Tomorrow's the Day

I cannot believe that tomorrow at this time, Will could be here. I feel like Bennett just arrived yesterday. Well, 16 months wasn't that long ago. You know, everyone has given so much advice on having kids 16 months apart, and although I am not going to lie and say that I am not scared, I am excited too. The overwhelming advice from Moms who have had kids this close together is that the first year or so will be really hard, but then you will LOVE it.

I know it will be challenging, but it is such a miracle that I can't be anything but grateful. We knew that we wanted our kids around 2 years apart. It took us a year to have Bennett with a very sad loss along the way. We thought it would take just as long to have another so we started trying when Bennett was 7 months old. My hope was to be pregnant by this summer. Would we have still tried if we had known that it would happen the very first time? No way! But, God is so good. When I see so many close friends who are struggling to have a baby and when I pray for them every night, I can't help but jut feel so blessed and grateful that Rob and I didn't have to go through that a second time.

Plus I was with a doctors office in Montgomery that monitored me from the day my test came back positive. Most offices (including my one here in KC) won't even see you but once in your first trimester. I had so many complications with Bennett and the main one during my first trimester was low progesterone. This group caught it right away and put me on shots. Wouldn't you know that with this move to Kansas, I was in Montgomery for exactly my first trimester? We moved when I was 14 weeks pregnant. And wouldn't you know also that with Will, my progesterone started dropping rapidly at 7 weeks and I believe with every ounce of my being that if I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did, while we were still in Montgomery, I would have lost him too. I can't help but see God's hand prints all over this baby from the very beginning.

I don't really know why I am pouring all of this out tonight. I am just feeling so blessed and wanted to share how amazing the Lord is and how grateful I am for my husband and beautiful daughter. I cannot wait to meet our son tomorrow and have him join our family. Keep us in your prayers tomorrow. Please pray for a smooth delivery and a healthy baby. Also, if you don't mind, please pray for Bennett. That sweet little girl has been through so many changes and I hate the thought of her waking up tomorrow and calling out, "Mama" and me not being here. Please pray for a smooth transition for her as well. We'll post pictures as soon as we can, but until then, here are a few shots of us getting ready for baby Will.

My Mom and Dad arrived with bags filled with gifts from family members and from friends back home. We were so excited to open such sweet things people had sent for Will. We can't tell you enough how much we miss everyone back in Montgomery.

People even remembered Bennett. She loved her bag from her cousins!

And her Mommy's cousin sent a book for her to read. It went right into her special bag to take to the hospital.

All we need now is the baby. And a few things for the walls behind his crib. Clearly with the move, his was the last room to get done and is still a work in progress.

Ahhh... this angle is better. We're looking a little more prepared.

Getting some last hugs in before the baby comes. Have I mentioned how much I absolutely love this little girl? I cannot wait to hug both of my babies.

Quality Time

We are trying to spent as much time with Bennett as we can these days. My parents got here a few days ago (Hooray!!) and so we have been trying to prepare her for the upcoming transition as best as possible. We spent all weekend reading books, walking all over the house, playing outside, flying kites, and just enjoying life.

It hasn't been as smooth sailing as I am making it sound though. We took her to the doctor on Thursday and she has a pretty nasty sinus infection. So sleeping at night has not been our friend. Neither has Benadryl which apparently has the reverse side effects on my daughter making her cranky, irritable, and up all night. Great! Just the stability I am looking for before bringing a newborn home. Oh, and while toddling all over the living room she fell on our coffee table and got her first shiner. Sigh.... Oh, well. Hopefully she will feel better before Will gets here, and if not, I will just beg to stay in the hospital a few extra days so I can sleep.

Yay! My grandparents are here! Look what I've been up to since last you saw me.

Flying kites with my Daddy

Ours is the highest in the sky. If you look closely you can see my shiner.

I love to walk, walk, walk!!

Cuddling with my Mom. We do this lots and lots every day.

