Alike but not the same

Annie has figured out the meaning of the word "similar." Yesterday she said as she was walking up the stairs to our apartment, "Chocolate is a kind of candy," and I interjected, "Yes, but not all candy is chocolate," (much to her shagrin, I'm sure), so then she continued: "... and jelly beans are a kind of candy, and jelly beans and chocolate are SIM-A-LARR." I can not capture in type what painstaking time she took pronouncing those syllables, but my heart melted a little. Then, today as we're walking home from the park with her friend Sara Kate, a pickup truck passed by (because, remember, we sill live in Texas), and she looks right at Sara Kate and says "That was a pickup truck, Sara Kate." (Just in case she didn't know.) And then continued, "Cars and pickup trucks are SIM-A-LARR." This isn't groundbreaking, I realize, but it does show how much Annie's mind is developing beyond just her language skills. She's a great talker, so it seems her brain is all "Check, got that whole talking thing... what else is there to do?" She's also obsessed with knowing what letter words start with, and she's getting good at sounding it out so she can guess. Part of our daily car or meal chats might include, "What's "tree" start with, Mama?" And I always respond, "What do you think?" and she'll say, "Tr-ee, tah-, tah-, T!" It's very cute.

On the pregnancy front, I can safely say at 17+ weeks now that I have definitely felt some kicking or head butting of some sort and it's not just gas. It's so different from how Annie moved. She was the "butterfly flutters" you read about, tickling my insides with her little feet, where as this one is more Thumper from Bambi. Jay and I are both a little worried at this baby's activity level. Every time I've had an ultrasound or they listen to the heartbeat with one of those microphones, the baby moves around like its got ADHD. I guess it realizes that it has a will-be-3-year-old to keep up with as soon as it arrives, so it's getting in shape early. Also, just as a note in case anybody's wondering, we're not going to find out the sex of this baby as it's our last and we wanted to mix things up since we did find out with Annie. Let the betting begin.

Lastly, our stuff gets picked up on the 20th, and we will be leaving on June 24th. Southwest finally woke up and is now accepting pets on board, so Annie and I will take the howling Roscoe and Jay is going to drive the trip with Mason. Until then, we are trying to get in all of our good times with friends and familiar places. And as you can see below, I've figured out how to post Shutterfly slideshows to our blog, so I'll try to do this regularly. If you're looking for more pics, you can always visit our Shutterfly share site. It's like seeing them here, but you can see the comments that explain the photos, so they're SIM-A-LARR but not the same.