Some Strong Words For You

Last night when I was doing some research on the internet, I came across a parenting study that I'd never heard of.

Check it out: "Twin studies show that language development is as much as 50 percent genetic, yet researchers say that the single biggest determinant in a child's language acquisition is exposure to language. Infants who have more early language exposure score higher in IQ tests, perform better academically and are more socially competent. Apparently, every word counts. According to a study done by Dr. Betty Hart and Dr. Todd Ridley, babies who heard an average of 2,100 words per hour scored higher on standardized tests at age 3 than did children whose parents hadn't been as verbal."

So we don't really care about test scores or anything like that, nor are we even looking forward 3 years or even to your first spoken words. We just want you to be a healthy kiddo. And basically the study says that the more a baby is spoken to directly, the better his or her neural development will be. That can include vocabulary later on, but it's just good for the wiring up front. And, really, I just want an excuse to tell you EVERYTHING!

The study recommends that a baby have 30,000 words spoken to them every day!


That sounds like an awful lot, but when you come out, we're gonna have no problem talking to you! And anyway, that's only 20 words per minute. But, of course we can't talk to you 24 hours a day.

I tried doing this once to your mother and she did not approve.


At any rate though, even though we talk to you some while you're in the belly, and sing to you as well, expect to have your ears chewed off (not literally, of course; we don't own a dingo).

If there's one thing your Dad is good at, it's talking. I can talk so well that I even talk in my sleep!

Your Mom and I are going to read to you, narrate what's going on to you and just tell you everything about the world.

It'll be a one sided conversation at first, well, at least on the verbal front. But it will be so much fun just to chat with you face to face.

In no more that 18 days (and more likely somewhere around 11 days), we'll be able to have our first tete a tete, and I can hardly wait.

I hope you like hearing me and your Mom talk, because you're about to get an earful of about 30,000 words a day! (and don't worry, because I can do 30,000 in my sleep!)

Wife Cold

As of today you are 17 weeks and 3 days old! That means you are now at least the size of an onion! It's fitting that your week as an onion should have begun with such stinky circumstances, since, well, onions stink.

This weekend, your Mother got a cold, and that stunk for everyone (almost as much as a giant onion).

On Friday afternoon she wasn't looking too good and by Friday night she took a turn for the worse.

Despite drinking lots of tea and put Mentholatum on her feet, your Mom woke up Saturday morning (actually, it was closer to afternoon) with a full blown cold:

Drainage, Sore Throat, Achy Ears, M's turning into B's (you know like saying "Bobby" instead of "Mommy"), Exhausted, Miserable, Stuffed Up Nose, Headache and a wonderful Cough!

The only problem is, when you're pregnant you can't take the same medicines you'd usually use to kick a cold's butt. After a call to the doctor, we started your Mom on a healthy diet of Mucinex and Acetemeniphen. (NO Ibuprofen for preggo-ladies!)

But, medicine alone can't cure a cold. So, your Dad played nurse all day Saturday and took a wholistic approach to making your Mom feel better.

By the end of Sunday afternoon, you and your Mom had:

• spent over 36 uniterrupted hours indoors


• eaten approximately 64 ounces of Egg Drop soup


• drank 3 bottles of Gatorade (blue, yellow and orange!)


• used 80 tissues (an entire box)


• drank 7 cups of decaffeinated tea and four cups of warm apple juice


• Used at least 3 Breath-right strips


• Put 10 olive-oil soaked cotton balls in her ears (backwoods medicine)


• Breathed in 3 full containers of Humidified Air Water

I also have to tell you that you suffered a significant exposure to a film genre called "Chick Flicks" on Saturday.

Back-to-Back-to-Back, your Mom watched her favorite movies, and you had a front-row seat some of the best make-Holly-feel-better movies out there:

"Ever After," "The Princess Bride" and "Shakespeare in Love"

Your First Chick Flick Marathon. Hopefully your last? (Note: I approve of most of these movies for repeated viewing...just not one that rhymes with "shmever shmafter")

The good news is that in a genre that contains some of the worst movies of all time, you managed to have a mother who likes some of the best of them. That is to say, I mostly approve of the movies you watched, despite them definitely being "Chick Flicks." But Drew Barrymore still kind of talks funny (you'll see what I mean).