Learnin' some tunes from my Dad.

Meg isn't allowed in my room, but she got in today. I told her to go to her bed. Repeatedly.

I should have put her in time out

Bennett loves her picture word books. Every day she is getting new words- keys, plate, fork, flower, and many more. But her favorite has been animals for several months now. We started out with the standard ones. Horse, cow, chicken, etc... But she will now point out many others including elephant, snake, lion, dog, and bee. Many times when we are riding in the car I will hear her yell, "NAY!" from the backseat and sure enough we are passing a horse farm.

So when I heard her yelling, "COW" today I didn't think much about it. She is always commenting on every animal we pass on the road. I think I murmured, "Good job, honey- cow." She kept saying "Cow Cow" and was becoming more frantic. I still wasn't really paying attention so I glanced up and saw that we were in the middle of traffic. I kind of mumbled to the backseat, "No, Bennett. There aren't any cows." She grew more insistent, "COW! COW!" I would tell her No and then remind myself to go back over her farm animals when we got home. After she yelled "COW" for the 20th time, I turned around to look at her and saw that she was pointing right at me. I immediately gave her a lecture, "You listen here. Just because Mommy weighs 30 extra pounds does not give you the right to call her a cow. I had barely lost the weight with you when Will came along and I do not appreciate you calling Mommy a cow." She laughed and kept calling me a cow. I was on the verge of a hormonal breakdown- devastated that my 16 month old daughter was already mocking me when Rob calmly pointed out, "Honey. She's talking about your shirt."

I looked down and I was wearing one of those awful maternity shirts with the black and white patterns that do indeed look very cow like. I apologized to Bennett. She laughed and said, "Moooooooo."

And so it continues...

Murphy has not left. He has set up permanent camp in our home. In addition to everything else I mentioned, a shutter fell off of our upstairs window, our roof needs some repair badly, and the folks we hired to come fix the shelves left a mess I can't even talk about without coughing.

They were coming yesterday to put a final stain, add some finish, and just do repair work that our contractor did not do. They said the fumes would be bad and that I needed to leave the house all day. So, I took Bennett to the mall. Keep in mind that the heat index here is 105, I am 9 months pregnant, and I have a daughter that loves her naps. Great.

After 2 hours of walking my ankles were the size of beach balls and I couldn't breathe. And if one more person offered to braid my hair, spray me with perfume, or get rid of my wrinkles, I thought I would scream. Stupid kiosks. We somehow made it to noon where we met Rob at Chick-Fil-A. (on a side note, can I please get an amen and a hallelujah from all Moms for Chick-Fil-A? What would we do without it?) Anyway, after lunch, a good friend of mine let me go to her house while she was at the beach. It was lovely to rest, but chasing (a now fully walking) Bennett all over a house that isn't baby proof for hours took whatever bit of energy I had left.

FINALLY, we made it back home. It was late in the afternoon, but Bennett needed a N-A-P right that second. And what did we find? Our driveway has stain all over it and our house was covered in this white film. There's not other way to describe it. It was EVERYWHERE! This white powdery stuff that they sprayed on our shelves was all over our couches, our blinds, our counter tops, every toy... everything! And the house smelled so bad it made me sick upon entry.

I called Rob in tears and scrapped plans for eating dinner at home. We took a very tired and cranky Bennett out to dinner where the sleepy child made every patron in the restaurant miserable. We then went to Wal-Mart, bought fans, came home, opened every window, and turned on every ceiling fan that we had. We finally got her to sleep and my crazy exhausted self that can't bend down to touch her toes these days spent hours with Rob scrubbing every inch of our downstairs.

I will deal with the fallen shutter and the driveway stains another day. Today I will be in a coma.

