When Benjamin turned 1

Well, Benjamin is 15 months now, but when he was 13 months, I got his "12 month" pictures taken.  Confusing, I know!  Well, My friend Rebekah Stephenson is a professional photographer and is AMAZING... She's been super busy with weddings galore this summer, but squeezed in some time to take these fantastic pictures of Benjamin.  I feel like he looks so little in the pictures.  It was only 2 months ago, but he's gotten 2 big boy hair cuts, found 6 more teeth, and grew at least an inch.  literally.  its been a busy 2 months.  I guess he heard he has to man up and be a big brother soon, so he got busy growing!  Here's some pictures of my little lion love!  

It's a ...

our beautiful little girl................................and a big yawn!

crossing her legs very lady like!

cute little feet!

...GIRL!

This morning we had our 20 week ultrasound.  As we drove to the Dr. Office, I said to Joel "We really should decide if we're going to find out the gender..."...Then as we sat in the waiting room, I said again "So we need to talk about the baby, and if we're finding out."  We sat down in the ultrasound techs room, and I said, "Oh no Joel! What are we going to do!"  

I knew if I left it up to Joel, we wouldn't find out, but I really didn't want to regret whatever decision we made (and it was technically my decision because he got the say with Benjamin).  My two biggest competing thoughts were "I want to be excited no matter what, and I dont want to take exciment away from D-Day, if I already know" and "I can't handle someone knowing something about my baby that I don't."  

Well, as we sat there in the room, she began the ultrasound, and I kept saying, "we don't know what we're going to do yet!"  "Joel, I don't want you to be super sad.  Will you be super sad if we find out?"  The Ultrasound tech assured me that I had a while before she would get to that area, so I didn't need to know for a while.  I don't remember most of the first half, because I was dwelling so heavily on what we were going to do.  Then suddenly Joel said..."I think I already know!", and the U.T., Jan,  smiled big, and Joel said "I think Jan, already knows too!"  And at that point it was decided...I either wanted to know, or not, not just guess! And now that Jan for sure knew, I couldn't handle being in the dark.  So "Miss Littler Lewicki" decided for us.  My little girl very clearly made herself known, and I am SO GLAD that I know!

The bleeding stopped around 19 weeks and it is a HUGE relief!  There doesn't seem to be any remaining pockets, so for now, things are GREAT!  Her heart beat was 142, and growth is just one day short of her due date.  (9 week ultrasound showed 2 days short of her due date.) I've been able to feel her move since 15 weeks, and this past week, has been CRAZY!  Today, she has wiggled NON STOP.  The ultrasound was no exception!  Between my bladder which wasn't quite full enough, and a very wiggly little girl, I think the tech's job was rather difficult!

We're praising God for the past 20 weeks, and continue to ask for prayer for the next 20!  

Love, the four of us :)

I feel like talking, I just don't have anything important to say

I DESPERATELY wish that I lived in a small town today.  This partly stems from my distorted memory of my childhood, and the fact that most of my memories are of when i was much older than Benjamin.  But this is my reasoning.  I want to know my neighbors.  I want to run into one or two families that I know while I walk down the street.  I dont want to have to have purpose when I  call someone, I want to just run into them on the sidewalk and have worthless conversation, or sit on the porch drinking iced tea, and be able to invite someone over because I see them drive by.

I know, I know.  I'm looking for Mayberry life, in a 2010 paced world.  And truth be told, if life was truly that slow with not much more to do than go to the soda shop, I might be wishing for New York.  But, I am getting fidgety.  I LOVE staying home with Benjamin, and I'm not even close to wishing for a career or crazy night life.  I think I just need to be more flexible.  I need to go to Target with not more of a purpose than looking whats in the $1 isle and to get out of the house.  I want to have less planned play dates, where I don't feel the need to clean, but just see people.  I need to be a better friend.  I am partly feeling this way because when you are the mother of a toddler, good friendships take a very different form of any other stage in life.  My good friend declared her need for "low maintenance friendships" at this stage in life.  And as much as I applaud her accurate description of what I'm looking for in life, I guess I need TO BE a low maintenance friend.  (This is a little tricky, since I've never been "low maintenance" ANYTHING.)