But, the good news is that you and your Mother survived! By Sunday morning your Mom was feeling markedly better. See, all that medicine and loving care and MSG worked! Either that or it was a 48-hour bug and our actions had no effect, and you suffered through 7 hours of Chick flick for nothing.

Even though our weekend was ostensibly stinky as an onion, your Mom and you and I did get to spend a lot of time together and talk about you and your nursery and your name and registering for all the things you'll need. So, all in all, despite the living room turning into a makeshift sick ward, it wound up being a pretty nice weekend: unless you were once a tree that was turned into tissues. In that case, this weekend blew.

Glow Worm

Your Mom is positively glowing these days. She just has a smile on her face all the time and is ebulient, bubbly, chipper and funny to boot!

Of course your Cousin Addison can always make your Mom smile; but the "pregnancy glow" is totally obvious in this pic. Who else could smile that big while being ditched on a rock while left holding two lemonades?

Even when she's not feeling good, or a bit sickly, she's still got this glow about her. You hear people talk about the "glow" of pregnancy all the time, but to experience it first hand is really an incredible experience...even if she does still tell me how bad I smell.

Holy Holly Hearing!

Pregnancy continues to give your Mom super powers: super taste, super smell, super-sensitive vision.

But, now there are another couple of super strengths to add to the list.

SUPER JAWS and HYPER HEARING

Even though she pretends not to hear me on regular basis, your Mom's hearing seems to have been suped up by pregnancy too. And, not that she had a glass jaw before, but man, she might be able to pull a plane with her teeth now!

Last night at around 11:30 pm, your Mom was hungry (surprise, surprise). So, she got herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. She started chomping down - CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

I looked around for a microphone to see why that noise was so loud, but there was no artificial amplification!

I assumed it was her high quality wooden teeth that made such a loud noise; and I stand by that hypothesis. Pregnancy may have given your mother enhanced jaw strength. No Frosted Flakes survived the incident to confirm or deny that claim.

According to your mom, though, Frosted Flakes is just too loud of a cereal. The decibels put out by chomping on one Frosted Flake is simply too loud for those with super human hearing. In fact, the Frosted Flakes were hurting her ears. Something like a "Cheerios" puts out a pleasant and more subdued sound, she explained, but those Flakes create a cacophony of chomping. But Holly's super hunger was able to win that battle, and she ate the whole bowl, while serenading me, Preston and Toby with a symphony of crunch-Crunch-CRUNCH!

So, add two more radioactive superhuman abilities to the list: a bite that would make Washington and his wooden chompers jealous and hyper-sensitive hearing that most would need spy equipment to duplicate.

Now if only I could get her to stop pretending to not hear me when I'm whining! I really have important things to say when I'm whining!

P.S. Remember when I said that the nausea was waning? I totally lied. She's still nauseous a lot. It's definitely less than it was before, but last night she had to hit the Candy hard (before the cereal) to help calm the nausea. I definitely claimed "Mission: Accomplished" far too early on that one. Maybe you shouldn't listen to me either!

Nap Time

Shhh... your Mom is sleeping! (And it's DAY time!)

I forgot to tell you that one of the other side effects of pregnancy is extreme sleepiness. Your Mom is soporific for a good part of every day! (Put that word in your hat; save it for use on the future SATs) (note to self, buy child a hat).

It seems that growing a child takes a lot of energy!

So, your Mom naps.

She naps in bed, and on the couch and she naps in the car (but that's only when I'm driving).

But she never naps alone. These guys go bonkers if she ever tries to nap without them.

All this napping is a really good thing, though, it keeps your Mommy mostly human! So take good notes, because you will probably be a napper too.

Or, you could be like me, who doesn't nap well, but can't stay awake through a movie that's started after 10pm and just occasionally falls asleep at the keyboard (which makes a lovely pattern like this : llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll).

Sweet dreams!

I'm gonna go prod your Mom with a broomstick to make sure she's still breathing.