Daddy Day

Hey Daddy,

Remember last year when I wrote to you on Father's Day? Well, I wanted to do it again this year. I can't believe how much I have changed this year. And a lot of that is thanks to you. I can count to three now because you practice with me. And I love to dance because you play your guitar and sing songs with me. I hope you liked it when I said, "Daddy Day." Mommy and I practiced a lot. You didn't have to get teary eyed, but I liked it. Thank you for taking me on wagon rides. I laugh a lot when you start running and the wagon goes very fast. Thank you for letting me play in the grass and get my dresses dirty. I like laying in the hammock with you because you point out all of the stars to me. I really like it when you kiss my stomach. It always makes me laugh. I love reading books with you and I like it when you lay down in my room and let me crawl all over you. I miss you when you are at work and that's why I cry when you leave sometimes. I am so happy when I hear your voice when you come back. I cry then because I am so happy. I also have so much fun going on adventures with you. Yesterday was a great day for adventures, don't you think?

Wasn't it fun when I woke you up and surprised you with breakfast?

I had a great day playing with you, but I loved going to Chuck-E-Cheese with you last night. You made me laugh when you would sing along with all of the songs on the stage.

I liked riding in a car with the big mouse himself. I had to tell him to be quiet- I was in charge now.

Whoo-Hoo! I got the ride in the front seat. Finally! Thanks, Dad.

I didn't like that big scary horse though. Thank goodness that Mom rescued me.

But I appreciate you finishing out my turn. We wouldn't want to waste a token, now would we?


I wish that we could have flown the kite last night that I gave you. I was sad that the wind had died down, but maybe next weekend we can go to the park and fly it. I picked it out just for you and me. Anyway, I hope you know how much I love you. I hope you had a great day and I am so thankful that you are my Daddy.

Love,
Bennett

PS- Check out my cousins blog. He went to Chuck-E-Cheese over the weekend too!! Our mommy's always did think just alike.

Have you met our friend, Murphy?

Wikipedia defines "Murphy's Law" as: An adage in Western culture that broadly states: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

I think our new house was owned by Mr. Murphy recently. When purchasing this house, we made a list of expenses and we budgeted exactly how much we would need to the penny. We knew we would need new blinds, some landscaping, a fence, etc... these were expected. Then we moved in. And then all you know what broke loose. We have only been in our house 2 1/2 weeks and so far the following have happened

- The air conditioning unit went out
- The bathtub clogged up and no amount of research and trips to Home Depot on my husbands part could prevent an expensive call to a plumber
- Our freezer door stopped closing
- The dishwasher broke
- Our dryer's heating element went out
- Our van needed two new tires
- Our contractor messed up our new shelves and we had to hire his brother in law to come in and fix them
- Our microwave had issues requiring new parts
- We discovered huge drainage problems in our yard
- Our house was infested with insects and has required two visits from pest control. That's one per week if you're keeping score.

And that was all within the first week. Then last night at dinner Rob looked up at the ceiling and said, "Honey? Were those water spots there last night?" I sadly said that they were not. Monday morning we will call the plumber back out here to figure out why our upstairs toilet is leaking and ruining our kitchen ceiling in the process.

If you know Mr. Murphy, can you please tell him that we have paid our dues? And if you could do it before the baby comes, we would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance. -The Websters

Exciting Times

1. Bennett is walking. I am not going to exaggerate and say that she could walk all over the grocery store, but the kid is definitely walking. She can walk from room to room now. She can see something on the TV, get distracted, and just stop in front of it without falling down. She can walk down the hall from the staircase to her room. I asked Rob tonight if we could officially declare her as a "walker" and he said that we could. Good enough for me. And she has so many new words that I can't even count. Each day it is new and fun and just delightful. I think the neatest thing is that she is connecting objects. She gets now that the pillow on my bed is "Mama Piwwo." If we are done with something she gets that it is going away. "Bye-Bye Ball," "Bye-Bye juice" and so on and so forth. This age is seriously so much fun. I just love watching her little brain work. And I love watching her break into a huge smile and giggle when she gets something.

