Since Kate started crawling, she's been less and less interested in using her walker, which is really a good thing for me, because she was starting to get too good at maneuvering it to get to things she shouldn't have. One day a couple of weeks ago, we came home from a get-together with friends and I left a tote bag full of Kate's things on the kitchen floor. On the top of the pile of things in the bag was a sandwich bag full of Cheerios. I put Kate in her walker while I listened to some answering machine messages, and after about a minute, I heard this strange scattering noise in the kitchen. This turns out to be the sound of about 100 Cheerios hitting the hardwood floor.

She had used the walker to position herself to snatch the bag of Cheerios off the top of the pile, opened it up and shaken them all out of the bag. So she could get a better look at them or something. What kills me about this is that I know she is perfectly capable of just reaching into the bag and taking a few Cheerios out to eat. But why would she want to do that when she can make a spectacular mess by flinging them all over the floor? Not to mention the trail of Cheerio dust she left in her wake when she then rolled over them with her walker.

Yes, I think her driving privileges are officially revoked.

This is a really interesting and, I think, well researched article on segregation in America's churches. It's obvious that the writer spent enough time to understand some of the subtleties of the issues rather than just throwing numbers out there. I particularly love this paragraph:

But interracial church advocates say the church was never meant to be segregated. They point to the New Testament description of the first Christian church as an ethnic stew -- it deliberately broke social divisions by uniting groups that were traditionally hostile to one another, they say.
DeYoung, the "United by Faith" co-author, says the first-century Christian church grew so rapidly precisely because it was so inclusive. He says the church inspired wonder because its leaders were able to form a community that cut across the rigid class and ethnic divisions that characterized the ancient Roman world.
"People said that if Jews, Greeks, Africans, slaves, men and women - the huge divides of that time period -- could come together successfully, there must be something to this religion," DeYoung says.

I might have to pick up a few of the books mentioned in this article. I also recommend a book called "More Than Equals" by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice. That was a book that helped me start thinking about a lot of things including whether or not the tradition of separate churches is acceptable since it makes everyone more comfortable. I've come to believe it's not OK. I'm still sorting through what should be happening instead, and you will be surprised to learn that as of 3 p.m. this afternoon, I have not come up with any great answers on that one. I don't hear anyone in this article saying there's an easy solution either, and they appear to be experts. But if only five percent of our churches are interracial, I can't help but conclude that we might not be trying hard enough.

Dear Kate,

The first photo in this month's newsletter should really include a little cartoon bubble coming out of your mouth with the words "I am Baby Kate, hear me roar!" You are quite a chatterbox this month, and have discovered that your voice has the capability of getting attention. And you love attention. If we are sitting in a restaurant or other public place, and the people at the next table are engrossed in their own conversation, you seem to take it as a personal challenge to your cuteness, and begin waging a campaign of smiling, waving and shameless flirting to get them to pay attention to you. It generally works, and then we too get to enjoy conversation with total strangers while we eat. Thank you for that.

Your newfound vocal range caused me an embarrassing moment this week that is just too good not to blog. But first, some historical background: A long, long time ago in a land far, far away, before you were born, Kate, I was a newspaper reporter. A professional writer. Someone who could put coherent sentences together. I know that seems impossible now, but believe me, it's the truth. Recently, I decided to try to do some of that again, and accepted some freelance work for the publication that used to employ me. I knew it would be an adventure to try to line up interviews with you around, but I had no idea how direct the impact would be until I began trying to get an interview with someone we'll refer to here as a Very Senior Government Official. This particular official, as many of them do, has a press secretary, for whom I dutifully left a message one day last week expressing my desire to speak with VSGO. That part went fine, because you were taking a nap. Unfortunately, by the time he called me back, you were awake. So here is how my conversation with the Press Secretary for the Very Senior Government Official went:

Him: "Hi, Haley, I'm trying to see if we can work in some time for you in the next couple of weeks. The schedule is pretty full already. How much time would you need?"

Me (trying to sound like the professional I once was): "Probably at least a half hour, but ..."

You: "YAAAAAAAAA! YAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAH!"

Me: "Um, excuse me a moment."

He was very nice about it, but I'm sure somewhere in his notes he's written "Check press credentials on this one. Could be a stalker. Appears to be holding a small child captive."

Another helpful thing you did to assist me in my return to writing was to program our phones so that they wouldn't ring. One morning when I was expecting some calls, I let you play with the phone and an hour later, I heard the answering machine pick up and realized that you had turned off the ringer so my calls were going straight to voice mail. I felt really stupid after I tried for ten minutes to undo whatever you had done and ended up just unplugging the phone and starting over because I couldn't figure it out.For any one who is counting the score is now Baby Kate: 2. Journalism: 0

Now that you are a bona fide crawler, life has some interesting new dimensions. Specifically, it involves the phrase "What do you have in your mouth?" a whole lot more than it used to. I can't always watch your every move, but I can pretty much tell when you've put something in your mouth, because you get this squirelly look on your face as if to say "Nothing to see here, lady, move along." And then I've got about five seconds to fish the object out or spend the next 30 minutes watching to see if you suffer any ill effects from whatever it was you just ate. It's given me a whole new perspective on things. For instance, I'm kind of relieved when you put something like a coaster in your mouth, because at least that's big enough that I know what it is.

I am actually a little bit nervous that you might progress pretty quickly from crawling, which took you forever to do, to walking. In one week, you went from sitting up from a flat position for the first time, to crawling, to pulling yourself up on the side of your crib, the couch, dining room chairs, and whatever else is available. It appears to have occurred to you lately that if you can move faster than me, you can get to more stuff. I've moved everything that would really hurt you, but since certain things can't be moved, I've been working on teaching you to leave them alone. I know I've been at least somewhat successful because you already know what items you are not allowed to touch. I know this because as you crawl toward them, you look at me over your shoulder to see if I'm watching. So you're going to want to work on that poker face a little more if you're trying to convince me that you don't know what you're doing.