I guess it all boils down to, loving the flexibility of summer, but missing the connection with adults.  nothing too traumatic.  :)

Well, that is my two cents for the day.  (It might only be worth once cent.)

On a much different note, I get to see my baby tomorrow.  "Littler" is moving like CRAZY and we have an ultra sound Friday morning at 9:30.  I'm excited to see the babe, and find out all the stats.  I truly have no idea if we will find out the gender.  Joel has pretty much left it up to me, and I think both options are great.  If I had to guess, we won't find out.  The fact that I lean towards not finding out, so often, makes me nervous that if I do find out, I will regret it the next day.  But I dont know.  Its also hard for me to see myself staring Lori (the ultrasound tech) in the eyes, and saying that I dont want to know available information about my baby.  After typing that, I think "Oh yeah, we'll find out"  So as you can see...I'm having commitment issues.  Either way, I think it will be a pretty great day!

Benjamin is super.  He had 8 teeth at the end of June, and now his mouth is working on ALL the rest.  literally.  you can see just the tops of most, and there is a couple just barely covered.  He has a low grade fever and a super drippy nose as a result.  This makes sleeping NOT FUN!  But I can't get upset with him when he's just not feeling good, and he's really quite a happy camper considering!

I think I'm done rambling.  It wasn't anything worth calling someone about, just enough to make me feel like talking :) (and to someone over 14 months :) )

Happy Thursday!

pizza monster

Last night I tried to get Benjamin to chew his pizza better.  I thought he was swallowing pieces whole!.  Well, this is Benjamin's attempting at chewing better.  He thought he was pretty funny. (so did Mom and Dad!)

independent gentleman

Benjamin has decided that he needs some quiet time without interruptions and specifically without mom.  When he's playing in his room if he notices I'm peaking in the door, or that the door is cracked open, at all, he sprints over and slams it. I'm in the process of "Benjamin proofing" the room, so I can leave him in there without being terrified of what he's gotten into... I was able to get a couple of shots, before he shut me out.

pepsi and pee

So the purpose of this post is really just to make sure I don't forget the list of following events. And while I'm at it maybe i can provide a bit of laugher for any overwhelmed individual or frazzled momma out there.

Life is kinda crazy right now.  Sometimes life is crazy and I thrive on the excitement, and other times I pray for normalcy...right now is the later.  Although these are some of the minor details in the grand scheme of things, they were the icing on the cake...

We got invaded by bugs.  This alone seems manageable, but along with the other details of my life, I'm not handling it well.  The sad thing is their resilience.  We sprayed...sprayed with new spray...spread bug killing crystals along our foundation, sprayed again, set of three bug bombs, and sprayed again.  But alas, the bugs are not gone.  This brings us to another fun lewicki fact: our basement keeps flooding...it could be worse, but it could be a lot better.  This spring a pipe was leaking and one corner of our main room downstairs felt the wet effects.  This summers rain has attacked the laundry room and bedroom closet...and with every down pour, the bugs somehow dominate our killing devices, and make an appearance.

Joel was working hard yesterday to prepare our back yard for the rain we're supposed to be getting today and tomorrow, and i was hanging out with a teething boy in the yard (4 at once!), thinking about the mouse my mom thinks she saw in the garage.  Benjamin was ready to get out of the pool, so i stripped him of his swim trunks and soaked diaper, and took my naked baby inside.  Well, i walked inside and set Benjamin down to go get him a diaper.  I saw Benjamin dart off and realized a glass of Pepsi got left in arms length of the little guy.  I didn't make it in time, andt he Pepsi was all over the carpet.  As I went to go get a towel I saw the road runner take off for the hall way where the gate was left open...So I ran to shut that and got distracted after closing the gate.  After soaking up the Pepsi and picking up some stuff in our bedroom, I realized Benjamin was kinda whimpering in the kitchen.  Well, I forgot to put a diaper back on him, and he was slipping and sliding on the linoleum in his own pee.

 I cleaned off, and diapered my poor little boy, and just sat down on the couch and laughed...There wasn't much else to do at that point, so thank you Jesus for a sense of humor!