2. I met today with the directors of a performing arts center. They would like for me to teach some of their acting classes starting this Fall. It is a Christian performing arts center and it offers everything from dance to graphic design to voice. I will start off with just a few classes this Fall and they will be in the evenings so Rob can be with the kids. Hopefully it will expand as Bennett and Will get older and I can be involved in some way in their big productions. They are doing "Oliver" this Fall and the place was just phenomenal. I am SO excited to be involved in something creative again and I am thrilled for the opportunity to once again teach drama to kids. God is so incredibly faithful.

3. Okay, so this isn't as exciting, but if you know me even just a little bit, you know that it sent me over the moon. I met one of our neighbors today who is a Tennessee fan. He invited me in August to a big SEC get together where SEC fans from all over the area hang out together, grill out, and talk smack about the season. And apparently there is an Alabama watch group that meet up and watch the games on satellite. My fabulous neighbor is hooking me up with the leader of that group so I can yell "Roll Tide" with the best of them this Fall. If you knew how lonely it was for a 'Bama girl out here in Jayhawk country, you would understand.

4. Will is making his arrival in 13 days if not before. I told you that it was exciting around here.

Funny Girl

Rob and I are on our way out to dinner, but I had to post this really quickly before I forgot it. Bennett loves to sit in my lap and look at pictures on the computer. We mainly look at family members and she will tell us who they are. We don't want her to forget anyone while we live so far away. So just now she was sitting in my lap and Rob was scrolling through pictures for her. "Who's this?" he would ask. "MAMA," she would yell. Rob went through everyone that she knows. Dada, Suttle, Pipuh, Memmie, Benneh, Mama, and so on and so forth. We also showed her pictures of objects she is learning- keys, tree, flowers (fluh), ball, etc... Then Rob pulled up a picture of Meg and Bennett playing together and said, "Who's this, Bennett?" She immediately frowned and yelled at the top of her lungs, "OHHHH!!!!!! MEG GO BED!" Then for 45 seconds straight she yelled at the computer and told it to go to it's bed. Rob and I both laughed until we cried. It was because her tone became so angry. Every other word was so sweet and calm and the minute she saw Meg, her voice dropped two octaves and she would just yell. I really hope Will doesn't abuse our poor dog like his big sister.

Steps, Books, and Citars

Bennett's walking is getting so much better. I really don't know what to make of her. I have been talking to a lot of friends lately and nearly all of them tell me that one day their kid just got it and walked. Bennett has been "walking" for 2 months now. She can make it across a room, she can walk from people to a piece of furniture, but she refuses to just take off and do it. Anyway, last night we were practicing and Rob got these great shots in a row.

Getting to Mommy. I think I can, I think I can.....

Almost to Mommy.... keep going.....I see her hands.....

I made it! Look at the look of delight on her face. Okay, and mine.


She also LOVES books. If you sit on the floor she will drag a book to your lap every time and say, "Book," which is her way of demanding a story. And as the following pictures show, you don't even have to be there. She will sit by herself for and just "read." In her case, that means flipping pages and babbling, but she loves it.


Last night we had some strong storms in Kansas. Around 4:30am I heard her talking in her crib. She wasn't crying, but she was talking loudly. I thought that she might be scared of the storms, so I went in to check on her. I really wish that I had my camera. She was laying on her back with her feet up in the air, reading a book. It was pitch black in her room, so I have no idea how she found the book or what she was reading, but I guess she needed to know what was going to happen on that next page.

And finally, I will try to post video of this, but "Roll Tide" comes out as citar. I was not aware that B had any exposure to this Hindu stringed instrument, but I guess that she has. I have a 'Bama cap that I wear all the time and Bennett loves Mommy's "Ha." She will take it off of my head, put it on hers and yell, "Ha." (The "t" won't quite come out.) So Rob and I tell her to say "Roll Tide" every time she puts on the hat. And every time she yells, "CITAR!" Hmmmmmmm..... Maybe the Crimson Tide should introduce this instrument to the million dollar marching band. Bennett would be thrilled.

