I’m the guest blogger over at Secret Agent Josephine today. She’s on vacay until September 15 and I’m stoked to get a chance to contribute to her wonderful blog.

I realized all of Audrey’s favorite things start with the letter B.  Ball, Birthday, Bear, Bunny–this may explain a little of the previous post.

Anyone want yellow zucchini? Our freezer, counter and backyard overfloweth.

We went to Disneyland last night.  If you eat at the French Quarter restaurant that is closest to Pirates of the Caribbean (of course, I don’t know the name) the chocolate crepe souffle is just a crepe with brownie batter in the middle.  If you make the mistake of asking your waitress how a crepe can also be a souffle and she lies and says it puffs so you order it anyway, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This morning, there’s a thick marine layer and I feel autumn is just around the corner. I made loads of zucchini bread two nights ago (vegan and non-vegan batches with great success, btw.)  There’s not enough to last us through Nativity, but the dinosaur squash plant is going strong.  And the tomatoes are just starting to turn red.  We’re about to be overwhelmed by our teeny, tiny garden.

Scrabble Letter B

Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

Audrey’s developed a new obsession, one that I can finally get behind. Bears are fine, the ball thing, that was okay, and I could do without her love for the change box. But now–she loves letters, particularly those that appear on the stickers that identified her crib pieces for assembly. The drop down rail–it was piece B and I never got around to removing the sticker.
She’s never tried to climb out of her crib but she’s tried to get in at least a dozen times in the last couple of days. All she wants to do is point to the letter and say “BEEEE!” I’m proud she knows all of 2 letters (A was the first she could pick out) but I don’t want her figuring out how to actually get in the crib and translate the knowledge to getting out.
In comes Scrabble. We have a couple of copies of the board game and I brought one to the last day of SAT class I taught last week. Later, I needed to get a little work done and so gave her the bag of letter tiles.
They are her new best friend.

Meticulously researched and excellently documented, Stephen Mansfield’s latest book provides some necessary insight into the faith of Barack Obama. I’m not sure if the book makes a persuasive argument for an Obama presidency—this doesn’t seem to be the author’s intention—it does however, clear up Internet rumors and offer an objective look into Obama’s childhood and time at Trinity United Church of Christ.

The book is called “The Faith of Barack Obama,” but for many the big question will be, “In what exactly does Barack Obama have faith?” Is Obama a Christian? He’s certainly not Orthodox, nor even orthodox with that small “o.” Obama clearly states, “I am rooted in the Christian tradition…I believe that there are many paths to the same place and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.” Mansfield observes, that “for Obama, Christianity is but one religious tree rooted in the common ethical soil of all human experience.”

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Oh, IKEA, I love you. You make this possible:

This too (notice the white shorts):

This is how they got that way:

And my favorite contribution:

So serious!  I don’t know what your future holds, little girl, but I can’t wait to watch you work at it.

I’m sewing blocks tonight and I ran across Grosgrain. I can only imagine being able to sew beauties like this:

Can you do this? Beautiful stuff, I tell you.

But here I am getting distracted from the sewing project that needs to be finished before a certain little boy turns 1.

Here are some more beauties I can’t help pretending to make:

Tiny Happy’s Wrap Dress: I think I could make this one. Maybe.

Not so baby Yoda sweater: I can knit… Can I finish?

Anna Maria Horner: Not just projects, but a really awesome fabric designer

Here’s a classic Calee story for you:

The day I turned two, I wandered in to my parent’s room and asked, “Birthday?” Not ones to lie, even at 4 or 5 in the morning, my parents affirmed that it was, in fact, my birthday. I then uttered the now family-famous phrase, “Birthday? Presents? In the closet?”

Audrey is obsessed with birthdays. We thank PBS Sprout for providing us with a few minutes each morning to get the coffee going and stumble around the kitchen, but it has also taught her the glory of the birthday. Chicka the bird and her miscelaneous co-host sing:

Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you! Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you! It’s good to grow, so light the candles and blow. Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you, to you!

At any given time during the day, Audrey will ask if it’s “birfday?” time. I’m not sure if she wants to watch the show or if she’s looking for cake or Elmo cards, but I know she’s not asking for presents. That’s right, she hasn’t figured out that birthdays and presents (in the closet or otherwise) are a team. Good thing too, ’cause here are her presents:

For the first time in my life, I have birthday and Christmas presents in advance. I hit a super sale at Target and bought over a hundred and twenty dollars worth of toys for Audrey and Toys for Tots for less than $30. There are three bags, just sitting in our closet, and Audrey has no clue!

