A bit to appease complainers...

So I've gotten a few complaints about the lack of posting lately... so I thought I'd take the advice of one of them and post some updates on the baby and Breanne.

The baby is due in 3 1/2 weeks... I can hardly believe it's so close. The doctors say her heartbeat sounds great, and she is definitely plenty active still, so I know she's doing well. I'm getting to the point where I really want to just have the baby (she's getting up under my ribs, and it's starting to get really uncomfortable), but I'm also terrified of the delivery process, even though I've been through it before. I just hope recovery is a little bit easier this time, because let's face it... having two kids will probably be a lot more difficult than just one! Though the adjustment to having one is also big, so... I'm just hopeful that we'll make it through gracefully. I also want the baby to stay inside as long as she needs to so that she'll be healthy, so I'm not pushing for an early delivery, as nice as that might be for me. I just don't feel like we're quite ready for her. We should (hopefully) be getting a bunch of the furniture stuff from Gamama and Boppa's house tomorrow night (assuming they're still planning on coming down), and we finally got out the baby clothes (though one of the boxes had a spider on it... definitely need to wash everything...) but there's still so much to be done! I know it isn't all that important to have everything ready before she gets here, but it sure would be nice.

And as for Breanne--I know I often say that she is a genius, and most of you probably just think that is me being a biased mother, but to be absolutely honest with you, I've never seen a smarter not-quite-two year old. She knows the entire alphabet (not in order, or the song, but the letters!), though her pronunciation is far from perfect. She seems to have even stopped confusing K with X, and Q with O, which I think is amazing. She knows all her body parts (and has for over a year) and many of the colors (she still refuses to say any variation of orange, and she thinks gray is black or blue), and can name most any animal I can think of, and even tell you what most of them say. She does think, however, that Bambi is a llama, for some weird reason. I can't seem to convince her otherwise. Maybe with time... :) She also knows the numbers, and can point them out to you if you ask her which one is which, but she doesn't say most of them yet. The craziest thing, though, is that she can read!

Yes, that's right, you read that correctly... she can read! My mom mentioned this in her comment about Cory chasing her around the house with the MagnaDoodle... she gets a little bored with it on occasion, and Cory is especially proud and wanting to show her off (and just help her practice), so sometimes goes a bit overboard... but she can read! She knows the words hi, baby, elephant, dog, tiger (though for some reason she says lion... but she does it consistently every time, and also when she sees a picture of a tiger, so she does know the word), no, mouth, nose, eyes, giraffe, owl, arms up, down, clap, cat, ear (new surprise for tonight... she picks them up so fast!), and I'm sure more that I'm forgetting. It amazes me every time I watch her read. The thing is--I think some parents think we're crazy, because we *must* be pushing her so hard or something, but we really honestly don't--Cory chasing Breanne around the house is a rarity, I promise. (We're both too lazy for much of that, I think... :). She just loves to learn, and eats up everything we teach her. Maybe it is partially genetic, I don't really know, but she is capable of so much, and I think parents sometimes just don't realize how much their kids actually WANT to learn. Or they just don't take the time to teach them, I don't really know what it is. Or maybe Breanne really is just a genius. Who really knows?

I feel like to be honest I have to put a plug in here--I try not to sell to my friends because I don't want to create any weird tensions or anything, but I've been selling Usborne Books for almost 6 months now, so Breanne has a lot of books, which we read to her regularly, and which have helped her learn to identify animals, colors, and all sorts of other words--we have a great line of educational books for babies and children. She also has our program, Your Baby Can Read, which is a set of DVDs that show kids words and what they correspond to, which she enjoys watching fairly regularly. I'm not normally an advocate of letting babies watch tv (though Breanne definitely does plenty of that...) but this program is amazing. I've seen babies as young as 9 months reading the words (though not speaking them, just doing the actions they describe, like kicking, or putting their arms up, among other things). It's hard to believe it's even possible, but it is.

Anyway, enough about my books and stuff... Breanne is just amazing. I'm sure this baby inside me will be amazing too, even if it is in totally different ways. I really look forward to meeting her, and getting to know who she is. I love the opportunity I have to be a mom, to watch Breanne grow and learn, and to watch Cory be a father--he is so great at it, and I love him all the more for it. This life is a wonderful one.