If William has blonde hair.....

will we have to change the name of our blog?

So much to catch up on

My blogging has sadly taken a backseat to life these past few weeks. But, the piles of boxes are shrinking, the walls are slowly being painted, and life is returning to normal. For three more weeks that is! Yes, I have a three week break before they induce Will on July 1st. That may seem scary, but I just pray that he makes it to July 1st. Three weeks would be a huge relief at this point. We don't even have the crib up. And to think that Bennett's nursery was completely ready at 25 weeks.

Speaking of little Bennett, keep her in your prayers. I would love to blog that she has done remarkably well with all of the transition, but I think that she has finally lost it. She has had three houses since December, different cribs, a month back in Montgomery with a new place, and people in and out of her life so much. Just when she gets used to Daddy being gone, he's back. Just when she gets used to her grandparents being here, they leave again. It has been a vicious cycle for 6 months and I think my parents leaving on Saturday was the last straw. She has been so clingy and calling out for "Suttle" for three days. I can't leave a room without her crying and putting her to sleep has been impossible. This is my baby who started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks and has never ever had a problem taking a nap. Ever since Sunday it is like wrestling an alligator. I am scared that I will finally get her settled and then here comes baby Will. Poor kid. She'll be fine, but please pray for her. I know that Rob and I have been on our knees every night doing that very thing. Even though it's hard, I do love her calling out "Mama? Mama? Mama?" every time she thinks I have left. She will head straight to the bottom of the stairs and look everywhere for me. I know I shouldn't love that, but it secretly melts my heart every time.

In between crying fits and clinging to me leg, she is doing well. STILL not walking. But she will take 10-12 steps constantly. Every time she's on the floor, she walks, crawls, walks, crawls, walks, crawls, but I can't get her just to take off and go. I am not really worried about it, just ready for it to happen. The thought of carrying two babies around isn't all that appealing. Her vocab is great though. She learns new words and phrases every day. She has a book with tons of household objects and she can point to a lot of them. I'll ask her every night questions like, "Where is the apple? Where is the pillow? Where is the bee?" and without fail, she will point to the right one and repeat the word. It is adorable and it makes me forget the meltdowns of the day.

So, anyway, we're here. Will's almost here and things are finally settling into place. Here are a few recent pics of B because I am sadly behind in those as well.

Faster than a speeding Meg, it's Super Bennett! And those are strawberry stains on her shirt and face. Laundry is my life these days.

My beautiful girl with the big blue eyes

We're in!

We're in our house and Will is still in utero, so it's all good. I am exhausted. This is probably the longest I have sat down since last Friday morning. I do not know what I would have done without my parents. They have been amazing doing everything from running errands, to watching Bennett, unpacking boxes, unloading cars... I could go on and on. So, a HUGE shout out and thank you to my parents. This would have been nearly impossible without them.

We love our new house and I finally feel at home in Kansas. I will post pictures as soon as I can, but all I can say is that I have a nursery! Will can come any day now, but I hope he will wait the expected four more weeks.

Tonight, to give us a break, my friends Mary and Kelsey came over to baby-sit so Rob and I could go out with my parents and have a nice dinner without a high chair and fruit snacks. After Bennett went to bed, they painted my living room. How amazing is that? I mean, seriously. Who does that?

And Bennett has hung in there like a champ. She has definitely been more clingy this week and hates it when I walk out of a room, but she's adjusting well. Her vocab is getting larger and larger every day. She will repeat nearly every sound you say and her new words are, "Brother Will." She has also learned , "No." But she drags it out and says, "noooo-ooo-ooo." But then she will laugh at you and just say, "Yess-ah." The child is clearly confused. AND she is walking a whole lot more. She's not fully there yet, but she will take 5-6 steps constantly and consistently. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Thanks for all your prayers. This has been an insane ride and it's about to get a whole lot crazier, but at least we feel settled and ready for our next adventure.