The first couple of days after you learned to pull up on things were a little rough in the sleep department, because you quickly discovered that if you didn't want to go to sleep, you could just stand up and scream instead. Then, when I came in the room, you would immediately stop screaming, grin and clap your hands because you knew you were doing a new trick, and you are always so proud of your new tricks. But when you let go to clap, you'd fall down and start screaming all over again. All I have to say is that I'm glad the novelty of that wore off pretty quickly. In case you haven't been reading the newsletters up until now, let me just reiterate for you that any sleeping you can do is greatly appreciated and will be noted in your annual performance review and salary renegotiation talks.

Speaking of the grin, here's a picture of a new face you make. I call it your cheesy grin, and you pretty much shut your eyes you smile so big. I think it started as way to show off your new teeth (You have three now, and two coming in on top), but now you do it almost every time I point the camera at you. Apparently, I've got you trained. In this picture you are enjoying the rubber duck tub your Aunt Audrey gave you for Christmas. If you squeeze the tip of this ridiculous thing's beak, it makes a quacking sound, and now that you have figured this out, I have to spend half your bath time making sure you have a continuous soundtrack of quacking to enjoy or you start trying to reach around the giant inflatable duck head and do it yourself.

You do so many new things now that it's hard to keep track. You are working on blowing kisses. You wave. You wave backwards, to yourself, but it's still waving, and it's really cute. You laugh when you find something new and interesting in your travels across the floors ... not a big laugh, just a private little chuckle to yourself. You dance when the theme music for NPR's "All Things Considered" comes on the radio, which it does every day at 5 p.m. when I feed you dinner. When you really like someone or are trying to be sweet, you offer them your pacifier. I have to assure you that I don't really need a pacifier right now about five times a day, and you always look at me like "Are you sure?" It's really sweet to see you trying to share.

You really are the highlight of our lives. Every night, after your daddy and I put you to bed, we sit on the couch for a few minutes and talk about funny things you've done, and how much you're learning, and how quickly you're growing. You'll be one year old in one month, which seems impossible, and if I had my way, you'd spend at least a few months being this age. But I know that isn't how it works. What a shame.

I love you,

Mommy

I thought these two pictures taken on the same day perfectly demonstrate the difference between what I want Kate to look like and what Dan would dress her in if he were in charge of her wardrobe.

First picture: Adorable Osh Kosh Sunday dress given to Kate by her Grammy Wachdorf. There's a matching sweater and everything.

Second picture: What Dan dressed her in after the dress came off. In case you can't read the whole logo, that's the word DEFCON plastered across her body, the name of this conference that Dan just attended in Las Vegas. I think Kate looks a little incredulous in this picture.

I have a feeling that this conflict will be played out repeatedly when she reaches her school years. I'll be trying to steer her toward great works of literature and music lessons and Dan will be right behind me trying to make books like "Java Swing" and "Linux Kernel" sound fascinating. (Those are actual book titles I got by turning around and looking at the bookshelf in our office that holds Dan's library.)

Probably she'll turn up her nose at both options and choose competitive downhill skiing or something else we'd never do as a life passion. I hear that happens a lot in parenting.

But come on, the dress is pretty cute.

This week, I've started letting Kate have whole things to eat. Admittedly, I've been a little paranoid with the cutting everything up into baby bite-sized pieces. But she's giving me pretty good hints that she's ready to bite off whatever she can chew. For instance, she pretty much stole this nectarine right out of my hands when I was holding her and trying to eat it the other day. So I let her have it. And had to give her a bath at 1:30 in the afternoon because she smeared it all over herself.

Similar results were obtained with a graham cracker. But look how happy she is.

Kate and I are leaving tomorrow morning for a trip I'm very excited about. Time to spend some time with these ladies. I could not be happier. Of course, right now I'm a little anxious. About the travel with the now-crawling baby who must not ever ever ever be sitting still and is very likely to try to leap out of my arms and onto the beverage cart. At least she'll have to make it past some poor sucker who will be seated next to us. I requested a window seat.

But before I go, I wanted to blog a story that I don't want to forget. Recently, I did something that I never thought I would do and bought a workout video. And while I'm not going to tell you what workout video it is, let me just go on the record here as saying that I have always kind of laughed at the idea of jumping up and down following instructions given to you by a woman on a video, but I am not laughing any more, because those women are not playing around. That is a serious workout. Or I am seriously out of shape. Probably both. But I digress.

Kate, as my sole companion on most mornings, is the only person who has gotten to witness me attempting to do this workout, and I plan to keep it that way. Usually she cruises around the living room, stopping to laugh at some awkward move I'm doing, or clap along with the bad disco/elevator music on the video, but for the most part ignoring me. Until this morning. This morning I was flat on my back attempting some brutal ab crunch invented by the totally psychotic woman who made this video. It was so hard to do that every time I finished one I was making this very unattractive sound, kind of a "Huh!" except that you have to imagine it in the voice of someone who is maybe about to die from overall wimpiness.

And I knew it all looked terrible, but I didn't know how bad it really was until I looked to my left and saw Kate. Lying on her back, lifting her legs up in the air. Going "HUH!" every time in this extremely guttural, painful way. It was a perfect imitation. Too perfect. She'll probably have washboard abs before me, she was doing such a good job.

Of course, since I stopped doing crunches and laughed at her, she spent the rest of the day doing her new serious workout grunt. She'd pick up a wooden block and go "HUH!" Roll her plastic ball and say "HUH!" She was apparently getting a very good workout all day long.

And I apparently need to get a workout video that I can actually do.

Happy weekend, people. See y'all when we get back.