Container Store (I'm lucky enough to have one fairly close by, even though I haven't been there yet) is so cool. It went something like "Well, a woman always wants to make her home more organized. And once you have a container for something, it's automatically much, much more organized. So a store that has containers for everything is awesome."

He still didn't get it.

Silly Bandz and Nursing - WFMW

If you go back to my first post, take a close look at my wrist. Yes, that is a SillyBand. When my baby was born, I could not, for the life of me, remember which side I was up to for nursing. And, as anyone who has nursed knows, messing up the 'system' can be extremely uncomfortable, and a very leaky mess!! I really needed to come up with some sort of system. I once heard of bracelets that you could order online, with little tabs on them that you could move along numbers printed on the bracelet, to remember what time you had last fed the baby and what side you were up to. But I needed something cheaper, and something I could get right away. Hellooo, Silly Bandz! They are cheap and come in packages of many, so it doesn't matter if I break or lose one, plus I always have more when that happens. They aren't tight around my wrist like hair elastics are. They are perfect! Each time I start nursing, I just switch the band to my other wrist (it took me a couple of days to make this a habit) and voila! no more uncomfortable mix-ups.

Silly Bandz work for me, so I'll be linking up to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

Remembering to be Happy to be Home

(Found at makeminepink.com)

At seven A.M., I don't envy the mob

Who rise, shine and shower and go to the job.

In rain, sleet or storm, whether snowing or blowing,

I stay home and savor the joys of not going.

Cheers to you dears out fulfilling yourselves.

I'll bake me a cake, and I'll straighten my shelves,

I'll write some light verse and I'll practice some Bach...

If my neighbor drops in, I'll take time for a talk.

I'd rather have a family than fortune or fame;

I don't think my apron's a Red Badge of Shame.

You're welcome to banking, computers and math,

Guns, plumbing and business. I'll take a hot bath.

Art, music, letters--the good things of life

Are no less my own, since I'm mother and wife.

If I scrub, mop or dig in the garden, I'm free...

Remember, the choices were all made by me.

Helene Lewis Coffer 

I found this poem at homeliving.blogspot.com and I really like it. I've been a stay-at-home mom since before my baby was even born. I finished teaching in June and that was it- Baby Ray was born in August.  It took me a while to realize I was struggling with my identity as a SAHM. Not that I'm a workaholic, powersuit type at all, plus, I knew I was going to be a SAHM and I want to be one, but going from working to staying home required a total re-evaluation. At home, I feel like I have endless time. I feel like I have endless work. I feel like what I'm doing doesn't count as work, even though I know full well it does. I feel like my husband doesn't think of it as work, even though he does. I know that I am incredibly lucky that we can afford (just barely) for me to stay at home, but I still miss having a place to be in the morning. Before, housework and cooking and errands were crammed into the few hours I had at the end of my day, almost as an afterthought. Now, these things, plus taking care of my baby (and the babies to come) are my day.

I recently toured an infant class at a preschool where I was thinking of getting a job. It made me so sad. There was a row of bored looking babies, swinging in their swings and sucking on their sussies. The room had that pee-and-apple-juice smell. I think of that and it makes me feel so lucky. Lucky I can hug and kiss and play with my baby all day. And lucky I can be there when she is crying and cranky and driving me crazy. Every time I need to summon my patience, I think of that. And I remember that I'm happy to be home.

Are you happy to be home? Does it get hard or lonely sometimes? How do you stay sane? What was your adjustment/transition like?

Not Me Monday- Fuzzy Baby Necks

Baby Ray has those cute little neck folds all floppy-headed babies have. You know, those yummy rolls under her chin that smell so good. Well, Ray's did not start to smell unsweet after I did not repeatedly forget to somehow get a washcloth under there during her baths, and I did not find a small colony of fuzzies that had moved in there and multiplied. That is not totally unhygienic and gross! I did not  then give her an 'emergency bath' to get all the fuzzies out because I was not totally grossed out.

All Clean!!

Linking up to Not Me Monday at My Charming Kids.

More About Me Monday

I'm pretty sure that I'm not your typical blogger, so for the next little while I'm going to dedicate Mondays to a little more about me.

I am 22 years old and I live in the Southeast region of the USA. I am a Chabad Chassidic Ultra-Orthodox Jew. I've been married about two years and we have a 4-month-old baby. Today I'll give you a look into how I grew up. Though I now live in the South, I'm actually a Long Island girl. Neither of my parents grew up religious; they became religious together after they got married, through an outreach organization called Chabad (more on that later). I went to a very small Jewish day school until after fifth grade. The following year, my class disintegrated. One kid went back to public school and one moved. That left just me. I refused to go to another Jewish day school in the area. Instead, I started boarding by a family in Brooklyn and going to a Chabad school there. I was 11 years old. I would be driven to Brooklyn early on Sunday mornings (Yes, we had school on Sundays. Every Sunday. Torture.) and come home on Friday afternoons after school in time for Shabbat. A one way drive was an hour and fifteen minutes. I continued doing this all the way through high school. The year after high school, I went to a Jewish post high school program in Israel. After that, I spent a year in a small-ish Southern town, which eventually led me to the man I would marry. More about that next week...

Sooo...Here's My First Experiment :)

This is totally impulsive. I've been a blog lurker for many months now and I've decided to take the plunge. Here is a picture of my first experiment: 

(No matter which way you turn this picture, it doesn't look straight.)

This is Baby Ray, and she is just about 4 months old. She is my first baby and I still can't believe she is mine! It feels more like she is a really cute pet I take care of. I'll be blogging about my Mommyhood Experiment- reflections on being a mommy, different tips I'm learning along the way, about our lifestyle (we are ultra-orthodox Jews) and more. And Baby Ray is definitely one of the finer things in life, so I'll be linking to Finer Things Friday at Amy's Finer Things. Have a great day!