LA (USA Today) -
Toni Braxton has a good reason for craving Doritos and applesauce - she's pregnant with her first child, due Christmas Day.
"We just found out last week - it's a boy," she says. Her keyboardist husband, Keri Lewis, whom she married in April,
"was really excited, like a little kid. He wanted a son ... Little League, that kind of stuff, teaching him how to play drums. He wants him to be an architect." The singer, 32, is the eldest of six children, with just one brother. "I always wanted an older brother," so a boy first is fine with her, she said in a phone chat from her Atlanta home. She hopes the baby arrives a little before Dec. 25: "I'd like to be home with him at Christmas."
They've already got the name: Keri Jr., to be known as K.J.
Meanwhile Lewis, 30, whom she calls Ker-Bear, "is always massaging my tummy, putting oil on it, attempting to sing to the baby and talk to him, read him nursery rhymes. He plays the keyboards for him sometimes. And he's always on my case about eating better."
The first person they told was her mom. (Her parents divorced last year after 33 years of marriage.) Her family and Lewis' have deluged them with baby things, though her four sisters hoped she would have a girl (two of them have boys). But Braxton has her own new source of those adorable little items all moms covet. She has just hooked up with Emily Green, who has a line of clothes and accessories called Emily B.
Braxton admired Green's line in Bloomingdale's and learned they both have the same agent, who hooked them up. She notes that Green, from L.A., is a cousin of comic/actress Sandra Bernhard. The new line should be out for Christmas, just like Braxton's baby.
It will be a special holiday indeed for Braxton. She's also working with Lewis on a romantic holiday album, due out Oct. 9. "Standards, and some originals we worked on together. My favorite is Snowflakes of Love, which probably will be the name of the album." They've run that by L.A. Reid, head of Arista, who gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. Daryl Simmons, who did her Heat release, is co-producing with Lewis.
Braxton has some movie projects in the works. "But I haven't had that perfect Traffic script that Catherine (Zeta-Jones) had (while pregnant) - I love her! So I'll probably have to wait until K.J. arrives."