The sale was almost, dare I say it, profane. One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was buying random laundry detergent and whatever with Audrey when the woman behind us in the checkout line started piling the conveyor belt with toys. Audrey had to point out the BEAR! BEAR! BEAR! and the lady offered that they were on super sale, most things were 75% off. There was no way I was going back through the Target maze again with the toddler in tow, but after Audrey went to bed, Jake stayed home and I hit the shelves.

Hooray for a DOLL! and a BEAR! and all sorts of fun things. Don’t worry, I passed up the Hannah Montana Barbies. I haven’t sunk that low. Yet.

This post was sponsored by the Parent Bloggers Network, introducing Couponers.com. And, if you’re a blogger, you can join the PBN blog blast too. Thanks PBN, last week, I won $250!

I was driving down the 55 freeway this morning on a bit of a detoured trip to IKEA. (We bought another potty for 3.99!!!) And I saw this beautiful billboard:

Chances are
there’s
a CHOC
miracle in the
car next
to youChances are there’s a CHOC miracle in the car next to you

There was one in our backseat! CHOC stands for Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Audrey spent 11 days in their NICU when she was born prematurely. Then, she spent another 3 days in the pediatric ICU when she was 3 months old after spiking a high fever on my 1st Mother’s day.

I love CHOC. If you’re local and have kids, I’m guessing you’ve spent some time at CHOC, or like the billboard says, there are CHOC miracles all around us.

Here was my miracle today:

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about what a fab eater Audrey is.  Pride and falls.  That’s me.

Tonight, we went to BJ’s Pizza to celebrate my sister’s latest blood test results.  Kidney disease is losing this fight, buddy! Sis still has a long way to go but it’s great to see her cholesterol at 190–not 750.

All of the elements for a fun dinner out were in place- plenty of hands to help entertain, a loud enough restaurant that she could make a little noise, crayons, and an obscenely early meal time.  We left the house by 4:30 and she ate only bread until we arrived home at 6:30.

She would not eat:
pizza
sausage
potato
salmon
tomato
feta
chicken

We made it back to the house, grumpy hungry toddler in tow.  Did she want to eat? NO!  Eventually, I was able to bribe her with black olives to eat maybe an ounce of sliced turkey.  I remembered the way she demolished a cup of cut green beans in her cart at Target yesterday so I microwaved a bowl and she ate a dozen.  I think she also ate maybe three pieces of watermelon.

What happened to my eat anything girl???  She spent her time at the restaurant climbing in and out of her booster seat, playing with the ice water, and stacking pennies from my purse.  I guess her behavior could have been worse, but if I’ve learned anything, it is always feed the child before going out.  She can always eat more out.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

BJORN LOMBORG in an opinion piece at the WSJ asks:

If you had a spare $10 billion over the next four years, how would you spend it to achieve the most for humanity?

This is an absolutely amazing article where eight of the world’s top economists identify the global challenges that can be solved most cost-effectively. Preventing terrorism? Not a great investment. Vitamins for children in Africa? Great idea.

The article also asks readers to think about how they would spend that kind of money to benefit all of humanity. I’ve had the privledge of working with philanthropists before so I’ve done my share of do-gooder daydreaming, but never at that dollar level.

Taking the “benefit all humanity” requirements to mind, I think my first inclination would be a major campaign of micro-investments and loans into developing countries coupled with a large push for the dissemination of prescription drugs.

I would also pour money into the arts, both here and in the developing world. I’ll never forget seeing a canvas painted by African orphans. They didn’t have many supplies so they had to work together on the painting, resulting in an incredibly interesting combination of styles and perspectives. Food, shelter and medicine only work to heal part of a person–the arts are integral for the health of souls.

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con tipped me off to this article and also shared what he’d do with the spare cash. Here’s my favorite of his ideas:

I would also spend heavily on an array of Benedict Option pilot projects — providing land and seed money for various experiments in traditional, religious, self-sustaining communal life, to see what works and what doesn’t in a modern context. The idea would be to pioneer ways of preserving the best of our religious, cultural and agricultural traditions, and handing them down to the next generations.

What would you do with the money??

And it don’t hurt!

Now when Audrey stands at our closed sliding door to the patio, she points and says, “dirty?”

She wants to get dirty.  I love that.  I think.