The Miles Rausch Family Website

These pictures always make me giggle.

Did they make you laugh, too?

Ian turned 3 months old today.

And he started daycare on Monday.

As I end my last week on maternity leave, I’d like to share just a few things I’ve learned so far as a new mom:

• A smile from my baby can literally turn my mood around. Sometimes, even the opposite of smiling can.
• Not all babies take a pacifier.
• Everyone warns about labor but no one talks about recovery.
• His little noises and finger-holding during feedings will be my favorite memories of these first few weeks.
• Babies get toe jam. Somehow.
• Thankful that I’m not doing this alone.
• Vacuuming can (and will) be put on hold. For weeks.
• My baby sleeping on my shoulder is one of the best feelings in the world.
• I worry about if my son will be teased in school, or worse, will be the teaser.
• Vomit, pee and feces ain’t no thang.

More photos can be found on my Flickr page or Miles’s Flickr page. More video can be found at our YouTube channel.

Looking for the perfect way to tell that special someone something special? Well, you can find a variety of Valentine’s Day cards for any LOST fan whose claimed your heart. (Some cards may contain spoilers if you haven’t watched past season 3.)

You can view the illustrator’s website here. Thanks for sharing, fellow Twitterer and LOST fan, abbybischoff!

I’ve been crocheting hats like crazy the last couple of weeks. So far, I’ve made two adult hats and 10 baby hats. There’s been a lot of concern about how many babies I’m having. Don’t worry, I’m having just one and only two of those hats are for my baby. The remaining 8 are for babies I know. And I still have a few more on a list to crochet.

The selection for boy colors in baby yarn is quite limited. There are a lot of pastels – and even “boy” colors in pastel still look quite girly. So I bought baby yarn in colors I liked, and then a couple I thought I could deal with for boys. (Turns out one is camo – I was hoping the dye would be in longer segments so it’d be more like shades of green…but it’s most definitely camo.)

I don’t know if any of the hats I made for friends’ babies will fit any of the babies, but I’m hoping they’re close. The parents can always re-gift or save it for a future baby if it’s too small, I guess! Albie helped out by modeling the hats – it sort of gives one a sense of size, too. Though I don’t have much sense of scale when it comes to babies who are 3 months old and babies who are almost a year old…

See the whole set here.